sophisticated and subtle.. a good (real life) teacher and stable practice habits are recommended at each turn.
(with thirty years of practice in the Iyengar teachings, I consider myself a beginner-intermediate. I know enough not to go too far... When in doubt, let your natural breath return without interference (as said in the book))
I find that the hardest thing to determine - the outbreath falls away naturally, but I can sit there until it feels like I'm never going to inhale again, and at no point does it feel like my breath "returns" by itself, but rather I feel like I have to drag it in, while my heartrate spikes.
I have been mildly asthmatic all my life, so maybe that has something to do with it. Incidentally I have often noticed my thoughts become agitated and realised that I'm holding my lungs empty.
Yoga seems 'spiritual' with wonky crystal powers and such but if you approach it as scheduled ergonomic stretching, relaxation through breathing exercises, and quiet introspection its obvious there's a clear physical impact it can make.
WSJ is the one source continually linked here that I CAN'T read. I guess it helps that I have NYT and WaPo subscriptions, but somehow, the other paywalls don't seem to be an issue in the way that WSJ is.
It really is quite amazing the number of human limits free diving tests. Herbert Nitsch is able to dive over 350 feet deep essentially unaided, and has gone to over 830 feet in what they call a "no limits" attempt, in which weights and fins are allowed, and weight can be dropped to aid in the ascent, although he did suffer from nitrogen narcosis and needed to spend some time in a decompression chamber [0]. He can hold his breath for over 9 minutes, whereas I can barely make it to 1 minute. The guy's lung capacity must be incredible.
What is this site? Firefox gives me an invalid cert error - the page is apparently presenting a certificate issued to cloudflare-dns.com. The site has a Wikipedia article (archive.today) which mentions something about blocking the Cloudflare DNS resolver, but the machine I'm on uses the default (ie my ISP's) resolver. Does anyone know what's going on here?
I don't use Cloudflare DNS though ... do I? Seriously, WTF is going on here? The DHCP on my router is configured to distribute the DNS server provided by my ISP!
Unbelievable! Apparently Mozilla unilaterally enabled DoH in my browser sometime within the past 2 months without so much as notifying me! WTF?! This sort of thing is completely unacceptable no matter how pure their intentions might be.
In the great order of things the "megabar" isn't that big of a deal.
I personally hate it, but that's just me.
Objectively it's bad UI for a few reasons, but I don't want to write a big screed about UI design.
At the root of the problem is what dude said above: their attitude stinks.
They activate it without consent.
They remove the option to disable it.
Mozilla has become a caricature of itself. They were already just a fig leaf over Google's hegemony (They get 85%-90% of their money from Google and send telemetry to them by default.) Now it seems like they are adopting the same patronizing and distant stance.
I hate to say it because I used to really like Mozilla and I even have some friends working there so I know it's a bunch of really good, committed folks over there, but to me their progress and process have become retrograde along the dimensions I care most about.
Any lost functionality? New privacy issues? The main thing I noticed was that the bar got some empty space to its left and right, which took some effort to remove.
It was that weird new popup on the left side of the address bar, saying something about privacy on the web..
Once you know what they're talking about, it had a No Thanks button right on it. IMO I don't like browser DNS myself but their rollout is/was okay by me.
Related tangent: over 7 years ago, in recovery from emergency medical treatment, I started "sitting zazen" (doing Sato Buddhist Zen -based seated meditation) for 10 minutes every morning. It's been transformational. It's so simple. And so powerful. Being able to connect with your breath, return to the present moment, and quiet your possibly-noisy mind... it's practically a superpower. I'm a much, much happier and better person for it. Highest possible recommendation to find a breath-related habit that works for you.
related to your related tangent: my great grandfather was obsessed with something called the "Buteyko method" for breathing. He was able to control and basically heal his asthma with it. My grandma (his daughter) now does it for herself and seemingly has great results for mental/physical health. I used to do it as a child but I fell off of it and now I've been thinking of going back as a meditative method.
I tried this a while back. Most of the content was paywalled but one video I found summed it up pretty well. Most people are essentially constantly hyperventilating and our body is acting accordingly.
Being able to control the "pause" was a crucial part of it, and the little bit of info I gleamed from it was helpful for me.
> Most people are essentially constantly hyperventilating and our body is acting accordingly.
it's very interesting, because i always find that i'm instead almost always holding my breath for some reason. not sure if that has anything to do with doing these exercises or not, but im always taking deep breaths randomly because i dont realize that im sort of out of air
I can relate to that. I always hold my breath going up stairs in particular, and it's probably why I get dizzy doing squats (any kind of compression makes me just hold my breath).
Well, reading that and testing how long I can breathe out and hold it is how I noticed iOS stopwatch can be swiped left/right and has a cool analogue stopwatch display.
> "Having a control pause of less than 25 seconds is poor and 25 seconds to 35 seconds means there is room for improvement. The goal is to reach a comfortable breath hold time of 40 seconds. The average control pause of students attending our clinics is around 15 seconds."
5 seconds feels like a long time, 15 seconds is as far as I could go first couple of tries, 20-25 seconds my upper body/throat gets twitchy trying to reopen, then I pushed it to 30 seconds a couple of times, and just now 40 seconds.
I'm suspicious that something I can go from "poor" and "average" to the goal(?) in about 10 tries can be so serious - unless you're supposed to be able to do that between every breath?
I found this on Buteyko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKaUEVnducI
Interesting, he seems to be saying that we shouldn't take deep breaths instead slow and shallow. So kind of the opposite of many other techniques mentioned here.
The Buteyko Method is based on the idea that over breathing or hyperventilating is bad for you. Contrary to popular belief expelling too much carbon dioxide is actually not good for you due to the Bhor Effect, which basically says that oxygen cant be released from haemoglobin to cells in our body without enough carbon dioxide. By slowing your breath you increase the amount of carbon dioxide in your body , which then allows better oxygenation of your cells due to the Bhor Effect.
I have severe doubts about something like this being able to heal asthma. It very likely helps against asthma attacks and when it's triggered, but asthma in general is an allergic reaction. Slow breathing can help control it by limiting the irritation in the upper airways so that they don't constrict as quickly, but I don't see how it would get rid of it entirely.
But if you're just doing it to do it, especially with something like meditation, does it actually have value? No sugar certainly, but meditation is really just there for the emotional effects.
Doing things just because research says you should do it, or because you're better safe than sorry, is simply punting the decision and the cognitive understanding to an authority. You shouldn't be surprised when none of these things "work" -- do you even understand why they should?
Belief is your word, not mine. If you don't jump in front of the train, you have avoided that hazard. But if you understand why your parent told you not to jump in front of the train, you might also be able to independently figure out why you shouldn't jump in front of a speeding car.
Can you see what I'm getting at here?
EDIT: Sorry. Originally said "what I'm driving at here". It's been a long week and I'm subconsciously making bad puns.
Still, not jumping in front of the train will 'work' regardless of whether you understand why. And it's a lot more useful than remaining agnostic about train-jumping until you understand the physical principles involved.
Agreed that genuine understanding is more useful, of course -- but correctly choosing which authorities to believe (and with what level of confidence) is often a necessary second-best. How many things do any of us truly understand in full detail?
What if jumping in front of a train ("trainspotting") worked regardless of whether you understood why?
> How many things do any of us truly understand in full detail?
Can you visualize the mechanism? You either do or you don't. Maybe the visualization is misleading. Maybe it's not. But if you're at least doing the motions there, you're revising the mechanism rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch.
> What if jumping in front of a train ("trainspotting") worked regardless of whether you understood why?
Not sure if I understand you here (I don't get the 'trainspotting' reference), but: in a world where not jumping in front of trains was fatal, parents would instruct their kids to jump in front of trains, and the ones who took their advice would survive.
In a world where it didn't matter so much either way, who knows, maybe some parents would needlessly forbid their children from jumping in front of trains. So the kids who didn't blindly follow their parents' advice might benefit from their curiosity. But if they made a habit of ignoring their parents' advice until they fully understood the reasoning behind it, they would do a bunch of other stupidly dangerous things and probably die.
> Can you visualize the mechanism? You either do or you don't. Maybe the visualization is misleading. Maybe it's not. But if you're at least doing the motions there, you're revising the mechanism rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch.
I think there's a big gap between having some kind of mental model, and having a sufficiently detailed, accurate, robust mental model to make independent judgments in important contexts. Sure, a rough high-level understanding can be useful as a preliminary bullshit detector, pinging for things that should be taken with great scepticism pending further investigation; but unless you understand a topic in full detail, you're always at risk of making 'logical' deductions that fail because of unknown (to you) unknowns.
Sure, and that's inductive generalization and it's useful, but even just using empirical evidence is sufficient for a lot of things. You don't have to understand the causative relation. In fact, much of medicine is this way. Doing X causes adverse effect Y, doing P causes beneficial effect Q.
So
> You shouldn't be surprised when none of these things "work" -- do you even understand why they should?
Understanding is not required for many things. And in fact, the thing does work!
As an example, I do not actually understand why lifting makes me stronger. Why do muscles respond to increased resistance with more strength? Certainly my ankle ligaments didn't respond to injury with more strength. Well, I don't care and it doesn't matter. It will still work.
