🌬️ Field Notes 38: Strength training for breathing
Plus, the best novel I've read in years, a free Global Joy Summit happening now, a reminder of how little habits can lead to radical change
Hello, friends! This is Field Notes, the Wednesday version of the Odyssey of the Body newsletter with a collection of interesting things for you related to health. I hope you find something useful in here today. The leaves have escaped the trees up here in the Hudson Valley, and the rolling mountains are dull brown and gray. We got our first dusting of snow last night. I’m feeling the shift in my body, too, and working to help make the transition to winter easier. I made bone broth this week and made it to the gym to move for 30 minutes. What are you doing to help yourself with this transition?
1 health insight
Lowering your blood pressure is on ongoing concern for many people, so I was intrigued to read about a study that examined how strength training for your breathing muscles can help.
What is strength training for your breathing?
It’s basically breathing that is purposefully made harder, by breathing through a device designed to create resistance. And just a little bit makes a noticeable difference, research shows.
“We found that doing 30 resisted breaths per day for six weeks will lower systolic blood pressure by about 9 millimeters mercury [for men, 4 for women]. And those reductions are at least as large as what we see with conventional aerobic exercise, like walking, running or cycling,” study author Dr. Daniel Craighead, an exercise physiologist at the University of Colorado, told NPR.
His research team tested a device PowerBreathe, which looks similar in size to an asthma inhaler and can be adjusted to increase the resistance. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
(Also, did you catch how Dr. Craighead compared the fall in blood pressure through the 30 resisted breaths to “at least as large as what we see with conventional aerobic exercise, like walking, running or cycling”? That sneaky reminder that along with medications and devices, just moving in ways that get your heart pumping are scientifically shown to lower blood pressure, too.)
Read the story or listen to the audio from NPR.
2 quotes
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.” — James Clear in Atomic Habits
“I think of joy as something like what it is that kind of emanates from our tethers between us when we hold each other … this experience of joy makes us never in isolation.”
— author and poet Ross Gay at the Global Joy Summit
3 links
🍬 What Are Sugar Alcohols? (The New York Times; gift link from me to you) Have you ever wondered what mannitol, xylitol, or sorbitol are? Turns out they are “sugar alcohols” but they are not sugar or alcohol. What? This article clears up at least some of the confusion.
📚 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — One of the best novels I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s a story of friendship, of working together, of creativity, of misunderstandings, so much more.
🧡 The Global Joy Summit — This four-day (FREE) online series of talks and workshops is inspired by The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmund Tutu, who were close friends. The summit features an amazing assortment of speakers, including the Dalai Lama himself, Tara Brach, Ross Gay, David Whyte, Kelly McGongial, and dozens more. It’s already underway, but you can still watch a lot of the videos today and tomorrow. Learn more and sign up here.
Have you run across something lately related to living a healthy and thriving life that made you go, Huh, or Hmm, or Interesting…. ? I’d love to hear about it. You can email me anytime at brianne@daybreaknotes.com or comment below.
I hope you have a wonderful November ahead.
To our journeys,
Brianne
I have used Anders Olsen's "relaxator" device in the past for restrictive breathing exercises ( https://www.consciousbreathing.com/product/relaxator/ )