5 minutes per day of structured breathing can improve your mood and lower stress, even better than meditation.

WHY IT MATTERS

Using breathwork to reduce stress and improve overall well-being has been used by humans for centuries. Not only is it completely free to use your breath to help improve your health, it is also very powerful! Learning to control your breath is a direct path to control what is called your autonomic nervous system. In other words, it can help you control parts of the body that seem automatic or uncontrollable, including your heart rate, stress response, nervous system, thermoregulation, and more.

Although for most of the day your breath should be smooth and rhythmical (see our first Controlling Your Breath blog post), there are reasons to take control of your breath in a meaningful way. This is what we call “breathwork,” and science has proven that intentionally utilizing specific breathing patterns produces more benefit to mood than passive attention to one’s breath, as in mindfulness meditation practice. Just 5 minutes per day of breathwork has been proven to lower blood pressure, reduce stress, improve mood, reduce frequency of sickness, and improve creativity, learning, and memory.

Improve your mood and reduce stress.

5 minutes per day of intentional breathwork not only has physiological effects while doing the breathing exercise, but research shows these mood boosting effects continue throughout the rest of the day. To get started, try these proven, powerful methods.

BOX BREATHING

Breathe in through your nose, hold, breathe out through your mouth, hold, and repeat. Use equal times for the inhale, both holds, and the exhale (i.e. 4 seconds each).

CYCLICAL PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGHING

Take two inhale breaths through your nose (breathe in through your nose, pause, and breathe in again) followed by a full exhale via your mouth to empty out your lungs. Hold your breath for 10-15 seconds with empty breath (longer if you can) then repeat.

Exhale through your mouth.

Try out these methods this month as a way to add rhythm into your everyday life!

Integrating movement with your current daily habits is one of the best ways to exercise without going to the gym, because it removes the barrier of time.

WHY IT MATTERS

Dr. BJ Fogg is founder of the Stanford Behavior Design Lab and the creator of the science behind Tiny Habits®. What he saw was that too many of us have been told that it takes drastic changes to make any real difference, but the science says just the opposite: small changes lead to the biggest impacts! So this month, we hone in on the power of using what Dr. Fogg has termed “tiny habits,” and our focus is to use this science to increase the amount of movement each day.

The “tiny habits” science says to take any new habit you want, and then scale it back so that it’s super tiny. In the case of wanting to read more, that might mean reading one paragraph. In the case of moving, it means doing movements so simple they seem almost too easy to fit into your day. The science says that more movement, even in small doses:

• Leads to better sleep, more energy, stronger muscles, less stress and a healthier heart
• Treats your brain to a bubble bath of neurochemicals, neurotransmitters, and endorphins, thus leaving you feeling better, more creative, and able to focus better
• Reduces anxiety and frustration while boosting your mood and improving your memory

Use tiny habits to make a big difference.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

STEP 1: IDENTIFY ROUTINE HABITS

This can be anything you frequently do throughout the day such as sending an email, brushing your teeth, or putting your shoes on to go to work.

STEP 2: IDENTIFY A SMALL MOVEMENT

This can be any movement that is appropriate for your environment (e.g. push up, squat, hamstring stretch).

STEP 3: COMBINE STEPS 1 AND 2

Every time you perform a daily activity from Step 1, perform a small movement from Step 2.

Keep the number of repetitions you do small (don’t increase over time) to ensure that you always do them. Over time, small changes make a big difference!

Scientific research has proven that the act of giving is a greater enhancer of mental wellbeing than any drug we’ve ever produced.

WHY IT MATTERS

A simple act of kindness completed regularly has been scientifically proven to produce more serotonin and dopamine throughout our bodies. Both of these are neurotransmitters – chemicals released by nerve cells to send signals to other nerve cells. And not only do they make us feel good, but they also enhance our ability to learn and absorb information. And it’s not just these two chemicals that kindness increases.

Science shows that simple acts of kindness:

• Increase oxytocin and induce a feeling of kindness
• Reduce cortisol and adrenal stress
• Eliminate signs of depression and anxiety
• Decrease pain through the release of endorphins
• Lower blood pressure
• Improve social relationships
• Reduce stress (which, by the way, also slows down our aging process)

Not only have acts of kindness been shown to improve heart health…

People who volunteer regularly – an excellent manifestation of kindness – had a “44% lower likelihood of dying early. This is a stronger effect than exercising four times a week!” (Carter, 2011)

Practice kindness.

PERFORM A SIMPLE ACT OF KINDNESS FOR ONE PERSON PER DAY!