> As an example, I do not actually understand why lifting makes me stronger. Why do muscles respond to increased resistance with more strength? Certainly my ankle ligaments didn't respond to injury with more strength. Well, I don't care and it doesn't matter. It will still work.
Maybe you'll get lucky. Or maybe, you'll wish you took the time to understand should you blow a disc in your spine. Is it possible that that you'd learn a bit more about the difference between bodyweight exercises and more than bodyweight exercises, and the requisite amount of care to do the two sustainably long term without incurring risks of debilitating injury?
So you need a rule set, you need to take it seriously, you need to pick the right ones (and not accidentally pick the wrong ones or omit the right ones), and if you make a mistake, you can seriously physically injure yourself. Sounds like deep understanding to me; could you be taking it for granted because you've come to a point of mastery such it feels facile?
To what level of depth are you expected to understand this in order to work? Isn't this just an easy justification for anything not working?
Proper breathing isn't something that you have to understand in order to work. It works as long as you "follow the instructions". Meditation on the other hand is something completely different. It's not really a "scientific method" type of thing. It has components like breathing that still play a large part, it has strong autosuggestion aspects, and more. This means it will not work the same all the time and for all people regardless of understanding.
I know people who swear by Scientology and yet I'm sure you won't agree that it must be the supreme truth, you just don't understand it well enough.
This is a nonsensical statement. I cannot confirm accepted research in a time efficient manner. What I can do to make my life better is read, and trust authoritative research, after confirming the authority.
Furthermore, I can observe personalized effects over long time spans - e.g. change in physical condition after lifting or getting enough sleep for x amount of time.
That is the exact same approach to meditation, what is your qualm?
Furthermore, I am yet to hear someone explain these depths in meditation that everyone seems to allude too. As far as I know it's "sit still, focus on one thing or push away all thoughts." Or chant a mantra, if you want to pay for Transcendental Meditation lessons which come up with a personalized mantra that makes zero sense at all.
Ever thought that you may be doing it wrong? This is often my first tool to turn to when something isn't as others describe. But once again, you may be right and it may not work for you. There is nothing in this world that fits everybody, we have some variations in what we respond to
To many, there are life changing effects, from being generally more aware to being more calm or sleeping better. Clearly, if for you it doesn't do any of that, you're one of those who cannot benefit from meditation. But you may never know if you're inadvertently not doing it right. So many times in my life I thought I was doing something right only to discover much much later that somehow I was doing it the wrong way.
I’m fairly sure there is more to it from a technique perspective. Works like the Visuddhimagga and the Vimuttimagga explain the whole “focus on one thing / focus on breath” thing in extraordinary detail, and I consider these basically a forgotten technology. I have found these micro-steps to be really helpful in learning to meditate more deeply but are almost entirely ignored in the Western explanations and meditation apps.
That said, the traditional texts are still hard to parse. I’ve considered writing a manual-to-the-manual of sorts that explains the same concepts but in a modern way. I should mention that Leigh Brasington has some really awesome content out there (videos, books, and articles). I am not a master meditator, but if that sort of a thing exists, Leigh is.
Others who have explained mindfulness of breathing in a modern way are Bhante Gunaratana, Bhikku Analayo, Culadasa, Larry Rosenberg, Bhikku Buddhadasa (though his take is unconventional), Michael Taft, etc.
But as you have said there are many more techniques. I've heard the breath called a relatively difficult meditation object for beginners.
All I heard is a bunch of obscure references and name dropping. If there was a clear technique, one would be able to outline it like outlining the steps to deadlifting correctly.
There are many techniques that work. They can all be clearly outlined as well, but that is more work than I'm willing to undertake here. The names I dropped (as you kindly put it) have done all that work and compiled their efforts into well thought out, well written, well edited and well reviewed books. There are a lot of nuances and individual variations on problems that come up and how to get past them that all these books address.
But you have to make the effort of reading the books (or finding a competent teacher) and then practicing the techniques hard enough and long enough for a fair appraisal. 10 minutes a day of instructions from Headspace is predictably useless. You can write it off at that if you like, but it would be like pumping a dumbbell for two reps a day and concluding that weightlifting is useless as exercise.
How do you know it does absolutely nothing for you?
At the very least, those 10 minutes you're spending meditating are 10 minutes not spent doing something else. Whatever that something else is, would very likely have a different effect. So if anything, meditating is affecting you by displacing something else that would leave its own mark.
In some ways, I think "doing absolutely nothing" is the point of meditation, perhaps you're just not appreciating it yet.
It's hearing this kind of obviously silly but overly-confident statements that turn people away from this "mumbo jumbo". Clinically tested medication whose results can be replicated again and again doesn't work the same on all people but meditation? Yeah, that works or you're doing it wrong.
One of the things my meditation helped me realize is that I don't hold any ultimate truths. Seeing so many people insist they do is a clear sign they are doing it wrong.
When you start meditating, 10 mins a day is bullshit. You need 30 mins before you can get the hang of it. When you start out, go to a retreat if you can afford the time and money and sit there for 3 days and watch your mind. If you can't do this (I myself couldn't do this btw), then start with minimum 1 hour everyday first thing in the morning. At the 2 month mark you will see changes. After that you can bring the time down based on how much you can commit, still not less than 30 mins IMO. But give this a try with min 1 hour. It is life changing simple thing to not be able to give it at least a shot. I tried it for 10 years on and off before it finally clicked.
I can roughly offer supporting anecdotal evidence for this. I went years meditating 10-15 min increments without achieving much at all. It was only when I switched to doing 45-60 min every single day for about 3-4 months that some crazy and life-changing breakthroughs started happening.
Elimination of my social anxiety, near-constant mindfulness throughout the day, profound and lasting experiences of joy, some weird purging of like every negative emotion I've ever internalized, significant memory enhancements, etc. It was definitely not all sunshine and rainbows going through that process, especially since it caught me so off guard (I only got into meditation to have a bit more focus and discipline, and I even thought I was pretty practiced as a meditator before I started getting really diligent about it, but boy was I wrong.) ...but on balance, I'd overwhelmingly say it was worth it.
But if it doesn't you're doing it wrong and it's all your fault. Meditate on that for a bit. At the 2 month mark you will see changes.
Meditation is a journey going on different roads for different people. Don't imagine for a second that getting someplace else (or nowhere, for that matter) is necessarily an issue of technique. That's just the low effort explanation.
I did do some longer sessions (30-60m) in the beginning, which may have helped it to "click", but -- YMMV -- for me, ~10m is the threshold where it can suffice for the day. Increasingly in recent months I'm able to effectively meditate while doing other things, and it's more a deliberate letting go and and complete immersion in the present than a focus of attention on breathing... but starting my day w zazen is essential.
I also did meditation on and off for years, without much benefit. Then I went to a 10-day silent meditation course (the free Goenka one). On the third day it clicked. Now meditation is extremely useful for me. My life has improved a lot since then. I meditate about 4-5 one-hour sessions per month.
throw1234651234 is simply stating their experience in earnest. I don't think downvotes are necessary here. Does their views on meditation threaten your own? Then go back to your cushions, meditate more.
If they were doing that, they could use a normal username. Signing up with a throwaway to post a one-line "doesn't work" criticism about something many people feel strongly about is much more akin to "trolling" than "sharing in earnest".
I somewhat agree with your point, but I think it's pretty important that they said "It does absolutely nothing for me" - calling this as a '"doesn't work" criticism' is dishonest.
Go through my profile - I have been posting on this topic for a while, including in this thread. I recently read "Altered Traits", as a result of threads like these. Unfortunately, instead of the promised research, it was tripe that culminated in "I started taking medication for my high blood pressure because meditation doesn't work."
I am extremely interested in the subject, but I am also interested in concrete results.
A more charitable interpretation is that they believe this kind of 'null anecdote' is useful: usually people who experience major effects (positive or negative) are much more likely to share their experiences, and that skews the body of anecdotal evidence.
(As for the account, who knows -- maybe they correctly anticipated downvotes, but believed the comment was nevertheless worth making -- but it is several months old.)
In "Mind Illuminated" it is suggested to start with 15 minutes and add 5 after each week. This book has been recommended here several times before, helped at least one person that meditated for years to advance further. Written by a neuroscientist that teaches meditation for decades.
Yes :-) But as I get older I notice there is very little difference between doing something for years and converging my perception to believe what i have been doing was worthwhile.
So i should choose carefully.
I have also noticed that whatever defaults i left childhood with are ridiculously hard to change.
Indeed and yet, paradoxically, living longer is quite literally what's killing you¹...
1: Cells have two ultimate fates: they either fail to resist cancer or, if they succeed, eventually die of doing it, sort of wear-and-tear, i.e. "ageing" as we call it. Lookup telomeres and cancer. Therein lies the recent hype/hope of increasing human life expectancy by a lot, perhaps orders of magnitude.
I've been meditating for two years, have found similar benefits, and I'm sure it's not a function of age because sometimes I stop for a while and the benefits go away. It doesn't seem like placebo either, because previously I'd tried other meditation techniques that weren't nearly so beneficial.
There's a fair amount of peer-reviewed research on the benefits of mindfulness meditation, and it doesn't seem all that unlikely that exercising your brain in different ways really can help your brain function differently.
