Breathe Less, and Be a Teacher
Hi Folks! Connor and Nick here from Healthy Living With Nick and Connor. Thanks again for being on our email list, it means a lot, and we are excited to share our weekly email with you. We hope you enjoy it! Here is what we hope you take away from this one:
One of the best ways to learn is to teach. Think of a change you want to make in your life, teach it to someone else, and maybe even start doing it together and checking in on progress.
Breath less air on your inhales, and extend your exhales longer than you usually do.
Just try something new, fit a health tip into your life, you never know what you are going to enjoy or what will stick as a new part of your routine.
Starter Mindset Tip: Be a Teacher
One of the best ways to learn is to teach. Is there something in your life that you really want to learn? If so, start learning it and teach someone else what you are learning. This may just be one of the best ways to learn something. Try it out with our recipes. When you find a recipe that you connect with from us, and you want to fit it into your life, pick a friend or family member to teach it to. This will do two things: it will help you fully understand what you are going to do and how you will fit the recipe into your life, and hopefully your friend or family member will feel inclined to try the recipe out too. If nothing else, you are allowing them to become more open-minded by introducing them to new ideas and ways of leading a healthier life.
Health Recipe: Breathe Like a Samurai
Timing: No extra time needed
Level of Difficulty: Easy to do, hard to make a habit
Serving Size: Start with a little every day
Spice Level: Nice and mild
INGREDIENTS
You and your breath
REASONING AND BENEFITS
In Japan, legend has it that samurai would test a soldier’s readiness by placing a feather beneath their nose while they inhaled and exhaled. If the feather moved, the soldier would be dismissed (Nestor, 2020, p. 86). If you want to be more like a samurai, focus on breathing less air in each breath and taking fewer breaths in general. When we breathe too much, we can get two to three times more air than we need without knowing it. This overbreathing limits the body’s ability to properly get oxygen to the muscles, organs, and tissues. This can also reduce blood flow to the heart and other organs and muscles by as much as 50% (McKeown, 2015, p. 27). Breathing in less air will allow us to produce more energy more efficiently. Crazy, right!? We thought so too when we first learned that! With less air coming in, the carbon dioxide in our bodies is able to better perform its duty of opening up the blood vessels to get oxygen-rich blood to working muscles, organs, and tissues. This becomes one of the keys to proper breathing: fewer inhales and exhales with smaller volumes.
INSTRUCTIONS
This can be done at any time during rest, activity, work, or play. It will improve the ratio of carbon dioxide and oxygen in your body to get your body operating more efficiently.
Focus on your breath and limit the air you breathe in so you are breathing in less air than usual. Picture yourself sipping air.
Extend your exhales longer than usual in a slow controlled manner.
While doing this, focus on breathing in through your nose. This alone will help limit the air coming in. You can breathe out through your nose or mouth.
PRO TIP: Trainers, doctors, yoga instructors and others have been telling us to take big deep breaths for a long time; let's shift what deep means to us. Instead of deep meaning a large volume of air, think of deep breathing as bringing air deep down into your stomach.
*Practicing this a little each day will retrain your body to breathe this way all the time.
** Breathing like a samurai reduces breathlessness and allows for more effective delivery of oxygen to working muscles (McKeown, 2015, p. 33).
*** Fewer free radicals will be produced, reducing risk of inflammation, tissue damage, and injury (McKeown, 2015, p. 33).
Dessert Quote:
“A person doesn’t know what he can do unless he tries. Trying things is the answer to finding your talent.” (Epstein, 2019, p. 169)
Now we want to hear from YOU! Please let us know what you think of today’s newsletter, and send us an example of how you applied the health recipe to your life! We would love to share how you introduced this week’s recipe into your life’s unique menu. Thanks and have a great Sunday!
Sources:
Epstein, D. (2019). Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Pan Macmillan.
Nestor, J. (2020). Breath: The new science of a lost art. Penguin.
McKeown, P. (2015). The Oxygen Advantage: The simple, scientifically proven breathing technique that will revolutionise your health and fitness. Hachette UK.
