It's remarkable that I so often lapse in my meditation practice when it's such a short time commitment and so consistently improves my mood. I tell myself that morning yoga is enough or a walking meditation while taking the dog out is enough - I do those every day without fail. But they're not the same as seated breath work.
Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?
For me during meditation, many thoughts arise. Often they are things I am troubled or anxious about. If I am doing something else, I have a ready-made distraction from those thoughts. But if I'm just sitting, I actually have to be present for them. It's much harder to build a habit where the short-term payoff is negative.
You might try making it part of a broader routine. Lately (and unusually for me) I've been struggling with sleep. So I've explicitly adopted a bedtime routine that gets me to wind down. As part of that, I light a big candle when I start the routine. Then the last thing I do before blowing out the candle getting into bed is to sit down by the candle and use it as a medication focus. This way I feel like I'm getting the sitting for "free" in that I don't have to expend any willpower to make it happen; there are other positive associations that serve as the reward.
http://files.howtolivewiki.com/.meditation_2015/transcripts/... This came out of an attempt to strip the core meditation techniques down to completely remove the mysticism, and adjust the practice cycle for long-term solo practitioners who are agnostic or atheist and can't lean on concepts like "The Buddha" or "Lord Shiva" (although I myself am Hindu.)
The critical innovation is doing ten minute rounds of different practices, so no practice is held for very long. This seems to help a ton with "mind wanders" and surprisingly doesn't seem to impair overall progress at all. If anything the rotation of practices seems to improve overall concentration and keeps people from hallucinating because they've been staring at a blank wall for six hours!
> who are agnostic or atheist and can't lean on concepts like "The Buddha" or "Lord Shiva" (although I myself am Hindu.)
Whoever can accept the Gödel's incompleteness theorems and still use math, doesn't mind games, simulations and usage of different dimensionalities and topologies, also can practice both visual and sensory imagination - is perfectly capable of believing in Buddha, Shiva, whoever and whatever for the duration of the exercise if they chose to. Blieving in a diety with certain characteristics, an embodiment of certain archetypes/feelings/intentions during the practice can do night-and-day difference in efficiency and precision of intentional nervous system regulation.
Going from a card carrying atheist(youth..gah!) to a more sensible agnostic to dipping my toes into faith again has been interesting. A covid revival and immersion.
Spirituality + Meditation/Mindfulness + Religion is definitely more colourful..trippy. I don’t know why. Can’t articulate.
The only downside is the random fanatic, but I guess they exist amongst the atheists too.
The poverty of imagination that marks spirituality without religion is debilitating to sustaining any kind of life long practice. Happily, the flavor of religion of my birth family affords me all the pagan goodness and room to explore freely. Life is good now. Better..rather.
I've read at least three books on meditation and worked with a variety of apps, recordings, etc, and as these are all created for a western audience I've never seen anything mystical or religious in any of them. Anything by Jon Kabat-Zinn should be pretty free of religiosity for example , as his goal was to promote mindfulness within a medical setting.
Yeah, the distinction may be that this is an “enlightenment driven” program —- an hour a day for ten years, coupled to therapy. Most of the enlightenment driven work out there is relatively religious and spends a lot of time on faith in lineage etc. This was an experiment to skip all that and just work the core practices very very hard and results are pretty good over seven or eight years.
I should have clarified that in the earlier post. I should also note that I’m not a dharma teacher by trade: I do that as a hobby, mostly I run a tech company. I teach out of respect for my own teacher but am not making “a thing” of it.
Which I think keeps me honest: zero money changes hands etc.
For what it's worth, the "faith in lineage" stuff doesn't require magical thinking and is pretty helpful. The downside of it from my perspective is it's just a lot of stuff to learn and a bit complicated to maintain in a Western cultural context. Plenty of people are making progress with more stripped-down approaches that rhyme better with the scientific worldview.
It's more like "adopting the view that this will work," because doing that works. It's a pragmatic argument, in practice. Dogma certainly creeps in when you get away from practice into politics, but "bias" isn't a concern in awakening. It's all about what works.
> Welcome to that there meditation class. I’m Vinay. This is intended as a private recording (and transcript) so please don’t stick it on YouTube. I will pass it around to people who should have a copy.
I guess this technically wasn't stuck on YouTube...
The restriction was useful in 2015 because we were still testing the system. Now it's had 7 years to settle in and we've come to think it's pretty much safe as long as people don't ignore the therapy requirement.
I've heard meditation described as "motionless ju-jitsu with yourself". In the absence of any obstacle, the only opponent is you, but by definition you are equal in strength to yourself. So meditation can devolve into a heated evenly-matched contest of wills, which is extremely draining.
It certainly shouldn't. Your aim is just to keep bringing your attention back to the object of attention. Each time you do that is a success, so feel pleased with yourself at that point.
Fighting is a bad habit that will send you down a blind alleyway in meditation. There should be no striving, no effort, just gentle persistence.
Oh man I love that description! It makes me think how exercise is like a contest against physical limits, which are knowable. Hard work leads to heavier lifts or longer runs. But when you kick your own ass in meditation, the limits are more ambiguous and progress isn't so linear.
The stillness, I think. With adhd, that's my challenge anyway. The mind does not shut off, and 5 minutes can feel like forever. Even thinking about it makes me squirm. But I took a yoga class once that did breathwork, and with guidance, I found the ability to focus my entire attention on my breath; the action and the feeling of it.
It's one of the preparation methods: if you have too many thoughts focus on your breath, if you're addicted to pleasures focus on disguisting things, and so on. What happens if you just ignore your thoughts, if you watch them like images in a boring movie? Thoughts compel you to follow them, but you dont have to.
I find this problem with the vast majority of practices, and annoying, particularly with those that work. If I read a book or listen to a podcast that touches on the practice I'll pick it back up, then it will gradually fade out over time.
This is true even of really low-effort things, like box breathing, or drinking a glass of cold water on waking.