I don't know. I don't mind people taking a stab at it, but it should still be looked at skeptically, especially once you move away from measurable metrics as it ceases to be science.
The subjectivity of experience doesn't prevent something being science.
How might someone conduct a blinded placebo controlled trial of a suicide prevention campaign, or of parental advice to help reduce risk of cot death, for example?
They wouldn't. They'd roll up their sleeves and get deeply involved in the messy, unpredictable world of human emotion and social interaction.
And that's good and appropriate, and there are effective and responsible methods for doing it.
Just because we can point to something and say "aha, that's subjective" doesn't mean we need to eliminate it. In fact, the more we try to eliminate it, the harder it becomes to translate evidence from the lab to the real world.
Objectivity world be nice, but it's vanishingly rare.
Replacing the word believe with assume, I assume studies about the psychological benefits of exercise are just as weak as any other psychological study.
Well, when it comes to studying breathing techniques and their effect over time you can quite easily do a large scale randomized controlled trial and survey participants on perceived increase in well-being, right?
Ha! Yes, I am older (though the degree to which that correlates with wisdom or calm is debatable). But I kept up with it so consistently in large part because it was so helpful.
I had an (admittedly small) emergency treatment about 2 years ago. Stopped to just relax maybe 10 times over the whole time span (apart from trying to fall asleep).
Oh, and I also don't do running or any other sort of exercise regularly. Felt awesome most of the time, and still do. Especially after eating ice cream.
I hope someone comes along and creates another version of the Spire breathing device. I am still using mine and it's a very helpful tool for breathing.
Always when im zoned out drawing or painting i notice the pattern in my breath, it’s much slower and holds a bit at the end. The effect is super calming. I wonder what other activities people do to get this type of breathing. For coding Im so concentrated at times that I zone out 100%, dont even notice that im breathing. However, coding while stressed out makes the breathing shallow, quick and unsatisfying.
There was a related study of "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST)" breathing exercises which showed a huge decrease in blood pressure with 5 mins of training for 6 weeks:
First you need a inspiratory muscle trainer device and nose clips/plugs. It's basically just a valve that can be tightened with a knob. You can get them on Amazon and whatnot.
The actual exercise just involves inhaling through the device, for a couple of minutes, and over the course of days/weeks/months working up to higher resistance levels. It's hard work, and it bugs me that it forces you to mouth-breathe, but it will strengthen the muscles.
The other important thing the article doesn't mention is that mouth-breathing causes the body to eliminate too much carbon dioxide -- you're literally "over-breathing". Blood CO2 is vital for proper oxygenation.
By dropping CO2 too low, you actually decrease brain and organ performance by binding oxygen too tightly with hemoglobin, starving your organs.
It's actually fairly rare for young people to have too little oxygen in their blood, but really common for them to have too little CO2, from over-breathing. By slowing down breathing, and most importantly, NOSE breathing, you normalize blood CO2 and restore cognitive / organ function.
Basically hold your breath till you feel it becoming uncomfortable. Hold for just a few more seconds (but no need to pass out). A reflex will kick in and open your airways.
"You are allergic to xyz." is what you'll hear. And that's it. It doesn't actually fix the problem. They might prescribe a medication that helps in severe cases, but they generally don't give you advice like other comments here about fixing your mattress etc.
Mine used to be as well. Turned out to be some sort of allergy, most likely a gluten intolerance. I don't eat gluten any longer and my nose is rarely, if ever, blocked.
I went to an allergy doctor (covered by insurance), got the tests, and found out I'm allergic to dust mites. Since following the doctor's advice, my nose no longer gets stuffy. Stopping the chronic inflammation has also helped my overall health and will probably prolong my life.
It was straightforward: encase mattress and pillows with waterproof covers (SafeRest & AllerEase), launder all bedding once a week on the hot/anti-bacterial setting, switch to furniture with non-fabric upholstery (Ikea Knislinge), and move to an apartment without carpet. Sleeping with a window open has also helped me a lot.
I help out with a festival literally called “Breathe” https://www.discoverbreathe.com/
It started largely focusing on Slacklining and has since branched out to many other things but it quite remarkable how much the way we breath affects us mentally and physically!
A while back someone on HN recommended Sivananda Yoga. The first part of it includes some breathing exercises. I was suffering from repeated flu-like symptoms, sinus, etc since the beginning of this year. I had some difficulty breathing and actually had to get tested for corona thrice since my symptoms were eerily similar. After I started doing these exercises, my sinus and other breathing difficulties have disappeared. The exercises seem to give me a boost of energy. I've been using them as a drug especially on the days I don't sleep well. I do them first thing in the morning. This is anecdotal and might not work for you. Thanks to the HNer that recommended it. It's been life changing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUKjuni-6l8 (the breathing exercises start at minute 9 and go up to minute 24 or so). I don't do the exercises that follow it nor listen to the chanting before it.
The book : Oxygen advantage[1] makes similar points.
It points out to the research of why swimmers have higher life expectancy than the average athelete, why almost all of us are hyperventilating. Then he outlines simple exercises to improve your breathing habit.
Few points:
1. Always breathe through your nose. Even when you are jogging/cycling heavily.
2. Try to hold your breathe for elongate period of time.
3. Try doing 2 while walking/running/cycling.
4. Swim!
5. Pushing the breathe out and then holding is better than taking the breathe in and holding.
I feel the same, and honestly, I think it's a major disadvantage. Being able to breathe through your nose exclusively even while exercising seems insane to me.
The general principal may be fine. My narrow nostrils are one of several genetic reasons why I would be more likely to be eaten by a tiger than many. So I'm not in the upper percentiles that this advice is likely aimed at!
I've been overbreathing (essentially, chronic hyperventilation that you don't notice) ever since I had a bit of a health scare.
It's horrible.
Your CO2 levels drop, which inhibits your body's blood pH regulation. An increased blood pH leads to fuzzy thoughts, pinpricks all over your body, headaches, etc. Longer term, all kinds of aches start popping up. (Bloating, acid reflux, etc.)
It's difficult to fix something that you did unconsciously before. If anything, paying too much attention to your breathing works against you.
I have no real point here, except: breathing is important. And, if someone happens to read this and has some advice: let me know. :-)
Have you tried an incentive spirometer? They're about fifteen dollars on Amazon. I got one recently to track (what I assume is) my lung volume to use as a possible indicator of covid, but after reading the directions it seems like the device is purpose made for your problem.
You practice breathing with this thing 4 times a day, ten breaths a session, and track the volume of your inhalations. In order to get the number to go up you need to take long, deep, and slow breaths.
It will give you a clear numerical result to track. 4 sessions a day, 10 breaths each, record your measurements, plug them into Excel, get an average going and work on driving it up.
I also feel like there's potentially a market for a digital incentive spirometer that could help people do these things. Especially if problems like this are somewhat common.
I came to the conclusion that poor breathing habits are somehow connected to poor posture, mainly of the neck and the ribcage. I've had some poor breathing habits myself and doing deep breathing exercises incorrectly actually messed me up even worse for about a week or so. Yeah, that wasn't fun at all but it went away eventually. In the end I ended up concentrating more on posture and that seemed to correct the breathing as well. I find myself sitting in a poor posture from time to time and notice the breathing becomes limited and shallow as well.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. For years I had poor posture (typical nerd-neck) to the point where standing up straight I couldn't actually breathe properly so I slouched around everywhere instead. My chest and neck were too tight to fully inhale otherwise. I had to fix both at the same time.
How did you fix it? I'm going through that exact thing. I think I have to retrain myself to relax my chest and stomach muscles and breathe deeply at the same time, but it's super difficult and I can only do 2/3.
I got a bit fat and my wife suggested we got to the gym together (pretty much the first time ever for me, age 30+). I had no idea until she mentioned it, it creeps up on you.
Pilates/yoga were good for core strength and stretching. If you want to start at home Yoga by Adriene on YT is very beginner friendly. I was never a fan of cardio or strength training but I did a bit of that too (it was a gym with various classes and instructors).
Also got a dog, it's a great excuse for daily walks.
One day I realised I was actually resting my head on the headrest in the car and wasn't uncomfortable. Until then it'd never felt right and made my throat feel tight at the front. I still have a way to go though, I have back issues and you don't fix 15 years of bad posture in 3 years.
Edit: I'll add after reading the other reply, at the start it's a struggle just knowing what good posture is. It doesn't feel right and natural, because your version of natural has been modified. You don't know how it's meant to feel. I found that exercises which exhaust certain muscle groups helped a lot. They gave up some of their grasp and let other muscles work. After a really heavy workout sometimes my back felt looser and more mobile and this helped me learn how it could feel.
Stretches and mobility exercises. Then one has to be aware of bad/good posture when standing/walking/sitting/doing any activities basically: playing guitar or any instrument, typing on keyboard, etc. We learn to do it wrong and then it becomes second nature. I’ll be honest, what helped me most to be aware and able to change the perception of my posture was after smoking a small dose of pot, small enough not to get one high, maybe buzzed is a better word. I think it helps relaxing muscles - and with poor posture some muscles have to more work and are always tense - and then it helps the proprioceptive awareness.
Poor posture can be slowly changed and it is life changing, obviously worth it.
