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> We’ve become conditioned to breathe too much, just as we’ve been conditioned to eat too much. How is one conditioned to breathe too much? We eat too much bec

> We’ve become conditioned to breathe too much, just as we’ve been conditioned to eat too much. How is one conditioned to breathe too much? We eat too much because there is so much available to us and it's engineered (by trial and error) to be as delicious as possible. That has not been done to air.

abendy 6y ago
> people with anxieties or other fear-based conditions typically will breathe way too much. So what happens when you breathe that much is you're constantly putting yourself into a state of stress. So you're stimulating that sympathetic side of the nervous system https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/27/862963172/how-the-lost-art-of-breathing-can-impact-sleep-and-resilience https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/27/8629631... > you can over breathe when people at a gym or when people are jogging you see them really going to get the maximum amount of oxygen in that's not what is happening to your body so you are offloading the co2 by offloading too much co2 you're causing constriction in your circulation https://youtu.be/zWQxNoqKE6E?t=786 https://youtu.be/zWQxNoqKE6E?t=786
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  That first one feels very chicken and egg - if you're anxious your sympathetic nervous system is going without the breathing. Can breath be used to relax you? Absolutely, but that's as much about focusing the brain on the breathing instead of the anxious thoughts as anything else.
  - betenoire 6y ago
    Anxiety is irrational. addressing your physical symptoms in the moment is FAR superior to being introspective. Save that for your personal retrospective after the anxiety subsides.
  - jerf 6y ago
    It's a reasonably well established principle of psychology (real science, not pop-sci) that a surprising amount of what you perceive to be your emotional state is mediated through your body. That is, you experience a stressor, so the "low level" portions of your brain activate bodily reactions to that stress, and what your high-level brain perceives as stress is actually the bodily reaction rather than the original stressor. Exerting such control as you can on your body (since it is non-zero, but not total either) is a legitimate way to control your (perceived) emotional state, which then feeds back into the entire system. (This also factors in to how hard it is for some people to figure out why they are stressed; the part of the brain trying to work that out isn't necessarily as connected to the stressor as you might intuitively think.) I've been having some low-level morning sleep paralysis lately (it has come and gone my entire life, & it has never been remotely as bad as I've heard some people describe); recently I've discovered an easy way out of it is to just hold my breath (or really, just stop inhaling), which triggers just enough stress to break through the paralysis. YMMV.
    - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
      I had sleep paralysis as a child once in a while (which isn't uncommon), but as an adult I only get it after a period where when I've consumed cannabis with some regularity, then stopped. It may or may not apply to you, but my friends that have sleep paralysis say this anecdote holds true for them as well.
      - monadgonad 6y ago
        Similarly, I get it if I've been drinking a few days in a row, then stop. Both of these drugs suppress REM sleep so my theory is that the sleep paralysis is a rebound effect.
  - james_s_tayler 6y ago
    Breathing is directly connected to the autonomic nervous system. Inhaling activates your sympathetic nervous system speeding up your heart rate and increasing the amount of electrodermal activity in your skin. Exhaling activates the parasympathetic nervous system slowing down your heart rate and decreasing the amount of electrodermal activity in your skin. You can measure it with HRV and skin conductance sensors.
  - ycombinete 6y ago
