Summary:
- Good posture makes us breath better and hence, feel better.
- By getting less oxygen to the body and increasing CO2, we’ll make our athletic performance( running etc.) better.
- Longer exhales = calm mood; Longer inhales = alert mood (because it controls the nervous system. So this means we can control our mood just by changing out breathing.)
- Different breathing exercises, effect out mood differently. We can use the old pranayama exercises for these.
THE LUNGS
Even after we exhale as much as we can, we still have about 1 liter (1,000 mL) of air left in our lungs; this is called the residualt volume.
When we start at the bottom limit of our maximum exhalation and inhale until we reach the top limit of our maximum inhalation, that’s called vital lung capacity.
Our vital capacity naturally decreases with age, but increasing vital capacity has been shown to help slow the aging process. (Page 29)
VO, max is the maximum amount of oxygen that the body can intake and deliver to the muscles during maximum effort. The higher our VO, max, the better our cardiorespiratory fitness. Having a higher VO, max makes us better at activities like running, (Page 29)
Breathing also plays a considerable role in regulating the pH levels of our blood, Normal blood pH is 7,4, but it varies from 7.35 to 7,45, As we breathe faster, our pH levels rise, and we become more alkaline, As we slow the breath down, our pH levels drop, and we become more acidic,
Nitric oxide is a signaling molecule that is made in the lining of the blood vessels, in the nasal cavity, and in the paranasal sinus. As we inhale through the nose, nitric oxide is carried into our lungs and through the rest of the and mít body, Nitric oxide has a long list of health benefits
CLINICAL VALUES VS.
BASELINE VALUES (Page 33)
normal standards don’t represent the health-conscious, active population.
My resting heartbeat is around 40 to 45 bpm and drops into the thirties when I do certain breathing exercises or meditation. Most athletes and healthy people have a lower-than-average resting heart rate. (Page 33)
Most fit, healthy people, especially those with good breathing habits, like nasal breathing with a relaxed belly, breathe between ten and sixteen times per minute. (Page 34)
Over-breathing temporarily increases blood pH and makes us more alkaline. It also makes us feel hungrier and crave acid-forming foods, like sugars, fats, complex carbohydrates, and processed foods. Generally, overbreathing makes us want the foods that we should limit. (Page 35)
Therefore, we can voluntarily hyperventilate and raise our blood pHlevels until we feel dizzy and light-headed, have tingling sensations in the face and body, and have muscle spasms in the hands and feet.
Whether we are training at high altitude or (preferably not) blood doping, having more oxygen-carrying red blood cells increases our athletic performance. (Page 36)
People who chronically over-breathe develop a lower tolerance to carbon dioxide, so they are driven to breathe much faster than needed. Increasing carbon dioxide tolerance through practicing breath retention creates a new baseline that restores normal respiratory rates. (Page 40)
We should sit in chairs that are flat and firm and don’t cause us to rock (Page 43)
back into the seat. For any chairs you have that aren’t like this, I suggest getting a cushion that elevates your hips higher than your knees, especially in your car.
The best place to sit is on the floor, preferably with a little cushion to elevate your hips so that you can naturally align your spine. Sitting should be active and take a little bit of effort to maintain. You know you are sitting right when you feel a need to get up and walk around every thirty minutes or so. (Page 43)
Section 2 (Page 48)
• The dorsal vagal complex is responsible for most digestive functions and regulates the organs below the diaphragm. It is the older primal evolutionary branch and is responsible for our earliest stress response, also known as the „freeze” response. In situations involving a high degree of fear, overstimulation of the dorsal vagal complex can lock us up, rendering us unable to move or act, as we see in many reptiles and some mammals reacting to extreme danger. (Page 52)
The ventral vagal complex regulates the functions of the heart and the respiratory system. It is associated with social engagement and is most dominant when we are healthy and happy. (Page 54)
HEART RATE VARIABILITY (Page 56)
This fluctuation exists because inhalations stimulate our sympathetic nervous system; in turn, the sympathetic nervous system speeds up our heart and makes it beat at a more regular and consistent tempo. However, our exhalations stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which causes our heart rate to slow down and our heart rhythm to become more irregular, as though to „breathe” with our respirations, which again is a positive sign of a healthy autonomic nervous system and increased parasympathetic tone.