Surprisingly the tongue has some major effect on posture, especially on forward head posture. There are all sorts of tongue exercises that benefit breathing, posture and even the looks. Tongue should be basically resting behind top front teeth and slightly press up the palate. For exercises look up muscular imbalances and see if you identify any on your posture. But all things start at the feet though, if feet have a problem the whole chain up gets affected so pay attention to the whole body.
I want to try this. If you're happy with yours can you link to it? (everything I'm seeing is either under $10 or over $20 so I'm not sure which way to go)
As for being happy with it - yeah pretty much. It's not like it's mind blowing or anything and I've not tried any others to compare it to, so take that for what it's worth, but it works.
I keep mine next to my desk and use it when I'm bored or need a moment to think. I tried following the recommend pattern of use in the instructions but didn't stick to it for very long. Now I just use it when the fancy strikes me.
I've imagined building a digital version. I think the big opportunity is in how relatively hard it is track progress on an analog scale. You have to watch the little indicator that you raise with your breath until it stops rising. You don't get an exact reading.
I imagine the digital version using a range finder at the top of the tube to calculate how high you raise the thing you're raising by breathing in and then calculate and report the volume of air you inhaled.
If you combine this with an app you've got a little product going. App can track progress over time. Show you some graphs. Remind you to use the spirometer.
Sell the digital spirometers to hospitals who sometimes give them to patients who have respiratory problems. Get some data to prove the digital version works better and then get insurance companies to cover it or buy it.
> I also feel like there's potentially a market for a digital incentive spirometer that could help people do these things. Especially if problems like this are somewhat common.
I wonder how accurate an app could get with movement detection if you lie down with your phone on your chest. Probably not very, but might be useful.
Sounds like an easy way to die. Hmmm, yep, DDG for "oxygen deprivation tent" yields, as first sentence:
' Oxygen deprivation tents or “altitude tents” are risky at best. '
But I see their use and that of other athletic oxygen deprivation gear.
In all fairness, our swim team used to do freestyle "hypoxic" drills. For example, we would breathe every other swim stroke for a pool length, then every 3rd stroke for a length, then every 4th stroke, ... until we failed. Once we failed we would fall back to breathing every other stroke. Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, ever passed out but one could feel the hit to one's brain when the O2 level got too low (or the CO2 too high, or whatever).
Those drills were uncomfortable, to say the least, and I was never convinced that they did much good. OTOH they did help me to relax in holding my breath under circumstances where breathing was not possible (e.g., in turns and underwater pushoffs where you might not breathe for nearly a pool length, and they trained me not to panic b/c I needed a breath. I suppose that, thanks to such drills, I might be a little harder to waterboard than the usual suspects, but I chose a less exciting line of work!8-))
Hypoxic training helps swimmers acclimate to the feeling of hypoxia while swimming so they can time their breathing better, it doesn't improve lung function. Humans need much longer exposure to low oxygen for the desirable adaptations to kick in.
It's like reading something I wrote! I've been in the same boat (chronic hyperventilation, acid reflux, headache, panic attacks) for the past 10+ years and it also started with a health scare. However in my case, it seems to be mostly related to muscle tenseness caused by serotonin imbalance. I finally had too many episodes few years ago and it forced me to learn about it and find ways to deal with it.
Without knowing the root cause in your case, the only thing I can suggest is to train yourself to breathe right while your figure out the underlying cause. The Breathing Retraining chapter of the PTSD Handbook [1] is the best resource I've found for this.
I suggest you see a psychiatrist as chronic hyperventilation can be related to mental health issues.
Chronic anxiety is a vicious cycle of anxiety-inducing thoughts leading to physical symptoms leading to more anxiety-inducing thoughts. The most recommended solution is to chronic anxiety is to always just refocus on the task you're currently doing and continue on. You'll quickly forget about paying attention to your breathing and return to normal breathing.
Do NOT do breathing exercises to curb anxiety, because that will just reinforce the pathways in your brain and your anxiety will keep recurring.
If you're noticing you're mind is dwelling on anxiety-inducing thoughts you need to refocus on your current task.
Just keep doing that whenever symptoms popup.
The symptoms will popup less and less frequently, and you'll have developed such strong coping mechanisms that you automatically handle the issue.
This is approach is called "cognitive behavioral therapy" or CBT, and is an evidence-based approach used widely. You can consult a therapist and get taught CBT skills by a professional. (That's what I did)
In addition to learning CBT techniques, and get regular exercise and enough sleep. I recommend you cut out all caffeine until you have developed strong CBT skills. Of course, rule out any underlying medical issues and work on any medical conditions (obesity, bad posture).
Once you're comfortable you have anxiety under control you can slowly re-introduce caffeine.
Source: I used to have severe and debilitating chronic hyperventilation and anxiety, but sought help from a CBT therapist a few years ago. Now when I am living my life and notice I've started hyperventilating (or dwelling on an anxious thought), I can immediately stop it by refocusing. It's changed my life and I highly recommend learning the CBT techniques.
I highly recommend a few sessions with a CBT therapist. If you're not in a position to do that you might be able to learn about CBT techniques from elsewhere, such as YouTube.
> Do NOT do breathing exercises to curb anxiety, because that will just reinforce the pathways in your brain and your anxiety will keep recurring.
This sounds speculative. Is there actually empirical evidence that this is the case, or at the very least that intentional, focused breathing exercises interfere with handling anxiety?
I'm not sure. That statement was paraphrasing what the CBT therapist mentioned when I asked about learning breathing exercises. For the same reason the therapist also advised against my previous coping mechanisms like getting up and leaving the room, in favor for the strategy of simply recognizing your anxious mental state and refocus on the task at hand.
Just a riff here based on my personal experience with anxiety, Ithink once an anxiety attack is happening is not the best of times of doing a practice. While slowing your breath helps for instance, its best to reinforce a pattern of breathing when you are at rest.
This is also why I recommend the book “the healing power of breath” its one of the best books I found on the topic without confusing you with all kinds of techniques and so on.
Basically in the beginning you practice 20 minutes a day in rest, so your bodymind starts to adapt to it, and it may overcome the causality that leads to anxiety.
I'll add a bit of caution for readers: CBT is useful to many but might not be enough, or the right tool, for everyone.
I tried it for years with multiple psychologists and had no progress. Eventually, I found a great psychologist who helped me with a blend of IFS ("internal family systems") and mindfulness to help me not constantly unknowingly suppress feeling and allow me to be present and process emotions.
There's lots of approaches out there, so if anyone's not making progress, try out some of the others!
> The most recommended solution is to chronic anxiety is to always just refocus on the task you're currently doing and continue on.
Usually I'm relaxed in the morning, then go to work, enter a state of flow / complete focus, then at the end of the day I'm anxious (this becomes worse when I enter the supermarket for my evening groceries, even as I continue to think about work) and my breath is messed up (short, shallow breathing).
How would your method help here? For me it seems there is a contradiction, or not? Could you explain?
The original poster and I have experienced the vicious cycle of debilitating chronic anxiety with panic attacks and the physical symptoms of hyperventilation like chest pain. CBT crucially helped me "break the cycle" of that mental illness, and I thought my experiences may be helpful for the original poster who solicited advice. But my knowledge of CBT techniques are not from my own research, but second hand knowledge via several sessions with the CBT therapist.
With that said, the CBT advice would be to recognize that thinking about your work in the evenings is causing you anxiety, so to stop getting anxiety you should refocus on the task at hand (shopping for groceries) and stop thinking about work. It's OK to let your mind wander while you shop for groceries, but CBT is about catching yourself when your mind drifts back to a topic which causes you anxiety (your work), and then using the task at hand (shopping for groceries) as a tool to basically distract yourself.
How you can make thinking about work cause you less stress is a different question. My personal advice is to try exercising after work, you'll feel very relaxed after. But if you're finding you're still stressed after work, my suggestion would be to seriously considering stopping your thoughts about work after hours (again, by catching that you're thinking about work and refocusing). Chronic stress kills.
Please read this book : the healing power of breath.
As someone who taught yoga and is familiar with overbreathing, they teach a very simple technique and the writers have a lot of experience.
You actually practice for twenty minutes a day at first, and the technique is very simple (so you don’t get lost in all kinds of details) Once you get the right rhythm for your body type you’re good to go.
For those of you that haven't heard of the Wim Hof method, that's a breathwork that can tremendously improve your health. It is also, kind of scientifically proven.
I Mettamage, first of my name (yes! Always wanted to do that), declare on the interwebs as a random person that I was a test subject in the following study:
- My name is mettamage (metta = loving-kindness in Buddhism). So I'm into this stuff (read search inside yourself for the science on meditation).
- Like Wim, I'm Dutch: Nederlands is mijn moedertaal en ik ben pienter genoeg om Engels te spreken ;-) Soms ben ik een flierefluiter ^^ (Google Translate won't get that right, haha)
- I have mentioned it before (it's somewhere in my HN history).
TL;DR - what I did in Poland for 4 training days:
1. Breathing Techniques: the most important one is a lot like hyperventilation but not the same (!). Explanation: I couldn't find a good YouTube video quick as even Wim himself isn't explaining it well on YouTube, IMO. He explained it way differently than me. The WHM is a lot like this video, except it's quite quick and not this seemingly relaxing breathing stuff: https://youtu.be/nzCaZQqAs9I?t=137
2. Cold exposure training (including breathing technique)
3. Walking up a mountain for 2.5 hours (-7 degrees celsius) in my shoes and shorts. I was fine. It was a lot of fun as well. The adrenaline was high and insanely awesome. Thrill seekers love this stuff.