I think habits are just hard to maintain as an individual, and historically we've leaned on communities to keep us on-track. The best workaround I've found is to subscribe to podcasts that regularly touch on the practices to keep them within my awareness, but that's far from perfect.
Concentration meditation. I used to do it as much as possible. Every day. Sometimes 2, 3, 6 times. I was kinda nuts. But my practice was strong.
Vipassana + concentration. My practice was extremely erratic.
Vipassana. Just vipassana. That's what I do now. My practice is very consistent. Haven't missed a day in a decade.
I think it's because vipassana is more compatible with the rest of my life than concentration. So there's no big transition. I'm basically doing vipassana, in varying degrees, all the time.
Not the OP, but some schools of buddhism, e.g. gelungs, describe two types of meditation: static and dynamic (my own terminology). The static one is sitting still and sharpening your focus. The end goal is the state when your mind naturally snaps into this fully attentive state - samadhi. But that's a weak result, and dynamic meditation is ability to retain this state no matter what you're doing or even thinking. That's vipassana. There are decent books about the history of buddhism and dzogchen that explain this better.
In my experience there are only 2 things that you can do with your awareness. They go by various names, are described various ways, depending on the tradition. But ya, just the 2.
>Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?
The Feedback loop is longer and impact more subtle so you don't correlate the effects with the action as strongly
I don't meditate but I have learned to control and suppress hiccups and there may be a connection.
The way I do it is still very relaxed and focus on a point that is somewhere in front of my forehead, and have very regular, simple breathing, without forcing it. It takes less than a minute of this for the hiccup to go away. I think the trick is to think about nothing instead of thinking about the hiccup.
I'm not a practitioner of Wim Hof's methods, but what was implemented in the paper is definitely not Wim Hof breathing.
The paper describes 30x breaths with the inhale twice as long as the exhale, and a 15 second hold on the final exhale.
Wim Hof's method has 30x equal-length inhales and exhales, and a one-minute hold on the final exhale [0].
Aside from there being a substantial difference between equal length inhales and exhales and an inhale that's twice as long as the exhale, the big idea behind Wim Hof's method is that that minute-long hold is very difficult, and trying to do it supposedly builds a certain kind of mental (really, holistic) discipline that a 15 second hold simply would not. 15 seconds is not hard unless you're pretty out of shape.
The Wim Hof method is weirdly effective. I've never been able to hold my breath for over a minute even though I've tried. But on my second attempt at the Wim Hof method I did 2 minutes and then shortly after 4 minutes... It felt way shorter... I think the hyperventilation put me into a dissociative state.
When you say OM (Aum) out loud properly you do controlled breathing.
Here is the way I was taught.
1. relax.
2. deep inhale.
3. pause (1 count)
4. say 'O' (2 or 3 counts, you can stretch it further if you can). Here you are basically exhaling through mouth.
5. slowly transition from 'O' to 'M'. for a brief period in the transition try to say 'O' nasally. might need a bit of practice but basically you are slowly transitioning from exhaling via mouth to exhaling via nose.
6. as you completely switch to 'M' your mouth is shut and you are totally exhaling via nose. Stretch 'M' as long as you can.
7. repeat this cycle. Once you find the rhythm its quite mentally relaxing.
The cyclic breathing required by swimming has a large overlap with the breathing techniques described in this study, and I suspect it has a lot to do with how much of a mental health improvement it is for me.
Coupled with the full body muscle engagement and cardiovascular training that comes along with it, it seems like the perfect exercise for those that have access to a pool.
I just started swimming with a local Masters group a few months ago and can definitely notice a difference in my mood if I miss a couple practices. I thought it was just my imagination but didn’t even think about the breath aspect of it.
Andrew Huberman mentions a similar method where controlled short bursts of cyclic breathing can effect (verb effect, not grammatical error for affect) dopamine release.
The article briefly mentions "diaphragmatic breathing" without going into it, but it's one of the best ways to do breathing exercises in a slow, controlled and relaxing manner while sitting upright at a desk. It's also a part of the training for vocalists, and that a good source on how-to guides, e.g.
> "It is also important to note that, in voice pedagogy, 'breathing from the diaphragm' and 'breathing from the belly' are not viewed as being synonymous. The breath support technique that is widely referred to as 'diaphragmatic breathing', (when correctly executed), should not be confused with 'belly breathing'. Unlike 'belly breathing', 'breathing from the diaphragm' involves no pushing or forceful expulsion of air, and is the natural, correct, safe, gentle, internationally accepted method of supporting the singing tone. In diaphragmatic breathing, the tone rides on a minimal and steady stream of air, which brings stability and consistency to the tone."
I found that doing breathing exercises in isolation were very boring and I couldn't get myself to care. But using structured breathing while exercising made it way more enjoyable. Having physical cues for the different steps helped make it more of a measurable skill where I notice improvements over time.
Musicians and athletes practice structured breathing as a way of building cardio and increasing lung capacity. Your lungs don't change, you just learn to control airflow better. The way "ancient traditions" are frequently framed makes me avoid and treat them like pseudoscience. Framing it from the persepctive of an athlete helped me evaluate it more seriously. Mindful meditation is beneficial but completely indepedent from breathing exercises and you don't need the former to get benefits from the latter.
I am not arguing the value or validity of "ancient techniques", I am sharing my initial bias when I was first introduced to pranayama, and how it's taught as if it exists in isolation. This post doesn't mention sports or singing/musicians once.
There's many techniques but box breathing where you take extra air in after you feel like your lungs are full, and a longer period exhaling than inhaling, is the primary technique I was taught for marching band/trombone. The "cyclic sighing" described in the paper, but with a longer inhale and exhale. We did, at ~80 bpm, 4 counts for inhale, 4 counts of holding, and 8 counts of exhale, with whatever extra "sip" of air we could manage to inhale during the hold. If you're not used to breathing exercises, doing 4+4+8 a few times can leave you light headed. It's normal to cough from the extra sip of air.