A “simple act of kindness” is a simple, free, or inexpensive act that you do to spread a little kindness or brighten someone’s day. It can be a colleague, friend, family member, or stranger – the point is, it’s a selfless act.

Here are some of our favorites: when parking your car, leave a note on the car next to you saying that they did an amazing job at parking. Compliment the first two people you interact with today, or send a teacher a note saying how thankful you are for them. Post a positive review, smile genuinely at 5 strangers throughout your day, or pay for the next person in line. Donate old items or volunteer. It doesn’t have to take lots of time and money, the point is seeking out an opportunity to intentionally be kind…then doing it!

NOW DO THE SAME FOR YOURSELF!

Did you know that people are better at filling and properly administering prescription medication for their pets than themselves? In other words, we’re great at taking care of others, but often at the price of neglecting ourselves. Not even your pet thinks this is a good idea. So, extend the “simple act of kindness” to YOU by choosing to intentionally do something kind for yourself every day for the next 30 days.

This can be as simple as buying yourself that coffee you want…just because. It can also be high fiving yourself in the mirror first thing in the morning, sending yourself the same supportive message you’d send to a friend, or opening up time every day for yourself in the same way that you would for a friend who needed you. It also means finding ways to give yourself grace and a smile as you go throughout your daily life.

The happiness advantage from practicing gratitude.

There is something called the Tetris Effect (yes, named after the video game) that occurs when we consistently devote our time and attention to something, and then we start seeing that thing over and over again. You’ve experienced this if you’ve ever been shopping for a car. Maybe you’ve decided that you’re going to get a red vehicle, then suddenly you see red vehicles everywhere you go. What happened? Did everybody else have the same idea as you and beat you to the punch?

The answer is no; because of the time and attention you’ve focused on that attribute, your brain is now primed to be looking for those things, even at the subconscious level, and you’re suddenly spotting them everywhere So, what does all this have to do with happiness and gratitude? In its default state your brain is hardwired to constantly be looking for threats to your survival, and will constantly be doing so unless you prime it to do otherwise.

Happiness is at the peak of psychological health.

When our brains get stuck in a pattern that focuses on stress, negativity, and failure (as is our default) we set ourselves up to fail. The positive side of the Tetris Effect, though, actually teaches us how to retrain our brains to spot patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunity wherever we look. The way we can do this is by taking time to intentionally train our brains to start scanning the world for good things everyday. And the most amazing part? It only takes a couple of minutes each day to train our brains to do this!

WHY IT MATTERS

One of the best ways to kick start a positive Tetris Effect is to simply take time each day to write down 3 things you’re grateful for. In this two-minute span, if you continue this for 30 days in a row, research has shown benefits like:

• 31% increase in productivity and creativity;
• Stronger immune system and less sick days;
• Reduction in blood pressure;
• Improved cardiovascular health;
• Reduction in perceived stress and pain; and
• Enhanced mood and mental wellbeing!

Practice gratitude daily.

Rewire your brain in just 2 minutes per day with this gratitude exercise to become happier, healthier, and more efficient in all of your tasks. Each day write down 3 things you’re grateful for. They don’t have to be profound – it could be a good cup of coffee, the warmth of a sunny day, or listening to your favorite song. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as you write it down somewhere, whether in a notebook, on a napkin, or typed into your phone.

“We’re finding it’s not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.  And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational l and business outcome at the same time.” – Shawn Achor, happiness expert, international best-selling author, & Harvard professor

You have a superhuman power inside of every cell in your body, and this month we teach you how to begin to use it as we dive into harnessing the healing power of hormesis.

Which of the following do you think is true?

• To build muscle, you first have to tear muscle.
• To lower your body temperature, you first have to raise it.
• To make nerves grow, you first have to stress them.

The answer is: ALL of these statements are true. The reason is because your body is designed to come back stronger than it was before when it experiences acute levels of stress. This Herculean process of becoming more resilient in the face of stress is actually the default reaction of the body, and it is a well-studied phenomenon called hormesis.

This stress-induced process of resiliency evolved to enhance the survival of all animals. And through short, intense bouts of effort YOU can harness the power of hormesis!

Harness the power of hormesis.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

STEP 1

Pick a timeframe that you can commit to for physically “stressing yourself to heal yourself” three times each week. This should be a timeframe that is very easy to commit to. We recommend 10 minutes to get started.

STEP 2

Pick an activity you enjoy, and turn it into a hormesis workout! This means go really high intensity for a short time, then take a break. Our recommended start time is 30 seconds of an exercise followed by 30 seconds of rest. Repeat until your time is up, and you’re done!