Then afterwards we got tested with an endotoxin. Normally you get an immune response. People who did the WHM had a 50% reduced immune respons and a lot of adrenaline. They think it's because of the shit ton of cortison that we produce while doing the WHM. A lot of cortisol --> weakened immune response.
The WHM made me a 10% happier person because I never have to worry about the cold ever again. The cold can be uncomfortable still, but it's a lot of fun because I have some control about it now!
There is already a lot of research. I have some comments about it in my whole HN history for if you're truly curious.
Go to Google Scholar and look it up.
I just re-edited my whole thing (behind a laptop now).
For other HN people I did mention pre-edit: "Wim is crazy. The people studying him aren’t."
Enough research has been done, as far as I'm concerned it's a case closed.
The WHM does things that we couldn't do before (e.g. be more resistant against the cold). Now we can, more research is needed to fully understand it. For people who dismiss it, they simply haven't taken the time to watch some doctor explain it on YouTube in-depth. And I get that, but then don't say it's BS, simply say you're sceptical.
I'm the first person to burn occult things to the ground as I hate nonsense. This seems occult, but it isn't. It doesn't help that Wim acts like a guru, but what he does can be rooted in science. He roots it in science by asking scientists to research him. From his perspective that's all he can do.
>I'm the first person to burn occult things to the ground as I hate nonsense. This seems occult, but it isn't. It doesn't help that Wim acts like a guru, but what he does can be rooted in science. He roots it in science by asking scientists to research him. From his perspective that's all he can do.
I don't mean to sound offensive, but you sound exactly like one of those sleazy occult (or MLM) salesmen that's trying to bullshit me. On the other hand, if this works then great!
That’s like saying paying for a trainer to help you run 10 miles is like paying someone to tell you to run in around a track N times. There’s nuance at all levels: safety, motivation, guidance etc
It’s not. When I first walked into the workshop yoga center I was like none of these people have their heads screwed on right. I proceeded the breathework workshop, mostly out of curiosity, and it was transformative. I’m a convert.
This is for whenever I need to slow down for whatever reason. I don't do it every day. I am not a believer in spiritual so this is a completely mechanic breathing exercise for me and I can immediately feel my heart rate going down and overall better feel.
I use this several times a week to help me get to sleep. I count to 112 or so. 75% of the I'm usually asleep within five minutes of finishing. Not always, though.
Have you tried counting backwards from a big number like 5000? I had a guided meditation once that used this method. The longer number and slightly higher cognitive load is apparently useful to distract your brain from distracting thoughts and imagery. Just enough work to keep it busy but relaxed. I lost track a lot, they said just pick the last number you remember without trying too hard and continue.
I've been doing breathing exercises regularly for the past 8 years. Complete game changer for emotional regulation. I've also organized and taught it in schools, prisons, offices, etc. on a volunteer basis.
I like it because it's not a logical activity. Nobody has to be convinced that it works or makes sense. If you breathe in a certain way, your feelings will change (or something noticeable will happen) whether you believe in it or not.
I'm happy it's becoming more mainstream. Even if you don't do it regularly, it's a good thing to learn.
For a while I dove into this topic heavily and it seemed that most of the resources I’ve found were good and surprisingly similar as the sample size got larger. Initially I was pretty skeptical about some being less authentic but that mattered less as I’ve gone on. Sorry for avoiding the question, but I’d say doing some research will reveal its own path that will be somewhat personal and different than others’.
The most basic one I have seen everywhere, in different forms, is to
A)focus on the breath, or a part of the body affected by breath like your lips or chest or stomach
B)diaphragmatic breathing in thru nose and out thru mouth
C)inhale for x seconds, hold for x seconds, exhale for x seconds, hold for x seconds, repeat
And over time train x seconds to become longer and longer. You might start with 4 or 6 seconds at first.
I can heartily recommend the book “the healing power of breath” , easy technique (adapted from yoga) and no need to think about all sorts of steps, just the breath rhythm you need to “get” It also comes with audio tracks.
I've heard about people that basically do this constantly everyday essentially making their diaphragms stronger . I feel like I need to go to class to learn this . I just to the basics which is slow breathing through the nose and fill air specifically in the stomach region . Hold . Exhale through the mouth slowly . Repeat
Search for “pranayama” on YouTube etc. this is quite common for of exercise in in the Indian subcontinent but you might not be familiar if you are in the west or otherwise remote from the Indian/yoga culture
Edit:
Also Look into the books or talks (on YouTube) by Dr. Chris Willard
As someone who has been teaching yoga for a decade, the only thing there is to “get” is finding the right rhythm for your body type (aka your lung capacity)
I can heartily recommend the book “the healing power of breath” , easy technique (adapted from yoga) and no need to think about all sorts of steps, just the breath rhythm you need to “get” It also comes with audio tracks.
For the people asking for a routine I would recommend
“Light on Prãnãyãma: The Yogic Art of Breathing” by B. K. S. Iyengar. All the info you could ever want and more. I have had a regular pranayama practice for the past several years and this book really helps dial in the mechanics of it as well as some great history.
I've been worried in recent years about getting a big gut from diaphragmatic breathing. My BMI is low but when I breath that way (and when it feels best) my belly can really stick out. Do you have any opinion on this?
I'd recommend starting with Alternate Nostril breathing and Bhastrika. Each exercise takes about 5 minutes each. For both exercises, try them with the eyes open until you can do it with eyes closed. Then follow the routine.
Alternate Nostril Breathing (ANB)
Routine: 2 minutes ANB. Rest* 1 minute. 2 minutes ANB.
Benefits: Good for when you're feeling overwhelmed by tech or too many thoughts at Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VwufJrUhic (3:20 - 4:56)
Notes: A lot of the videos I've found online have an awkward hand posture. I'm not sure it's necessary. The general idea is to close one nostril at a time and alternate breathing.
Bhastrika / Bellows breathing (BB)
Benefits: Good for energy.
Routine: 3 sets of 20 BB. Rest* 30 seconds between sets.
Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DByVSR2fX0k&t=1s.
Notes: It might look a little funny, but it's worth a try. If you can, I would recommend sitting in vajrasana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrasana_(yoga)). No worries if you can't sit like that.
Rest means sit with your eyes closed and breathe normally. Rest your hands on your lap palm facing up.
Bonus*
Ujayyi Breathing (UJ)
Benefits: Really nice and really subtle breathe you can do anywhere. This is actually a very useful breath to be aware of.
Routine: 2 minutes UJ. Rest* 1 minute. 2 minutes UJ.
Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwEdfOuhoY4
Notes: Foundational breath for yoga and pranayama (pranayama means breath control)
I personally do pranayama (3-stage pranayama w/ UJ breathing) with bhastrika and a kriya breathing exercise (SKY breathing) every morning. I also occasionally do alternate nostril breathing before meditation. This is something simpler, though, that I think anyone can try out and see if it works for them or not. There are also a lot of other good comments in this thread, but this is what I have personal experience with.
Use a finger/thumb to close a nostril and then breath from the other. If you can't really breath with a nostril due to some physical issue that's a different thing.
I dealt with serious anxiety in high school and accidentally learned that just forcing myself to breathe slower made everything much calmer.
No need to overthink any special technique. Just breathe slow, and try not to breathe too shallow. Do it as an exercise for a few minutes. Breathe with the stomach (not chest), like a baby would.
Exactly, you don’t need a whole book of techniques (I have been teaching yoga for a decade)
One book I particularly recommend is “the healing power of the breath” , the exercise is very simple, basically just establishing a rhythm that works for your body type, and then you are good to go.
Thats not to say there’s not value into the pranayamas (breathing exercises) of yoga, but for pure efficacy just establishing a good rhythm is actually easy to learn and use.
I did pretty well at running a race, a few years ago as a typical sedate developer, but training for 3 months. I was sick (i.e. flu-ey a lot, nothing uber serious) at the time too - I was running to help see if I can fitness my way out of it.
And I put a lot of it down to reading about breathing in for 2 steps then out for 3 (the total is an odd number so you change sides, so 3/4 is good too). Thanks for whoever wrote that blog post! The process really focuses me and it's like a drumbeat in my mind. If I sprint it changes to 1/1 or less though, and I stop using the nose!
My "regular" breathing pattern (i.e. the one I use to run at medium-hard paces for long distances) is:
nose-in, mouth out: in, out-out, in-in, ooout.
1/4, 1/8, 1/8, 1/8, 1/8, 1/2.
I attenuate the BPM to my pace: on high intensity runs, I usually can get away with raising the BPM, but the last 1/2 is very hard and I sometimes break it into 1/4 out, 1/4 in (more oxygen). For sprinting, any pattern goes away, and it's 1/4 in, 1/4 out. Still nose to mouth, but I think the optimal solution here depends a lot on the shapes of your nose/mouth. :)
And most people think running is just putting one foot in front of the other! :)
To some extent it is of course, but these kinds of cadences are necessary to run effectively, which I guess is different from just running.