The swimming pools in my area of the world all have a 'cold tub' with water ranging in temperature from 6-10°C. On average I visit the pools roughly 2-3x per week and always spend around ~12 minutes (in 4 minute chunks) in the 'cold tub' doing controlled breathing.
That, and plunging and holding my face in the cold water to try to trigger the mammalian diving response, has really had a positive effect on me (ofcourse only n=1).
Think I'll add 5 minutes of these breathing practices to my routine as well.
As it was explained to me (and from reading I have done), the mammalian diving response (which all mammals have but to varying degrees) works to preserve oxygen and energy expenditure when underwater.
For seals and other water dwelling mammals this is a controlled sophisticated mechanism that is deliberately used when underwater.
In humans it is a survival mechanism, triggered when the trigeminal nerve on our face gets submerged in water. And the colder it is the stronger the response seems to be.
Submerging one self in cold water up to your head seems to affect many parts of the human body, and in my case I am not sure which part it is that I am feeling the effects of. But it leaves me feeling more alert, awake and with less mindfog after doing an extended cold water dip (going to the pool without one in comparison leaves me sluggish).
I don't know if this related to this effect or not but I've noticed that it's much much easier holding your breath for a longer period of time when you're in a swimming pool than outside.
Its based on solid research - test groups that hum in the specific frequency were found to have increased their nitric oxide production a dozen or more times. Whereas control groups and groups that did the meditation in another frequency either did not produce any different amount or comparably low amounts.
When you try doing it, you start noticing a strong smell that smells like early spring or the smell certain air purifiers make. This smell lasts as long as you keep humming.
Sometimes I hit my rowing machine really hard to try beat a previous record, so hard that I really feel like I've "cooked myself", I feel like I need to breathe to the point where I have to remove my ear buds to get more air or else it kind of feels like I could suffocate :) It's a brutal machine. I'm now fitter and rarely get that "gassed" even when I push myself.
It's such hard work that I decided to stop drinking for a year to make it more tolerable to exercise with the rowing machine.
One of my friends tried to beat my time on the rower and was so sore for 3 nights, he had nightmares about the rower ha.
Anyway, it obviously made me question should I be doing more for my body, including breathing exercises, but what this kind of thing also makes me really think about is how stupid air pollution is. What it would feel like not to have access to fresh clean air and how bad it would be to be suffocating. What a privilege it is to be able to breathe and it makes me feel like I want to go plant trees.
Has anyone else had similar thoughts during exercise / breathe training? If anything I think it's good to become aware of the breathe and air for this reason alone, it would make the world a better place.
I enjoy and use this breathing technique but I haven't ever practiced or cared about mindful meditation. In my experience doing breathing exercises while doing something physical helps me way more than doing it while sitting. The most interesting result from this study was the change in the spread for HRV.
I personally found that having physical markers for when to breathe in and out made it a lot easier to understand and practice. Tying yoga poses to the amount of time I hold air made is easier to track my improvements too. I imagine swimming similarly allows a more structured way to practice cyclic breathing. I was able to break an 8 minute 2k row when I did it with cyclic breathing. Nothing has improved my cardio as much as erg + controlled breathing, I use pretty short intervals.
Another place cyclic breathing was crucial was when I did marching band. I played trombone so it was mandatory that I have athletic lung capacity. I was told that the exercises aren't making your lungs bigger, you're getting used to having your lungs stay expanded for longer.
The most important thing was the extra breath you take after you feel like your lungs are completely full. Everyone coughs when you take in that extra bit of air after breathing in deeply, in the beginning. There's plastic ball valve things you can buy to observe your breathing but I never personally saw it as useful. A relative was given something similar after a heart attack in order to monitor lung strength during recovery.
It's also pretty common to recommend some type of cyclic breathing when handling anxiety. It helps control and lower the physical symptoms of anxiety like rapid heart rate.
Looking up box/cyclic breathing guides for athletes or music students might help, if you are looking for more structure guides. The cyclic breathing in this study is not the same as circular breathing.
> The most interesting result from this study was the change in the spread for HRV.
Did your HRV increase, indicating better health? How are you measuring it?
> I was able to break an 8 minute 2k row when I did it with cyclic breathing.
Can you explain more? Search results for "cyclic breathing" return many varied results. Are you performing it while during the row, or in preparation for it? I can get 2k meters under 8 minutes, but I'm gasping at the end.
I've taught most of my clients breathing exercises for the past 5-6 years. It's unnecessary to take it to the level of a formal pranayama practice to make fairly significant differences in physiological state, from which most everything else derives.
The "coherent breathing" work that popped up sometime in the last ~15 years is pretty interesting, too.
a) "Box Breathing", as mentioned in the article. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Same rate for each step. Ex: in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4. Repeat as long as you like. Very calming and "centering" (in the sense of moving you toward "neutral" physiologically). More effective if you can breathe through nose and use diaphragm/belly breathing, but that's optional.
b) "Coherent Breathing". Inhale, exhale, at the same rate. Ex: a good rate is 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out. Also calming/centering, with an observed positive effect on heart rate variability. This is box breathing without the holds, so experiment to see which is preferable. Again, using the diaphragm is optional.
c) "Gratitude Breathing", for lack of a better phrase. Inhale (explicitly diaphragm/belly breathing this time); think of something you're grateful for (thankful, happy, something positive); exhale slowly. The exhale should be twice as slow as the inhale. Ex: so inhale for a count of 4, think a happy thought, exhale for a count of 8. Repeat at least ten times (to overwhelm whatever was in working memory before you began), more if you like. This will calm, relax, and trigger a positive emotional/psychological state.
d) "Relax and pass out breathing". As c) without the "positive thought". So a deep inhale, then a twice slower exhale. This is more purely relaxing than the others, can lead to sleep eventually. This does not have the double inhale a la the "cyclic sighing" mentioned in the article.
e) "Panic and freak out breathing": short, rapid inhale and exhale, using the upper chest rather than diaphragm. Why do this? Anyway.