HRV is a marker of the health of the autonomic nervous system, revealing the relationship between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The lower the HRV number (the more regular and consistent the heartbeat), the more dominant the sympathetic tone is. The higher the HRV number, the less sympathetic tone.? (Page 56)
High HRV shows more than just the balance of the autonomic nervous system. It’s also an excellent indication of cardiovascular health, the ability to W AO handle stress and exercise, and a high fitness level. People with high HRV also generally have strong willpower, a calm demeanor, good social engagement, and self-control. Low HRV is related to chronic stress, pain, inflammation, depression, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and death (Page 57)
The average HRV of someone around twenty-five years old is between 55 and 100 milliseconds (ms); at forty, HRV is 35 to 65 ms; and in someone over fifty-five, HRV drops to 25 to 45 ms. (Page 58)
EXERCISE 1: INCREASING SYMPATHETIC TONE Take a few moments to breathe naturally and notice your energy level. When you feel ready, inhale fully and quickly through your nose for three to four seconds. After you fill your lungs, open your mouth and sigh to release the breath. Make sure the exhalation is quicker than the inhalation. (Page 61)
Exercise 2: incresing parasympathetic tone
Doubling the length of the exhalation and slowing the breath stimulates a more parasympathetic tone, which slows the heart rate and lowers blood pressure.
Once you approach your baseline, inhale through your nose for eight to ten seconds, take a comfortable pause at the top of the inhalation, and then exhale through your nose for eight to ten seconds. Repeat for one to two minutes to feel the desired effect. (Page 61)
The daily cycle is the most prominent of the three and therefore is the easiest to track. During this cycle, the average person remains in each guna for approximately two hours before entering the next guna. (Page 75)
I think it’s helpful to start by noticing which guna you are in when you wake up. If you wake up feeling rested and balanced, then you’re in the sattva guna. If you wake up with a ton of energy, ready to take on the day, then you’re in rajas. If you wake up and you hit snooze five times, force yourself out of bed, and can’t talk to anyone until you’ve had your coffee, you’re in tamas. (Page 75)
PUTTING THE SYSTEMS TOGETHER The autonomic nervous system is the body’s physical expression of energy.
The nadis, gunas, and vayus are emotional expressions of the same energetic body. All four systems are interconnected and reference the same thing: how we move intoa place of balance and harmony and what happens when our energy is blocked, out of alignment, or in dysfunction. Each system shows us a slightly different map of the physical and emotional body and what happens when we put too much energy into one area or create a deficit in another.
And while the practices in this book have a direct and profound effect on restoring, rejuvenating, and balancing our physical and energetic bodies, they work far better when we also address the causes of other imbalances in our lives. I hope the breath can bring you to a deeper state of awareness and be a powerful tool to create positive changes in your life. (Page 84)
Yoga teaches us that having attachments always leads to suffering. To be attached to something or someone means that we are looking for happiness in that thing or person staying the same.
Because change is the universal truth, anything we are attached to will eventually change, and that change will bring about separation, which is the root of suffering. (Page 95)
When I practice long handstand holds, I hold water in my mouth to prevent myself from mouth breathing when things start to get challenging.
We can increase our VO, max, improve our cardiorespiratory fitness, strengthen our lungs, expand our vital capacity, and improve our athletic performance just by doing breathing exercises. (Page 213)
Why do we breathe? It might sound like a silly question. We breathe to live, of course. We all know that, of all the things we can’t survive without, our breath is the thing we need the most. Breathing delivers oxygen to our cells so that they can function, create energy, and remove waste. But breathing has so many more responsibilities than just exchanging gases. The breath affects everything from our cardiovascular system to the balance and function of our nervous system. It affects how we deal with difficult situations. Breathing helps maintain and regulate blood pH and affects how we fight off illness and disease. Good breathing practices can significantly contríbute to improved athletic performance and recovery and can even help with memory, learning, and concentration. We can use the breath to boost our sex drive, digestion, and so much more!
VO2 MAX
The nadis represent the body’s energetic channels in three parts: the pingala nadi, which correlates with the sympathetic nervous system; the ida nadi, related to the parasympathetic nervous system; and the sushumna nadi, which we can compare to a balanced nervous system or the ventral vagal complex. The nadis give us a map of our tendencies toward different qualities, characteristics, and attributes. We use this philosophy of the nadis with the breath to bring out traits we desire to see in ourselves.
The gunas represent how energy is expressed in nature and ourselves.
The three gunas are like waves that ebb and flow with the tide. Like the nadis, the gunas correlate with our nervous system and change with the breath. The gunas show our energy as it ascends, expands, descends, and contracts through a daily, monthly, and yearly cycle. We can use the gunas with our breath to bring us up when we feel low, ground us when we feel scattered, and sustain us in a state of balance and equanimity.
The prana vayus represent the movement or flow of energy throughout the body. The five prana vayus interact beautifully with all the other systems. Traditionally thought of as how prana, or vital life energy, circulates in, out, and through the body, they show us so much more and help create balance where a deficit may be. The prana vayus give us insight into our relationship with ourselves and others, our relationship to inner and outer nature, and our relationship to spirituality and our higher self. The map of the prana vayus with our breath practice helps guide us to social and interpersonal harmony.