What works for me is harmonious breathing: https://www.harmoniousbreathing.com/ - basically retraining our muscles to enhance deeper more complete breathing. It doesn't claim to make miracles, it just makes you feel better.
I find that paying attention to the transition from inhalation to exhalation is particularly useful in assessing my current emotional state.
Focusing on _allowing_ the natural elasticity of my lungs take care of initiating exhalation -- this will usually be enough to change my mood in a positive way.
289 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 241 ms ] thread(with thirty years of practice in the Iyengar teachings, I consider myself a beginner-intermediate. I know enough not to go too far... When in doubt, let your natural breath return without interference (as said in the book))
James Nestor, the author, has an amazing book on (not) breathing... actually about athletes who free-drive to unthinkable ocean depths with no gear.
It really is quite amazing the number of human limits free diving tests. Herbert Nitsch is able to dive over 350 feet deep essentially unaided, and has gone to over 830 feet in what they call a "no limits" attempt, in which weights and fins are allowed, and weight can be dropped to aid in the ascent, although he did suffer from nitrogen narcosis and needed to spend some time in a decompression chamber [0]. He can hold his breath for over 9 minutes, whereas I can barely make it to 1 minute. The guy's lung capacity must be incredible.
---
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Nitsch#Achievements_an...
> He still has balance and coordination problems on land, but does not experience these underwater. He continues to deep free-dive.
It's like the sea claimed him.
* systemd-resolve --status -> 74.40.74.40 (my ISP)
* dig archive.is -> 212.80.216.76
* whois 212.80.216.76 -> Serverio technologijos MB
* Firefox -> Preferences -> Network Settings -> DNS over HTTPS: enabled
I don't recall doing that...
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/02/25/firefox-continues-p...
Unbelievable! Apparently Mozilla unilaterally enabled DoH in my browser sometime within the past 2 months without so much as notifying me! WTF?! This sort of thing is completely unacceptable no matter how pure their intentions might be.
cracks knuckles
Let me fire up the ol' rant machine...
Ah fuck it... It's too early in the morning.
- - - -
In the great order of things the "megabar" isn't that big of a deal.
I personally hate it, but that's just me.
Objectively it's bad UI for a few reasons, but I don't want to write a big screed about UI design.
At the root of the problem is what dude said above: their attitude stinks.
They activate it without consent.
They remove the option to disable it.
Mozilla has become a caricature of itself. They were already just a fig leaf over Google's hegemony (They get 85%-90% of their money from Google and send telemetry to them by default.) Now it seems like they are adopting the same patronizing and distant stance.
I hate to say it because I used to really like Mozilla and I even have some friends working there so I know it's a bunch of really good, committed folks over there, but to me their progress and process have become retrograde along the dimensions I care most about.
Once you know what they're talking about, it had a No Thanks button right on it. IMO I don't like browser DNS myself but their rollout is/was okay by me.
Being able to control the "pause" was a crucial part of it, and the little bit of info I gleamed from it was helpful for me.
https://buteykoclinic.com/breathing-exercises/
it's very interesting, because i always find that i'm instead almost always holding my breath for some reason. not sure if that has anything to do with doing these exercises or not, but im always taking deep breaths randomly because i dont realize that im sort of out of air
> "Having a control pause of less than 25 seconds is poor and 25 seconds to 35 seconds means there is room for improvement. The goal is to reach a comfortable breath hold time of 40 seconds. The average control pause of students attending our clinics is around 15 seconds."
5 seconds feels like a long time, 15 seconds is as far as I could go first couple of tries, 20-25 seconds my upper body/throat gets twitchy trying to reopen, then I pushed it to 30 seconds a couple of times, and just now 40 seconds.
I'm suspicious that something I can go from "poor" and "average" to the goal(?) in about 10 tries can be so serious - unless you're supposed to be able to do that between every breath?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back
Can you see what I'm getting at here?
EDIT: Sorry. Originally said "what I'm driving at here". It's been a long week and I'm subconsciously making bad puns.
Agreed that genuine understanding is more useful, of course -- but correctly choosing which authorities to believe (and with what level of confidence) is often a necessary second-best. How many things do any of us truly understand in full detail?
> How many things do any of us truly understand in full detail?
Can you visualize the mechanism? You either do or you don't. Maybe the visualization is misleading. Maybe it's not. But if you're at least doing the motions there, you're revising the mechanism rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch.
Not sure if I understand you here (I don't get the 'trainspotting' reference), but: in a world where not jumping in front of trains was fatal, parents would instruct their kids to jump in front of trains, and the ones who took their advice would survive.
In a world where it didn't matter so much either way, who knows, maybe some parents would needlessly forbid their children from jumping in front of trains. So the kids who didn't blindly follow their parents' advice might benefit from their curiosity. But if they made a habit of ignoring their parents' advice until they fully understood the reasoning behind it, they would do a bunch of other stupidly dangerous things and probably die.
> Can you visualize the mechanism? You either do or you don't. Maybe the visualization is misleading. Maybe it's not. But if you're at least doing the motions there, you're revising the mechanism rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch.
I think there's a big gap between having some kind of mental model, and having a sufficiently detailed, accurate, robust mental model to make independent judgments in important contexts. Sure, a rough high-level understanding can be useful as a preliminary bullshit detector, pinging for things that should be taken with great scepticism pending further investigation; but unless you understand a topic in full detail, you're always at risk of making 'logical' deductions that fail because of unknown (to you) unknowns.
So
> You shouldn't be surprised when none of these things "work" -- do you even understand why they should?
Understanding is not required for many things. And in fact, the thing does work!
As an example, I do not actually understand why lifting makes me stronger. Why do muscles respond to increased resistance with more strength? Certainly my ankle ligaments didn't respond to injury with more strength. Well, I don't care and it doesn't matter. It will still work.
Maybe you'll get lucky. Or maybe, you'll wish you took the time to understand should you blow a disc in your spine. Is it possible that that you'd learn a bit more about the difference between bodyweight exercises and more than bodyweight exercises, and the requisite amount of care to do the two sustainably long term without incurring risks of debilitating injury?
But in my case I just paid a guy to tell me what to do until it became automatic habit.
To what level of depth are you expected to understand this in order to work? Isn't this just an easy justification for anything not working?
Proper breathing isn't something that you have to understand in order to work. It works as long as you "follow the instructions". Meditation on the other hand is something completely different. It's not really a "scientific method" type of thing. It has components like breathing that still play a large part, it has strong autosuggestion aspects, and more. This means it will not work the same all the time and for all people regardless of understanding.
I know people who swear by Scientology and yet I'm sure you won't agree that it must be the supreme truth, you just don't understand it well enough.
Furthermore, I can observe personalized effects over long time spans - e.g. change in physical condition after lifting or getting enough sleep for x amount of time.
That is the exact same approach to meditation, what is your qualm?
Furthermore, I am yet to hear someone explain these depths in meditation that everyone seems to allude too. As far as I know it's "sit still, focus on one thing or push away all thoughts." Or chant a mantra, if you want to pay for Transcendental Meditation lessons which come up with a personalized mantra that makes zero sense at all.
That said, the traditional texts are still hard to parse. I’ve considered writing a manual-to-the-manual of sorts that explains the same concepts but in a modern way. I should mention that Leigh Brasington has some really awesome content out there (videos, books, and articles). I am not a master meditator, but if that sort of a thing exists, Leigh is.
But as you have said there are many more techniques. I've heard the breath called a relatively difficult meditation object for beginners.
But you have to make the effort of reading the books (or finding a competent teacher) and then practicing the techniques hard enough and long enough for a fair appraisal. 10 minutes a day of instructions from Headspace is predictably useless. You can write it off at that if you like, but it would be like pumping a dumbbell for two reps a day and concluding that weightlifting is useless as exercise.
At the very least, those 10 minutes you're spending meditating are 10 minutes not spent doing something else. Whatever that something else is, would very likely have a different effect. So if anything, meditating is affecting you by displacing something else that would leave its own mark.
In some ways, I think "doing absolutely nothing" is the point of meditation, perhaps you're just not appreciating it yet.
Pretty sure many of those people simply aren't good at feeling themselves.
Yes, meditation should deliver noticeable results. If it doesn't then you are doing it wrong.
One of the things my meditation helped me realize is that I don't hold any ultimate truths. Seeing so many people insist they do is a clear sign they are doing it wrong.
But if it doesn't you're doing it wrong and it's all your fault. Meditate on that for a bit. At the 2 month mark you will see changes.
Meditation is a journey going on different roads for different people. Don't imagine for a second that getting someplace else (or nowhere, for that matter) is necessarily an issue of technique. That's just the low effort explanation.
I also did meditation on and off for years, without much benefit. Then I went to a 10-day silent meditation course (the free Goenka one). On the third day it clicked. Now meditation is extremely useful for me. My life has improved a lot since then. I meditate about 4-5 one-hour sessions per month.
If they were doing that, they could use a normal username. Signing up with a throwaway to post a one-line "doesn't work" criticism about something many people feel strongly about is much more akin to "trolling" than "sharing in earnest".
I am extremely interested in the subject, but I am also interested in concrete results.
(As for the account, who knows -- maybe they correctly anticipated downvotes, but believed the comment was nevertheless worth making -- but it is several months old.)