It's been bizarre to me how many people cannot easily breathe using their diaphragms, whereas I have to consciously force myself to do otherwise. Anyway.
There is all sorts of research on these, some good and most junk, but the main takeaway is that for some reason humans have the ability to consciously control our breathing, and the way we breathe has direct impact on our resulting physiological state.
There are endless varieties of "breathwork" (Wim Hoff's stuff, actual Tummo breathing, 3721 variations of pranayama) because humans like to complicate things, but these cover the bases for routine self-care.
2) Change what you're doing. I don't know what you're doing, but the most common trigger for this in my narrow piece of the world is people pushing too far too soon. ex: shorten the count, or lengthen the count. Experiment, basically.
3) As an option to consider: ignore it and keep going. Some forms of breathing exercises make me feel on the verge of panic momentarily. It appears to be related to changes in the level of carbon dioxide where the brain mistakenly believes it is suffocating. The only two things that have worked for me are ignoring it or changing my timing slightly and building up a tolerance. (Well, a third: ensuring I am adequately hydrated.)
I like that they described how each method is performed. The mindful meditation method was a bit different from what I've used, but something I can adopt.
So cyclic sighing can replace mindful meditation, except that it requires more use to reap the benefits.
So now Cyclic Sighing, Mindful Meditation and Binaural Beats are techniques I can call upon in times of stress.
> Participants were informed they should sit down in a chair or, if they preferred, to lie down, and then to set a timer for 5 min. Then they were told to close their eyes and to start breathing while focusing their mental attention on their forehead region between their two eyes. They were told that if their focus drifted from that ___location to re-recenter their attention by focusing back first on their breath and then on the forehead region between their eyes. They were told that as thoughts arise, to recognize that as normal, refocus their attention back to their forehead region and to continue the practice until time has elapsed.
Is this a legit expression of mindfulness meditation? It lacks any sort of breath modification.
I have a bad habit of holding my breath for a long time. I don't do it on purpose, sometimes when I'm super focused I just notice I haven't taken a breathe in a while. Its kind of alarming tbh when it happens, not sure if maybe this will help.
It’s good to see this ‘validated’, but anyone who has actually tried these types of practices knows how effective they can be, there’s absolutely no doubt about any of this stuff. And why should there be? the Indians figure this stuff out like 1000 years ago or more and have been writing it down and telling people about it and what? cause we’re Western science we’re just not gonna fucking believe that? It’s ridiculous. Sort of like seeing a paper in physical review letters: class M stellar entity periodically illuminates US east coast from distance of one AU, and period of 24 hours. tell me something I fucking don’t know
Welcome to science, where we actually reproduce results and don't just yell "everybody knows". (Since you are fond of the Indian approach, though, may I suggest you inspect your anger?)
And yes, it's fairly basic stuff - but it's also laying the foundation for ongoing studies. And it's not like it's ignoring ancient practices, they're specifically referenced.
While we're on "how does this study help in any way", it's also worth calling out that it has conclusively shown that you can remotely administer intervention and monitor the physiological response. Yes, again, a small thing, but important going forward.
And finally, this study was intended as an exploratory study - what can we find when we look here. And it will likely lead to a clinical trial. Yes, more reconfirmation of "what we've always known", but in a way that makes it more likely it finds entrance into the Western medicine canon. That's a huge step forward, because it'll move it from the easy dismissal of "maybe just woo" to "proven practice", and so gives a chance to reduce the number of pharmacological interventions doctors opt for.
He didn’t get my point. Maybe he was replying to another comment and mistakenly put it down here?
It’s something about something that’s too obvious. I got a science degree man, I believe in the scientific method, but the way it’s applied sometimes: too stupid. The scientific institution is so fucking flawed. The scientific method can’t cure humanity’s faults: reproducibility crisis, confirmation bias, wrong incentives in publishing, produce papers that mostly seek to advance careers rather than advance human knowledge.
You can’t handle that? That’s on you. I just think you should realize when a paper is published about something that’s too fucking obvious. You don’t need science to validate that meditation and pranayama and breath work exercises work.
Another way you could say it is it’s patronizing colonial validation of “savages superstitions.” You don’t need unnecessary validation, and to the extent you endorse that you undermine the pre-existing legitimacy: suggesting that without science’s spurious stamp of approval these things don’t pass muster. Which is totally toxic bs.
Also, the thing is if science is not gonna make itself capable of exploring the more subtle energies, if it’s going to actively penalize explorations of that nature, then certainly science should not be all that we rely upon. We shouldn’t penalize people who are not coming from the scientific tradition. We should trust her own experience. Our own instincts and intuition. We should listen to our hearts, and we should listen to these Indians telling us about this stuff that works for thousands of years and we should listen to ourselves because we know it works.
If you don’t think you can know something until some scientist in a journal tells you it’s true even if it’s based on your own experience, I got no words for you man. You’re lost and science isn’t gonna help you get found. Fix your head first. You can’t do science coming from the wrong place for it. And that’s the fucking point.
Also
(Since you are fond of the Indian approach, though, may I suggest you inspect your anger?)
Please don’t try to involve me in your personal delusions about me. Why do I need to inspect anything? I’m fine with however I feel about this. If you got a problem with how I feel, or with how you need to pretend I feel that’s your problem, nothing to do with me. Right? Maybe you should inspect your pomposity? Don’t tell me how I feel. Anger? I don’t have anger about this. You misunderstand. Don’t project your misunderstanding on to me OK bud? Thank you. Have a good one!
I find it hard to believe that you have any interest in science with this comment.