STEP 3

Enjoy the scientifically backed benefits of short, intense bouts of exercise! Studies have shown that even 30 seconds of all-out bursts of exercise can lead to increases in athletic performance markers like aerobic capacity and peak power, and can lead to these changes in only two weeks! They can also help build lean mass and burn fat, including visceral fat. This is the amazing power of hormesis!

Come see us at one of our October events to learn more and get started!

“If we always choose comfort, we never learn the deepest capabilities of our mind or body.” – Wim Hof

Did you know that the 2017 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology was given to researchers who proved that every cell in the body has a circadian (daily) clock?

In other words, these researchers discovered that we all operate best and are at our healthiest when our bodies and minds find rhythm each day.

“For many years we have known that living organisms, including humans, have an internal, biological clock that helps them anticipate and adapt to the regular rhythm of the day,” said Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, the researchers who were able to peek inside our biological clock and elucidate its inner workings. “Our discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions.” – NobelPrize.org

The research from this Nobel Prize shows that our bodies and minds work at their optimum levels when the peripheral clocks in all of the cells of the body are synced well with the master clock in our brain through our daily behaviors.  More succinctly: they discovered that every cell in our body works best when we Add Rhythm to our lives.

That’s why this month, we are focusing on monthly challenges that Add Rhythm to your life and allow your body to restore itself to optimal health.

Challenge 1: Healthy Is a Sleep Date

Our “Healthy Is a Sleep Date” challenge teaches you how to create an optimal “warm-up” to achieve better sleep.

There is perhaps no behavior more powerful in syncing your daily rhythms than prioritizing quality sleep.  Take, for example, sleep’s drastic effect on something as important to your health as your immune system.

Sleep has substantial regulatory effects on the immune system. And it does so in a rhythmical manner. Circulating immune cells peak early in the night and then slowly make their way into lymphoid organs where they get to work ridding your body of virally infected cells. Lack of sleep for just one night not only reduces the ability of your body to fight current infections, but it can also reduce your natural killer (NK) cell count by 70%! That’s not good news, because NK cells – a type of white blood cells – help keep us safe from both acute diseases, like the cold and flu, as well as chronic diseases like cancer.

But, if you resume sleeping 7+ hours per night, then in just one night NK cell activity can return to its baseline level. Additionally, getting 7+ hours of quality sleep leading up to something like a flu shot can help you produce double the amount of antibodies, making the shot even more effective!

Sleep is critical for every major system in the body:

• Memory improves by over 60% after a good night’s sleep;
• body composition, weight, and your diabetic profile (your body’s ability to regulate glucose) are all negatively altered by less than 6 hours of sleep;
• muscle mass, testosterone, and growth hormone are all influenced by sleep; &
• your thyroid, adrenal hormones, & ultimately your entire hormone axis are all affected by your sleep patterns!

Challenge 2: Healthy Is 15 Minutes of “Me Time”

When was the last time you did something that allowed you to take a break and feel truly relaxed?

Taking time to do something relaxing and enjoyable for yourself is not just a “good idea,” it’s actually as important to your health as exercising, sleeping, and eating healthy.

A lot of us spend most of our day in fight or flight mode and releasing excess cortisol because we are responding to the many stressors that come our way each day. When cortisol levels from chronic stress stay very high for extended periods of time, research shows that:

• Risk of chronic disease, chronic inflammation, and immune dysfunction are all heightened.
• Muscular strength, energy levels, and sex drive are all negatively affected.
• Weight gain, inability to lose weight, and sleep disruption occur more often.

You can reverse these negative trends by activating a different part of your nervous system and de-stressing your body by adding rhythm with 15 minutes of “me time” every day.

Challenge 3: Healthy Is Spending Time in Nature

As cities have grown larger, our worlds have grown smaller; so small that we can do most of our work on a device that fits in our pockets. We are spending less time outdoors while experiencing more muscle aches, headaches, and increased stress with the demands of being available at all hours of the day.

Research shows that spending a little time each day surrounded by nature has been proven to improve mental health and boost your immune system. In fact, simply taking a walk in a park can reverse many of the effects of things like screen time and can give you other benefits such as:

• Boost your body’s natural immune system
• Improve creativity
• Reduce anxiety and depression
• Reduce mental fatigue
• Reduce the impact of stress
• Mitigate the impact of dementia, anxiety, and other mental health diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease

This month it’s time to get reattached to nature and adding rhythm to your life by implementing a dose of the “nature cure.”

Which one of these are you planning to implement this month? Come see us at one of our September events and let us know!