I think that OP meant to ask "is it possible your perception has changed with age/experience, rather than with your methods?"
So i should choose carefully.
I have also noticed that whatever defaults i left childhood with are ridiculously hard to change.
1: Cells have two ultimate fates: they either fail to resist cancer or, if they succeed, eventually die of doing it, sort of wear-and-tear, i.e. "ageing" as we call it. Lookup telomeres and cancer. Therein lies the recent hype/hope of increasing human life expectancy by a lot, perhaps orders of magnitude.
There's a fair amount of peer-reviewed research on the benefits of mindfulness meditation, and it doesn't seem all that unlikely that exercising your brain in different ways really can help your brain function differently.
How might someone conduct a blinded placebo controlled trial of a suicide prevention campaign, or of parental advice to help reduce risk of cot death, for example?
They wouldn't. They'd roll up their sleeves and get deeply involved in the messy, unpredictable world of human emotion and social interaction.
And that's good and appropriate, and there are effective and responsible methods for doing it.
Just because we can point to something and say "aha, that's subjective" doesn't mean we need to eliminate it. In fact, the more we try to eliminate it, the harder it becomes to translate evidence from the lab to the real world.
Objectivity world be nice, but it's vanishingly rare.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712309/
Oh, and I also don't do running or any other sort of exercise regularly. Felt awesome most of the time, and still do. Especially after eating ice cream.
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2019/02/25/novel-workout-impr...
More on that topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22656799
Does anyone have a guide to how to actually do these exercises?
The actual exercise just involves inhaling through the device, for a couple of minutes, and over the course of days/weeks/months working up to higher resistance levels. It's hard work, and it bugs me that it forces you to mouth-breathe, but it will strengthen the muscles.
The linked study does 30 inhalations per session.
By dropping CO2 too low, you actually decrease brain and organ performance by binding oxygen too tightly with hemoglobin, starving your organs.
It's actually fairly rare for young people to have too little oxygen in their blood, but really common for them to have too little CO2, from over-breathing. By slowing down breathing, and most importantly, NOSE breathing, you normalize blood CO2 and restore cognitive / organ function.
blow out all the air from your lungs.
hold your breath and pinch your nose.
exhale more air (and more and more)
attempt to breath in through your nose (against the pinch)
hold your breath even longer.
(optional aerobic activity to use up the last oxygen (pushups, running))
when you can't hold any more (hold a little longer)
Physiologically internal parts will constrict to open up the airways.
Finally release the pinch and inhale only through the nose.
(airways open; ears pop, mucus loosens)
Basically hold your breath till you feel it becoming uncomfortable. Hold for just a few more seconds (but no need to pass out). A reflex will kick in and open your airways.
It was straightforward: encase mattress and pillows with waterproof covers (SafeRest & AllerEase), launder all bedding once a week on the hot/anti-bacterial setting, switch to furniture with non-fabric upholstery (Ikea Knislinge), and move to an apartment without carpet. Sleeping with a window open has also helped me a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUKjuni-6l8 (the breathing exercises start at minute 9 and go up to minute 24 or so). I don't do the exercises that follow it nor listen to the chanting before it.
Few points: 1. Always breathe through your nose. Even when you are jogging/cycling heavily. 2. Try to hold your breathe for elongate period of time. 3. Try doing 2 while walking/running/cycling. 4. Swim! 5. Pushing the breathe out and then holding is better than taking the breathe in and holding.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26533127-the-oxygen-adva...
It's horrible.
Your CO2 levels drop, which inhibits your body's blood pH regulation. An increased blood pH leads to fuzzy thoughts, pinpricks all over your body, headaches, etc. Longer term, all kinds of aches start popping up. (Bloating, acid reflux, etc.)
It's difficult to fix something that you did unconsciously before. If anything, paying too much attention to your breathing works against you.
I have no real point here, except: breathing is important. And, if someone happens to read this and has some advice: let me know. :-)
You practice breathing with this thing 4 times a day, ten breaths a session, and track the volume of your inhalations. In order to get the number to go up you need to take long, deep, and slow breaths.
It will give you a clear numerical result to track. 4 sessions a day, 10 breaths each, record your measurements, plug them into Excel, get an average going and work on driving it up.
I also feel like there's potentially a market for a digital incentive spirometer that could help people do these things. Especially if problems like this are somewhat common.
Pilates/yoga were good for core strength and stretching. If you want to start at home Yoga by Adriene on YT is very beginner friendly. I was never a fan of cardio or strength training but I did a bit of that too (it was a gym with various classes and instructors).
Also got a dog, it's a great excuse for daily walks.
One day I realised I was actually resting my head on the headrest in the car and wasn't uncomfortable. Until then it'd never felt right and made my throat feel tight at the front. I still have a way to go though, I have back issues and you don't fix 15 years of bad posture in 3 years.
Edit: I'll add after reading the other reply, at the start it's a struggle just knowing what good posture is. It doesn't feel right and natural, because your version of natural has been modified. You don't know how it's meant to feel. I found that exercises which exhaust certain muscle groups helped a lot. They gave up some of their grasp and let other muscles work. After a really heavy workout sometimes my back felt looser and more mobile and this helped me learn how it could feel.
Poor posture can be slowly changed and it is life changing, obviously worth it.
Surprisingly the tongue has some major effect on posture, especially on forward head posture. There are all sorts of tongue exercises that benefit breathing, posture and even the looks. Tongue should be basically resting behind top front teeth and slightly press up the palate. For exercises look up muscular imbalances and see if you identify any on your posture. But all things start at the feet though, if feet have a problem the whole chain up gets affected so pay attention to the whole body.
I want to try this. If you're happy with yours can you link to it? (everything I'm seeing is either under $10 or over $20 so I'm not sure which way to go)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000PAR7KQ
As for being happy with it - yeah pretty much. It's not like it's mind blowing or anything and I've not tried any others to compare it to, so take that for what it's worth, but it works.
I keep mine next to my desk and use it when I'm bored or need a moment to think. I tried following the recommend pattern of use in the instructions but didn't stick to it for very long. Now I just use it when the fancy strikes me.
I bet there are interesting subtle dynamics beyond rate. Maybe interesting to record the acoustics inside the spirometer.
What's the product model? Prescription digital behavior change??
I imagine the digital version using a range finder at the top of the tube to calculate how high you raise the thing you're raising by breathing in and then calculate and report the volume of air you inhaled.
If you combine this with an app you've got a little product going. App can track progress over time. Show you some graphs. Remind you to use the spirometer.
Sell the digital spirometers to hospitals who sometimes give them to patients who have respiratory problems. Get some data to prove the digital version works better and then get insurance companies to cover it or buy it.
I wonder how accurate an app could get with movement detection if you lie down with your phone on your chest. Probably not very, but might be useful.
' Oxygen deprivation tents or “altitude tents” are risky at best. '
But I see their use and that of other athletic oxygen deprivation gear.
In all fairness, our swim team used to do freestyle "hypoxic" drills. For example, we would breathe every other swim stroke for a pool length, then every 3rd stroke for a length, then every 4th stroke, ... until we failed. Once we failed we would fall back to breathing every other stroke. Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, ever passed out but one could feel the hit to one's brain when the O2 level got too low (or the CO2 too high, or whatever).
Those drills were uncomfortable, to say the least, and I was never convinced that they did much good. OTOH they did help me to relax in holding my breath under circumstances where breathing was not possible (e.g., in turns and underwater pushoffs where you might not breathe for nearly a pool length, and they trained me not to panic b/c I needed a breath. I suppose that, thanks to such drills, I might be a little harder to waterboard than the usual suspects, but I chose a less exciting line of work!8-))
Without knowing the root cause in your case, the only thing I can suggest is to train yourself to breathe right while your figure out the underlying cause. The Breathing Retraining chapter of the PTSD Handbook [1] is the best resource I've found for this.
I suggest you see a psychiatrist as chronic hyperventilation can be related to mental health issues.
Feel free to PM me. My email is on GitHub.
Best of luck
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder-Source...
Do NOT do breathing exercises to curb anxiety, because that will just reinforce the pathways in your brain and your anxiety will keep recurring.
If you're noticing you're mind is dwelling on anxiety-inducing thoughts you need to refocus on your current task.
Just keep doing that whenever symptoms popup.
The symptoms will popup less and less frequently, and you'll have developed such strong coping mechanisms that you automatically handle the issue.
This is approach is called "cognitive behavioral therapy" or CBT, and is an evidence-based approach used widely. You can consult a therapist and get taught CBT skills by a professional. (That's what I did)
In addition to learning CBT techniques, and get regular exercise and enough sleep. I recommend you cut out all caffeine until you have developed strong CBT skills. Of course, rule out any underlying medical issues and work on any medical conditions (obesity, bad posture).
Once you're comfortable you have anxiety under control you can slowly re-introduce caffeine.
Source: I used to have severe and debilitating chronic hyperventilation and anxiety, but sought help from a CBT therapist a few years ago. Now when I am living my life and notice I've started hyperventilating (or dwelling on an anxious thought), I can immediately stop it by refocusing. It's changed my life and I highly recommend learning the CBT techniques.