I like seeing studies like this that try to scientifically prove/show the benefits of techniques like cyclical breathing. It may be obvious to some, but I don't think it's obvious to everybody. The Indians might have discovered it and done it for thousands of years, but we don't do it. I'm not going to do something just because Native Indians did it, I'd like to see some indication that it actually works beyond anecdotes from other people. People can fool themselves into all kinds of things.
And yes, I also looked into studies about the benefits of meditation before I ever started practicing meditation. I don't' feel like any of that was wasted and I'm glad I did.
Oh I meant Indians from India, not native Americans. I wouldn’t call them Indians. Right?
I like seeing studies like this that try to scientifically prove/show the benefit…
I’m not attacking you or saying don’t read studies or that’s somehow not good for you. Tho I get how it could seem that way. The world can contain both things: your like of this and my criticism of the scientific establishment and public attitudes towards science. Neither are exclusionary of the other, so I understand if you reacted like they were. But I’m was not criticizing you there. I’m criticizing the science establishment, and the idea that scientific endorsement is a sole arbiter of truth of the world which is absolute bullshit.
I find it hard to believe that you have any interest in science with this comment.
I don’t know…I think if you don’t think I have any interest in science then you don’t know me at all. But also, I think it’s a bit counterfactual of you: because why would someone who had no interest in science spend time studying it and then thinking about it enough to criticize its flaws … unless they valued what they thought it should actually stand for (and we’re obviously interested in that)?
So I think instead it’s you trying to frame your disdainful contempt for who you mis-imagine I am, I somehow valid by clicking it in the pretense, that you must know more than me. But really, I think you’re comment is a bit of an overcompensating snooty elitist dismissal for you to wanna try to pretend to look down on me as like some uneducated savage because I don’t happen to reflect your (worshiping? unquestioning?) attitude toward science. So if I don’t show your view, your only response is to somehow pretend I’m bad or less than you? That’s pretty pathetic not scientific.
I’m not saying worshiping and and unquestioning is how you see science, but if you did, I would say that is not very scientific of you. Do you have a science degree?
I don’t think many people consider science as a sole arbiter.
It is more a high bar arbiter. And that high bar is especially useful for human concerns when we (each of us individually) wade into unfamiliar territories that mix fact based things (health) with cultural beliefs or practices.
That feeling of “this is so obvious”? It is just a feeling. No smarter than any of our other fallible feelings.
Lots of obvious things, even obvious to billions of people, turn out to be false on closer inspection.
It is worth giving anything valuable the scientific treatment
Ultimately science and emotion work to be framed by the same quest: a quest for truth. The truth of emotion is personal to you, the truth of science is like "the personal truth of the heart of the world". But you can't denigrate one. And be very careful at comparing them, they're often not comparable. They don't contradict each other....but if they do...you got to trust yourself above everything else.
What is more likely? The internal system and consciousness that you have which has been billions of years in the making and evolution thereof, or the centuries old "Western Scientific Establishment" -- which is likely to be more fallible and out of touch with the world?
If you have trouble trusting your emotions: refine your instrument, improve your measurements, increase the resolution of your sensibilities. Abandon emotion at your peril, and of all those around you. It's your human strength. Your not a machine (at least I don't think so!). And any Science in this world must respect the truth of human experience, of emotion, of subjective personal experience. Science must not question those things: the ground emotional personal truth of someone cannot be questioned by science. One reason is because you can't get more true than that for someone, another reason is because science deals in probabilities, in averages, and that's not personal. But's about respect, that's the main reason. You can't have this external thing, questioning something internal. People must be more like Nietzsche's Artist, they have to follow the truth of their own feelings and go into that and discover the truth of themselves. They should teach that stuff in school: how to know and access and process your emotions, your intuition, internal information. But they don't. They teach science. So of course you've lost your way. Sorry to say, but it's the truth. But it's easy to get back to the path, you already have it inside you. Science can question the "overlayed emotions" someone applies to avoid their own emotional truth, but even then it can only suggest, based on studies, and averages, it cannot be sure. As every individual is fundamentally immune to science at an absolute level through their individual nature. Every individual is an anomaly, unamenable to the subjugation to averages. You may argue that endlessly, but the point holds and always will. If you're going to come down with an absolute, start with yourself first. Subjugating the individual to science is a mistake. Anyway...Science's place in the world is assured, but is must be put in and kept to its proper place.
I want to finish with an analogy that may help you see what I'm saying better: You probably think I'm saying that the Synnaxians are right, and the science saying they would all drown is wrong. No. The Synnaxians had adopted a intuitive religion to cover a painful truth: their world was dying. The abused emotional truth just the same as some paper abusing scientific truth to push a favored theory. If the Synnaxians didn't subjugate their emotions, their intuition, to some safe-idea (that their God would protect them and everything would be right) they would have been in touch with their emotional ground truth: fear at the dying of their world. And they would have acted on that. In that case the ground emotional truth and the science was in agreement, it was the Synnaxxians own weakness that deliberately introduced distortions to make it easier for them to avoid the pain of that truth.
It is worth giving anything valuable the scientific treatment
No, it's worth giving anything valuable the personal, intuitive, feeling-based treatment. How do you feel about it? That's always the first question. Otherwise we end up with science as the soler arbiter of value, the final judge, the Court of High (scientific truth making) appeal? Right? Because anything I say, you can find some study and say "No" and you'll never believe nor acknowledge the validity of what I"m saying, at least not in a way you'll view as comparable to, equal to, or "shock to the horror" superior to, whatever your precious studies say. That's wrong.
Look--I'm not saying you're like that, 100%, it just seems that way.
Lots of obvious things, even obvious to billions of people, turn out to be false on closer inspection.
Yeah, like science theories. Turn out to be false or not-reproducible, even thousands of papers parroted them, and counter-ideas were suppressed. Didn't matter. Science is biased, it's part of the mechanism, it needs to be reformed.
That feeling of “this is so obvious”? It is just a feeling. No smarter than any of our other fallible feelings.