    I went snorkelling for the first time, in Mauritius. Flat water, no fear to speak of. But I was breathing incorrectly through the snorkel. Which one does the first time they snorkel. Overly deep, heavy breaths. Suddenly my heart was racing, and I went into a panic. It felt like I couldn’t breath at all. I started hyperventilating, breathed in some water, and started to get tetany which of course made everything worse. This was all brought on by my breathing wrong. Not out of stress. Simply because the snorkel messed with my normal rhythm, and caused accidental hyperventilation.
- maroonblazer 6y ago
  I heard Nestor's interview with Joe Rogan, was intrigued and I decided to try it on my runs (~7 miles 2-3x per week), where I typically breathe through my mouth. While running I breathed exclusively through my nose. My expectation was that I wouldn't be able to sustain it for the entire duration of the run. Surprisingly I was able to. Overall I felt less winded that I typically do when breathing through my mouth. I thought my overall pace and/or avg heartbeat might be slower when breathing nasally but, according to my activity tracker, that's not the case. The other thing I noticed is that the 'runner's high' I typically get after a run was somewhat muted when breathing nasally. I'd love to see more research in this area. I wonder if I'm depriving my brain of needed oxygen or if there are benefits to getting more CO2 than usual.
  - lostmyoldone 6y ago
    I never get runners high, but have always attributed that to me just being weird, as usual. Ever sunce I was little I have a habit, reflex, or whatever one should call it, to breath quite slowly and deliberately during any extended exercise. Never thought it could be related, but maybe it is?
- metrokoi 6y ago
  This concept that people breath too much when exercising never really made sense to me. I generally do believe it because I have experienced it myself, but why would the body default to a less effective form of breathing? Shouldn't we feel that breathing more steadily through our nose is more natural than trying to take big gulps of air when running?
throwaway_USD 6y ago
Probably something to do with shallow breathing so you inhale and exhale more often the one should without maximizing oxygen intake per breathe nor efficiently regulating oxygen/co2.
- martindbp 6y ago
  But how could we be "conditioned" to breath in a certain way? It reads like a conspiracy to me but maybe that's not what they meant? To me, breathing is a highly personal thing, I doubt there is any outside force able to change how we breathe for the worse. I just don't see the attack vector. We breathe how we feel we need to breathe.
  - wolco 6y ago
    The idea is to control breathe for different affects. "We breathe how we feel we need to breathe". The key word is feel. Change your breathe change the way you feel
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    >But how could we be "conditioned" to breath in a certain way? bad posture, overweight, too little exercise, too much stress. Not much of a stretch to think that the behaviour that gives countless of people snoring, backpain, or high BP may also negatively effect how we breathe.
  - vl 6y ago
    Same way as you can walk or run in a harmful way, it maybe that the way you are breathing is sub-optimal.
hourislate 6y ago
Mouth breathing or chest breathing. When you breath from your chest you take more breaths and if it is through your mouth you often over oxygenate. When breathing (normal) it's important to use the nose to both inhale and exhale. It helps regulate the amount of oxygen you take in (keeps your mouth from getting dry). You should also try to breath from your abdomen/stomach instead of your chest. Abdominal breathing creates a stronger respiratory system and core where chest breathing creates a weaker one (my observations).
glxxyz 6y ago
It's the corporations, and big Pharma, and the Pentaverate.
- dcj 6y ago
  Big Air
  - james_s_tayler 6y ago
    I miss the 90s and early 2000s where Big Air was just about extreme sports. Hahaha.
chefandy 6y ago
> We eat too much because there is so much available to us and it's engineered (by trial and error) to be as delicious as possible. People's reasons for consuming more calories than they expend are orders of magnitude more complex than that.
tumetab1 6y ago
Mimicing others growing up. We know that even adults mimics each others breathing patterns, I think it's safe to assume a baby/child will try to mimic parents/care takers breathing patterns.