I highly recommend a few sessions with a CBT therapist. If you're not in a position to do that you might be able to learn about CBT techniques from elsewhere, such as YouTube.
This sounds speculative. Is there actually empirical evidence that this is the case, or at the very least that intentional, focused breathing exercises interfere with handling anxiety?
This is also why I recommend the book “the healing power of breath” its one of the best books I found on the topic without confusing you with all kinds of techniques and so on.
Basically in the beginning you practice 20 minutes a day in rest, so your bodymind starts to adapt to it, and it may overcome the causality that leads to anxiety.
I tried it for years with multiple psychologists and had no progress. Eventually, I found a great psychologist who helped me with a blend of IFS ("internal family systems") and mindfulness to help me not constantly unknowingly suppress feeling and allow me to be present and process emotions.
There's lots of approaches out there, so if anyone's not making progress, try out some of the others!
Usually I'm relaxed in the morning, then go to work, enter a state of flow / complete focus, then at the end of the day I'm anxious (this becomes worse when I enter the supermarket for my evening groceries, even as I continue to think about work) and my breath is messed up (short, shallow breathing).
How would your method help here? For me it seems there is a contradiction, or not? Could you explain?
With that said, the CBT advice would be to recognize that thinking about your work in the evenings is causing you anxiety, so to stop getting anxiety you should refocus on the task at hand (shopping for groceries) and stop thinking about work. It's OK to let your mind wander while you shop for groceries, but CBT is about catching yourself when your mind drifts back to a topic which causes you anxiety (your work), and then using the task at hand (shopping for groceries) as a tool to basically distract yourself.
How you can make thinking about work cause you less stress is a different question. My personal advice is to try exercising after work, you'll feel very relaxed after. But if you're finding you're still stressed after work, my suggestion would be to seriously considering stopping your thoughts about work after hours (again, by catching that you're thinking about work and refocusing). Chronic stress kills.
As someone who taught yoga and is familiar with overbreathing, they teach a very simple technique and the writers have a lot of experience.
You actually practice for twenty minutes a day at first, and the technique is very simple (so you don’t get lost in all kinds of details) Once you get the right rhythm for your body type you’re good to go.
I'd be interested in a device that can detect breathing type (diaphragmatic/costal) and warns me in time if any changes occur.
https://www.wimhofmethod.com/
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379
True story :)
I guess it helps that:
- My name is mettamage (metta = loving-kindness in Buddhism). So I'm into this stuff (read search inside yourself for the science on meditation).
- Like Wim, I'm Dutch: Nederlands is mijn moedertaal en ik ben pienter genoeg om Engels te spreken ;-) Soms ben ik een flierefluiter ^^ (Google Translate won't get that right, haha)
- I have mentioned it before (it's somewhere in my HN history).
TL;DR - what I did in Poland for 4 training days:
1. Breathing Techniques: the most important one is a lot like hyperventilation but not the same (!). Explanation: I couldn't find a good YouTube video quick as even Wim himself isn't explaining it well on YouTube, IMO. He explained it way differently than me. The WHM is a lot like this video, except it's quite quick and not this seemingly relaxing breathing stuff: https://youtu.be/nzCaZQqAs9I?t=137
2. Cold exposure training (including breathing technique)
3. Walking up a mountain for 2.5 hours (-7 degrees celsius) in my shoes and shorts. I was fine. It was a lot of fun as well. The adrenaline was high and insanely awesome. Thrill seekers love this stuff.
Then afterwards we got tested with an endotoxin. Normally you get an immune response. People who did the WHM had a 50% reduced immune respons and a lot of adrenaline. They think it's because of the shit ton of cortison that we produce while doing the WHM. A lot of cortisol --> weakened immune response.
---
A YouTube video about the science of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWHRumILOOk
The WHM made me a 10% happier person because I never have to worry about the cold ever again. The cold can be uncomfortable still, but it's a lot of fun because I have some control about it now!
Then it would seem reasonable to throw out what he says and wait to see what, if anything, comes from research he inspires.
Go to Google Scholar and look it up.
I just re-edited my whole thing (behind a laptop now).
For other HN people I did mention pre-edit: "Wim is crazy. The people studying him aren’t."
Enough research has been done, as far as I'm concerned it's a case closed.
The WHM does things that we couldn't do before (e.g. be more resistant against the cold). Now we can, more research is needed to fully understand it. For people who dismiss it, they simply haven't taken the time to watch some doctor explain it on YouTube in-depth. And I get that, but then don't say it's BS, simply say you're sceptical.
I'm the first person to burn occult things to the ground as I hate nonsense. This seems occult, but it isn't. It doesn't help that Wim acts like a guru, but what he does can be rooted in science. He roots it in science by asking scientists to research him. From his perspective that's all he can do.
Here is an amazing summary on the research of a sceptical doctor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E&t=2285s
I don't mean to sound offensive, but you sound exactly like one of those sleazy occult (or MLM) salesmen that's trying to bullshit me. On the other hand, if this works then great!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWHRumILOOk
...works for me every time
Some call it zen, some call it breathing exercises or whatever. Try it.
I like it because it's not a logical activity. Nobody has to be convinced that it works or makes sense. If you breathe in a certain way, your feelings will change (or something noticeable will happen) whether you believe in it or not.
I'm happy it's becoming more mainstream. Even if you don't do it regularly, it's a good thing to learn.
A)focus on the breath, or a part of the body affected by breath like your lips or chest or stomach B)diaphragmatic breathing in thru nose and out thru mouth C)inhale for x seconds, hold for x seconds, exhale for x seconds, hold for x seconds, repeat
And over time train x seconds to become longer and longer. You might start with 4 or 6 seconds at first.
Edit:
Also Look into the books or talks (on YouTube) by Dr. Chris Willard
I can heartily recommend the book “the healing power of breath” , easy technique (adapted from yoga) and no need to think about all sorts of steps, just the breath rhythm you need to “get” It also comes with audio tracks.
I am VERY interested in your techniques, and I'm sure many others will benefit directly from your wisdom if you choose to share it.
Do you have a video?
Alternate Nostril Breathing (ANB) Routine: 2 minutes ANB. Rest* 1 minute. 2 minutes ANB. Benefits: Good for when you're feeling overwhelmed by tech or too many thoughts at Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VwufJrUhic (3:20 - 4:56) Notes: A lot of the videos I've found online have an awkward hand posture. I'm not sure it's necessary. The general idea is to close one nostril at a time and alternate breathing.
Bhastrika / Bellows breathing (BB) Benefits: Good for energy. Routine: 3 sets of 20 BB. Rest* 30 seconds between sets. Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DByVSR2fX0k&t=1s. Notes: It might look a little funny, but it's worth a try. If you can, I would recommend sitting in vajrasana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrasana_(yoga)). No worries if you can't sit like that.
Rest means sit with your eyes closed and breathe normally. Rest your hands on your lap palm facing up.
Bonus* Ujayyi Breathing (UJ) Benefits: Really nice and really subtle breathe you can do anywhere. This is actually a very useful breath to be aware of. Routine: 2 minutes UJ. Rest* 1 minute. 2 minutes UJ. Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwEdfOuhoY4 Notes: Foundational breath for yoga and pranayama (pranayama means breath control)
I personally do pranayama (3-stage pranayama w/ UJ breathing) with bhastrika and a kriya breathing exercise (SKY breathing) every morning. I also occasionally do alternate nostril breathing before meditation. This is something simpler, though, that I think anyone can try out and see if it works for them or not. There are also a lot of other good comments in this thread, but this is what I have personal experience with.
No need to overthink any special technique. Just breathe slow, and try not to breathe too shallow. Do it as an exercise for a few minutes. Breathe with the stomach (not chest), like a baby would.
One book I particularly recommend is “the healing power of the breath” , the exercise is very simple, basically just establishing a rhythm that works for your body type, and then you are good to go.
Thats not to say there’s not value into the pranayamas (breathing exercises) of yoga, but for pure efficacy just establishing a good rhythm is actually easy to learn and use.
And I put a lot of it down to reading about breathing in for 2 steps then out for 3 (the total is an odd number so you change sides, so 3/4 is good too). Thanks for whoever wrote that blog post! The process really focuses me and it's like a drumbeat in my mind. If I sprint it changes to 1/1 or less though, and I stop using the nose!
My "regular" breathing pattern (i.e. the one I use to run at medium-hard paces for long distances) is:
nose-in, mouth out: in, out-out, in-in, ooout.
1/4, 1/8, 1/8, 1/8, 1/8, 1/2.
I attenuate the BPM to my pace: on high intensity runs, I usually can get away with raising the BPM, but the last 1/2 is very hard and I sometimes break it into 1/4 out, 1/4 in (more oxygen). For sprinting, any pattern goes away, and it's 1/4 in, 1/4 out. Still nose to mouth, but I think the optimal solution here depends a lot on the shapes of your nose/mouth. :)
And most people think running is just putting one foot in front of the other! :)
To some extent it is of course, but these kinds of cadences are necessary to run effectively, which I guess is different from just running.
Additional links:
- https://time.com/4316151/breathing-technique-navy-seal-calm-...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJJazKtH_9I
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZzhk9jEkkI
Focusing on _allowing_ the natural elasticity of my lungs take care of initiating exhalation -- this will usually be enough to change my mood in a positive way.