It is not just a feeling. It is something paramount; important. So no way. "Just a feeling": science as false truth supremacy, the incorrect attempted minimization of subjective experience, of emotion. It's never "just a feeling". Never was. Science is just another belief system. That if your measurement equipment, your concepts are wrong, it can't even touch what you feel and experience. So we can say: That idea of "science is so high bar". It's just an idea. No smarter than any of our other fallible ideas.
I don’t think many people consider science as a sole arbiter. It is more a high bar arbiter. And that high bar is especially useful for human concerns when we (each of us individually) wade into unfamiliar territories that mix fact based things (health) with cultural beliefs or practices.
Um, 1) I think they do, and 2) I think you do from what you say here. It sounds like you're saying it's the only thing we really need to care about. What am I saying? Science is useful. It's a tool. But oft abused, but flawed humans. That's when it becomes dangerous: when the TruthMaker Machine is slaved in service of perpetuating and confirming pre-existing incorrect biases. As it often is. Also dangerous, this "temple of scientific truth" cannot be questioned. Because, theoretically, the method is sound. Yeah, the method is sound. But the implementation, the users of that tool, are flawed. Science is flawed. That's all that matters. The danger is, pretending this Scientific TruthMaking Machine cannot be assailed, that it's unquestionable. This lazy abusive dismissal of counterpoints and other views, is so often fallen back to by the fanatical proponents of science, who use it try incorrectly to quash anything against what they want: like it seem, you're trying to here: "Just a feeling", "science is the high bar". I mean you have faith in it, that it's better than everything else. And I bet, sometime in the past, or maybe the future again, you've been in an dispute, where you have absolutely refused to consider another's view, and completely dismissed it as invalid, by falling back to the mantra: "studies show", or the awful and abusive "just a feeling".
Careful what you say about "Just a feeling"--why would you want someone to doubt themselves? People have enough trouble staying in touch with who they are and what they feel and expressing that, and standing up for themselves. Why would you want to add doubt to that struggle? It's a very dangerous territory, and abusive one, to go. Every time I've seen someone trying to do that to someone else, it always proceeds trying to manipulate that person you're trying to cause to doubt, trying to have power over them, trying to abuse them. I mean it's a form of gaslighting, it's awful: "You don't really feel like that, it's a feeling, just a feeling, it's fallible, doubt it".
Look, man, it will probably seem I am attacking you: I'm sorry, I'm not attacking you: this slavish obeisance to science as truth is a common error, not unique to you, as is the abusive minimization of other's feelings--that's not even unique to the science acolytes, lots of people do that, doesn't make it right tho--I'm not even saying you actually do that or intend to, it just seems that way from what you wrote here.
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My main thesis is: science and emotion, subjective experience -- can co exist. We can't define ourselves or our reality by either of them. But we have to seriously listen to them, if we want to be good. But you also can't think you can use science as this like stick to beat people with, or force them to comply...you probably have felt frustrated that there are people you feel you "cannot even reason with" as they won't listen to reason. But how do they feel? That you won't even listen to or acknowledge their personal experience and feelings? So if you want to engage with them, I'm not saying you can convince them...try stepping into their shoes first: acknowledge, and feel the truth of their views, emotions and experiences. Then they may be much more likely to consider what you are saying. Especially if you can make it so that you can maintain both: science and themselves.
Otherwise, if you just treat science as this unassailable machine to make truth, this unquestionable atrocity, you really make it into an abusive authority, a tool to subjugate people and their own personal experiences and feelings, and that's awful...and I don't think you want to do that. I mean I don't know but I don't think that's your intention. Because if you treat science like that, in slavish obeisance, unquestioning fidelity, it becomes a religion. A cult. And what's worse: it's a persecutory cult that seeks to admonish and chastise, abuse and punish, "outsiders" and "infidels", non-believers. And of course, any "absolute high bar" of truth making will be abused thus by human hands. Humans are weak, crazy, stupid and bad...among many other things, we can also be good if we choose to be...but we can be that bad stuff. But if you make science into such an absolute, you subjugate yourself to it. And inevitably try to subjugate others.
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I feel so strongly about this, and that's right: emotions are a source of information, science is a tool. YOu need to consider the counsel of both and use science to life people up, to expand their world and experience not limit it. The default position must be: if science cannot speak to something, it is because science is too limited, not because "Science is RIGHT, and the Other is WRONG, BAD, FALSE, NONSENSE". The default must be a non-abusive, expansive, human-centric position that does not subjugate, but lifts people up.
You probably can't see past your resistances here: irrational people that feel they are right above all else, in the face of evidence, "feel good" platitudes that achieve nothing while the world burns...there are many failure modes of emotion, but the issue is not with emotion in itself, but rather how people respond to it, emotionally. Emotional logic, and people's seeking to avoid pain, they convince themselves of things. It's not "wrong" to do so...but it may not always be "true". But the resolution of that is not to banish emotion, it's to go deeper into it, because beneath those emotions people take on to cover other emotions that are more painful, is the emotional truth. So you just have to go deeper.
I think the truth is of science as well: when the science is wrong, or misapplied, you just have to go deeper.
This is a thoroughly impressive response, particularly in a thread about contemplation. It's honestly a masterpiece.
It may be a bit cliche, but it reminds of this Alan Watts anecdote.
> That is why a person who might be enlightened (a bodhisattva) does not always present a kind of detached and indifferent attitude but is perfectly free to allow emotions and attachments. Why R.H. Blyth, who was a great Zen man, wrote me once and said 'How are you these days? As for me, I have abandoned satori (enlightenment) altogether and I'm trying to become as deeply attached as I can to as many people and things as possible.'
Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I really appreciate that truly. You didn’t have to say that but I think sometimes when people go out of their way to say or do something nice maybe they don’t understand how much it can positively affect someone. And I just want to let you know this really made my day and it will leave a lasting positive impression on me that I’ll always remember. Thank you so much that’s really wonderful. Just wanted to make sure you know that you’re kindness is so meaningful to me. Thank you.