abendy 6y ago

> people with anxieties or other fear-based conditions typically will breathe way too much. So what happens when you breathe that much is you're constantly putting yourself into a state of stress. So you're stimulating that sympathetic side of the nervous system https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/27/862963172/how-the-lost-art-of-breathing-can-impact-sleep-and-resilience https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/27/8629631... > you can over breathe when people at a gym or when people are jogging you see them really going to get the maximum amount of oxygen in that's not what is happening to your body so you are offloading the co2 by offloading too much co2 you're causing constriction in your circulation https://youtu.be/zWQxNoqKE6E?t=786 https://youtu.be/zWQxNoqKE6E?t=786

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
That first one feels very chicken and egg - if you're anxious your sympathetic nervous system is going without the breathing. Can breath be used to relax you? Absolutely, but that's as much about focusing the brain on the breathing instead of the anxious thoughts as anything else.
- betenoire 6y ago
  Anxiety is irrational. addressing your physical symptoms in the moment is FAR superior to being introspective. Save that for your personal retrospective after the anxiety subsides.
- jerf 6y ago
  It's a reasonably well established principle of psychology (real science, not pop-sci) that a surprising amount of what you perceive to be your emotional state is mediated through your body. That is, you experience a stressor, so the "low level" portions of your brain activate bodily reactions to that stress, and what your high-level brain perceives as stress is actually the bodily reaction rather than the original stressor. Exerting such control as you can on your body (since it is non-zero, but not total either) is a legitimate way to control your (perceived) emotional state, which then feeds back into the entire system. (This also factors in to how hard it is for some people to figure out why they are stressed; the part of the brain trying to work that out isn't necessarily as connected to the stressor as you might intuitively think.) I've been having some low-level morning sleep paralysis lately (it has come and gone my entire life, & it has never been remotely as bad as I've heard some people describe); recently I've discovered an easy way out of it is to just hold my breath (or really, just stop inhaling), which triggers just enough stress to break through the paralysis. YMMV.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
    I had sleep paralysis as a child once in a while (which isn't uncommon), but as an adult I only get it after a period where when I've consumed cannabis with some regularity, then stopped. It may or may not apply to you, but my friends that have sleep paralysis say this anecdote holds true for them as well.
    - monadgonad 6y ago
      Similarly, I get it if I've been drinking a few days in a row, then stop. Both of these drugs suppress REM sleep so my theory is that the sleep paralysis is a rebound effect.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  Breathing is directly connected to the autonomic nervous system. Inhaling activates your sympathetic nervous system speeding up your heart rate and increasing the amount of electrodermal activity in your skin. Exhaling activates the parasympathetic nervous system slowing down your heart rate and decreasing the amount of electrodermal activity in your skin. You can measure it with HRV and skin conductance sensors.
- ycombinete 6y ago
  I went snorkelling for the first time, in Mauritius. Flat water, no fear to speak of. But I was breathing incorrectly through the snorkel. Which one does the first time they snorkel. Overly deep, heavy breaths. Suddenly my heart was racing, and I went into a panic. It felt like I couldn’t breath at all. I started hyperventilating, breathed in some water, and started to get tetany which of course made everything worse. This was all brought on by my breathing wrong. Not out of stress. Simply because the snorkel messed with my normal rhythm, and caused accidental hyperventilation.
maroonblazer 6y ago
I heard Nestor's interview with Joe Rogan, was intrigued and I decided to try it on my runs (~7 miles 2-3x per week), where I typically breathe through my mouth. While running I breathed exclusively through my nose. My expectation was that I wouldn't be able to sustain it for the entire duration of the run. Surprisingly I was able to. Overall I felt less winded that I typically do when breathing through my mouth. I thought my overall pace and/or avg heartbeat might be slower when breathing nasally but, according to my activity tracker, that's not the case. The other thing I noticed is that the 'runner's high' I typically get after a run was somewhat muted when breathing nasally. I'd love to see more research in this area. I wonder if I'm depriving my brain of needed oxygen or if there are benefits to getting more CO2 than usual.
- lostmyoldone 6y ago
  I never get runners high, but have always attributed that to me just being weird, as usual. Ever sunce I was little I have a habit, reflex, or whatever one should call it, to breath quite slowly and deliberately during any extended exercise. Never thought it could be related, but maybe it is?
metrokoi 6y ago
This concept that people breath too much when exercising never really made sense to me. I generally do believe it because I have experienced it myself, but why would the body default to a less effective form of breathing? Shouldn't we feel that breathing more steadily through our nose is more natural than trying to take big gulps of air when running?

throwaway_USD 6y ago

Probably something to do with shallow breathing so you inhale and exhale more often the one should without maximizing oxygen intake per breathe nor efficiently regulating oxygen/co2.

martindbp 6y ago
But how could we be "conditioned" to breath in a certain way? It reads like a conspiracy to me but maybe that's not what they meant? To me, breathing is a highly personal thing, I doubt there is any outside force able to change how we breathe for the worse. I just don't see the attack vector. We breathe how we feel we need to breathe.
- wolco 6y ago
  The idea is to control breathe for different affects. "We breathe how we feel we need to breathe". The key word is feel. Change your breathe change the way you feel
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >But how could we be "conditioned" to breath in a certain way? bad posture, overweight, too little exercise, too much stress. Not much of a stretch to think that the behaviour that gives countless of people snoring, backpain, or high BP may also negatively effect how we breathe.
- vl 6y ago
  Same way as you can walk or run in a harmful way, it maybe that the way you are breathing is sub-optimal.

hourislate 6y ago

Mouth breathing or chest breathing. When you breath from your chest you take more breaths and if it is through your mouth you often over oxygenate. When breathing (normal) it's important to use the nose to both inhale and exhale. It helps regulate the amount of oxygen you take in (keeps your mouth from getting dry). You should also try to breath from your abdomen/stomach instead of your chest. Abdominal breathing creates a stronger respiratory system and core where chest breathing creates a weaker one (my observations).

glxxyz 6y ago

It's the corporations, and big Pharma, and the Pentaverate.

dcj 6y ago
Big Air
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  I miss the 90s and early 2000s where Big Air was just about extreme sports. Hahaha.

chefandy 6y ago

> We eat too much because there is so much available to us and it's engineered (by trial and error) to be as delicious as possible. People's reasons for consuming more calories than they expend are orders of magnitude more complex than that.

tumetab1 6y ago

Mimicing others growing up. We know that even adults mimics each others breathing patterns, I think it's safe to assume a baby/child will try to mimic parents/care takers breathing patterns.