I've actually tried these types of practices, and they make me feel like I've used a recreational inhalant. Without the paper I'd have assumed giving yourself mild hypoxia just gave you euphoria and dizziness, and other positive effects were confirmation bias.
Interesting! I guess you need a good teacher, or you could just be "different to the bell curve". I mean theoretically every little thing is going to have potentially different effects for everybody. But I want to ask...so even doing something like box breathing (4 counts inhale - 4 hold full - 4 exhale - 4 hold empty - ... repeat), give you feeling of mild hypoxia / euphoria / dizziness / like an inhalant?
Also, this will probably sound judgy so I'm sorry but I'm really curious: do you normally have trouble walking up stairs, get out of breath easily, or feel faint when changing body positions?
A lot of breath work is very specific to the individual. Guides, how-tos, videos can often make people more anxious because their body is behaving slightly differently than their "source".
Surprisingly, you don't need to learn it as much as you just need to do it and think about how your body feels as you do it.
When you exhale, just exhale like you were just relieved of something horrible... or like you're saying "whewwwwwwwwww" as in "whewww, that's a relief".
Don't worry about how many seconds it was, don't really count unless you like to, just breath and feel the feelings.
When you do that a few times, especially after a slow inhale... it starts to feel really good, really natural, and in a weird way when you think it's going to work and think it's going to feel good, it actually ends up feeling good and relieving stress.
This whole thread has a lot of info in it, but the main point is this - we suck at breathing, don't breathe properly and are remarkably easily knocked out the "calm awareness" mode.
It's sometimes best to work at this other way around, like with anger management, e.g. don't try to improve your breathing, but try to be more concious of when your breathing and mental state go to sh*.
This is an extremely weak study that basically launders Huberman's "mini interventionism" and abuses west coast's fascination with what is mostly "breath-themed magic". The idea of hyperregulation of breath is a cousin of hyperregulation of dietary intake, which is a western "top-down"ism, latter of which induced more disordered eating than it achieved/preserved health.
Regarding the criticisms of this study;
Firstly, the small sample size is based on volunteers, so folks already believed there was going to be a payoff from something that is 75% breathwork.
Secondly, there is no "sham intervention" class to counter the placebo effects from this.
Thirdly, their mindfulness instruction is atypical; it should have been passive focus on breath rather than a visual/somatic cue on the forehead to be comperable with breath work vs breath focus.
Finally, their exclusion criteria makes it too restricted;
> For health and safety reasons, we excluded those with self-reported moderate to severe psychiatric or medical conditions that could be exacerbated by study participation, such as heart disease, glaucoma, history of seizures, pregnancy, psychosis, suicidality, bipolar disorder, or substance use disorders.
I find it annoying that the list is not exhaustive but we could reasonably assume they also had to exclude moderate and above depression and anxiety disorders, not to mention panic disorder[1]. Anxious folks are particularly sensitive to breathwork, and even 10% of their "healthy" population reported anxiety as a result of these practices (highest ingroup rate is 17%, in the favorite "sighing" group)
Besides the anxiety inducing vs reducing effect of all breathwork had more variance than the mindfulness intervention, which puts into question whether the cost/benefit of the intervention (not to mention it's wide scale applicability) is sufficient.
What Huberman is popular for is known as a "nutrientism" of sorts; as in assemble vitamins a, b, c..., this and that macronutrient plus this and that micronutrient and you will have a full nutritional profile. Not saying he is all bs at all, e.g his circadian light stuff is solid, but more often than not after the 50th episode these turn into bite sized oversold interventions mostly as an illusion of "doing something good for me so that I don't have to do anything else".
As a final note, mindfulness meditation traditionally has never been an emotion regulation tool, it is an education tool as a part of wisdom traditions, none of which had "good affect in one month" as the primary metric of their success.
[1] The panic disorder population is even more interesting. 50% of the panic disordered people do not suffer from hyperventilatory or otherwise respiratory phenomena. Not only that, the hyperventilators are suffering from hypocapnia, as in a drop in CO2 and not O2, which is completely opposite to Huberman's "dumping CO2 and therefore relaxing" magic/logic.
Then it is surprising that a reasonably robust journal like Cell Reports Medicine published it (presumably after peer review), and so many Stanford postdocs and associate professors put their name on it
Sorry, appeal to authority don't impress me. Science is science, and this is weak science. Feel free to suspend your own judgement based on brand values.
Regarding the "cyclic sighing" technique (called "Physiological sighing" in the graphic):
I have been doing it for a couple of years without knowing it was a thing. I have studied common Pranayama techniques, and I stumbled upon it via trial and error. I do it because I find it anxiety-reducing. I used to refer to it internally as "double inhale breathing".
After reading the OP article, and noting that they referred to "Yogic breathing", I decided to do a little research and discovered that this technique is called "Dirga Pranayama" or "three part breathing". The authors should have mentioned it in their article.
Read "Altered Traits" - two western scientists trying to pump up meditation self-report that they can't find any tangible benefits and resort to BP control meditation because they can't even reduce their BP, let alone anything else. "Anxiety and mood" are pretty subjective. Just sitting there drops pulse too.
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I follow these simple rules for breathing
1. Breathe to stomach not chest.
2. Breathe by nose (unless swimming or underwater).
3. Inhalation time and exhalation time should be equal and gap between inhalation and exhalation should be sum of it. If it takes x seconds to inhale exhalation should begin after 2x seconds and should finish in x seconds
Retention (2x) = inhalation time (x) + exhalation time (x).
All the pranayam and yogic techniques try to make it natural to have this pattern and symmetry in our breathing process.
The one that works is the one that people do without special training: sighing*. There had to be some reason why people sigh.
* Yes, this is an odd sort of sighing, but it isn't that different from spontaneous sighing. And people also hyperventilate on their own, but mostly preparatory to diving or holding their breath for some other reason.
> And people also hyperventilate on their own, but mostly preparatory to diving or holding their breath for some other reason.
It's common for people to hyperventilate in the midst of a panic attack, and the common advice I've seen is to encourage a panicked person to take deep breaths. Strange to see it as a consideration for beneficial effects. As a kid I'd hyperventilate to feel dizzy because it was fun (oops was I getting high?)
I use the box breathing technique for relaxation and de-stress. 4 seconds breathe in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds breathe out, 4 seconds hold. Then repeat. It’s great for calming the fight or flight response in me.
> Both mindfulness meditation and breathwork groups showed significant reductions in state anxiety and negative affect and increases in positive affect.
> Breathwork produces a significantly greater reduction in respiratory rate compared with mindfulness meditation
Fun study, but is mindfulness really relevant to their endpoints of interest, e.g., anxiety?
Sure, mindfulness may help with anxiety in the long term, but during the first 30 days? Anecdotally, some folks I know felt overwhelming anxiety during their first few sessions.
The how-to is buried pretty deep for those like me who are unfamiliar with cyclic sighing (aka psychological sighing or double inhale)
> Participants were informed they should sit down in a chair or, if they prefer, to lie down, and to set a timer for 5 min. Then they were told to inhale slowly, and that once their lungs were expanded, to inhale again once more to maximally fill their lungs -- even if the second inhale was shorter in duration and smaller in volume than the first, and then to slowly and fully exhale all their breath. They were told to repeat this pattern of breathing for 5 min. They were also informed that ideally, both inhales would be performed via their nose and the exhale would be performed via their mouth, but that if they preferred, they were welcome to do the breathing entirely through their nose. They were also informed that it is normal for the second inhale to be briefer than the first.
Not to digress but substack bas gotten quite annoying on mobile. Have to scroll through so much irrelevant BS to just get to the article, what the hell.
I think this was done by the author to create engagement with their blog.
I'm not sure if there is a against this, but it feels kinda against the spirit of posting a title like this when it seems like the goal of the linked page is 20% to communicate the topic of the headline and 80% to drive you to other topics they have been posting about.
I’d like to point out that even though the Wim Hoff technique is based on pranayama, he recommends something pranayama actively asks you not to do. Exhale completely and then hold it for as long as you can.
I am beyond disinterested in football. Don't really like hamburgers much. And it's certainly debatable how mindfully I scroll. I find value in mindfulness and am open to suggestions and teachings on breathing and meditation.
But you'll need a heeeeeelllaaaa more data before you casually add "psychic powers" to the claims :-)
Where's the airtight data for all the miracles and portents that are similarly said to have been performed by Western spiritual figures? These pro-West double standards and systemic biases are getting quite tiresome.
Also we must lead very different lives ; is there a broad community of people with beliefs relating to western spirituality miracles and portent? Which pro western double standards are there for spiritual miracles??
As far as I'm aware there are zero standards or proofs for miracles and portents from anywhere; things like Randi's challenge don't specify geographical origins; and more seriously though, double blind trials etc are equally agnostic to western BS vs anybody else's BS.
Yes, if the only reason you're ever interested in meditation and spirituality is the hope that it might some day give you special superpowers, I'd call that a bit childish and immature. These things exist as a trivial correlate of deep altered states of consciousness, but they're the least interesting part. Focusing on them to the exclusion of everything else is quite unhealthy.
Saying that science done in Europe and the US about ancient Asian breathing techniques is embarrassing is way less offensive than thinking that Europe and the US are most of humanity.
I am ambivalent about "western science", it's very useful, there are also other modes of inquiry and discovery that are useful.
However, it's funny to think that one might do lots of meditation and consciousness altering meditation, which some people say can lead to some form of enlightenment, spiritual calm, and/or compassion for humanity, and instead it leads you to sum up those who don't follow your directions as "mindlessly scrolling, eating hamburgers and watching football" in a generally contemptuous screed.
That was not a reference to "those who don't follow your directions". As stated in OP's comment, it was clearly aimed at those who would outright laugh about these spiritual matters, simply because OP pointed out that such practices might also develop special abilities at some point. It's absolutely a fair remark.
anytime i read something like that i have to wonder: if it can make such a big difference, why can't i see that difference in the world? perhaps it really only goes as far as the child level party tricks. or perhaps psychic abilities don't really matter.
people interested in 'breathing' things.. let's recall a few basics.. Many humans are in different stages of life (age), of training (basic fitness), of capacity (the body you are in), and alertness (are you paying attention to things that matter?).
Breathing is a minute-to-minute vital life function. You can hurt yourself, perhaps seriously, with breathing changes. But wait -- holding your breathe is harmless and this is stupid that you warn me about it, one person wrote after a similar comment like this here on YNews. really? I don't know you but I guarantee you are not six years old right now.
Hold the breathe like a babe in arms, gently, with complete awareness... You tri-athletes, you too..
yes, I agree this is annoying to see Western Medicine "discover" this .. but please work with experienced people, not alone, not with a video or PDF from somewhere.. to health!
> Interestingly, those who felt the greatest boost in mood also experienced the biggest drop in heart rate variability.
A drop in HRV isn't generally good. So I check the paper, and found this:
> No significant changes were found in heart rate variability or resting heart rate over the course of the study in either of the groups (Figures 4C and 4D)
There was a reduction respiratory rate for those an increase in daily positive affect. Bottom line, unclear if this particular study points to a positive health outcome other than feeling happier.
Interestingly, change in respiratory rate was negatively correlated with change in daily positive affect (Figure S5; r = - 0.24, p < 0.05), suggesting that participants who showed the highest reduction in respiratory rate also showed the highest daily increase in positive affect over the course of the study (Figure S5).
Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?