If you were going to do a breathwork practice, first of all, you don't need more than five minutes per day. If you were going to select one breathwork practice, cyclic sighing, this double inhales followed by exhales for 5 minutes a day, seems to have the greatest positive effect on the greatest number of parameters.
play_arrow
stop
Stanford Studies During COVID Determined Cyclic Sighing as the Most Effective Breathwork Practice
If one is feeling stressed, or I should just say more alert, than one would like to be under any conditions, physiological sighs are, at least to my knowledge, the fastest way to bring down that level of alertness. And again, it's a full inhale through the nose as deeply as you possibly can, and then sneak in a little bit more air at the top... and then a long exhale until basically you have no more air to exhale.
play_arrow
stop
Psychological Sighs Decrease Stress & Alertness, Often Enhancing Performance
I do think that the information that we consume sets the internal context of our subconscious and sets the internal context for what we decide to do consciously. And in many ways, it's sort of, like, garbage in, garbage out. And if it's positive stories and inspiration in, that's how you're basically going to react in the world.
play_arrow
stop
Information Consumption Affects Your Subconscious, Influencing Actions
There's a lot of data to support the fact that getting as much bright light in your eyes throughout the day, provided it is not painfully bright, is excellent for your wakefulness mechanisms and even for the mechanisms of the brain and body that control metabolism and feeding, mood, and well-being.
play_arrow
stop
Viewing Sunlight After Waking Kicks Off a Cascade of Hormonal Events
What I would suggest for people that experience moderate seasonal depression would be to really emphasize trying to get as much bright light in your eyes as you can outside and, if appropriate, there's a study out of Israel that shows that exposing as much of your bodily surface to light actually can be useful, too.
play_arrow
stop
Two Hours of Upper-Body Sunlight Exposure Improves Hormonal Health, Mood, & Metabolism
First of all, a couple sort of myths or pseudo-myths to eliminate: The first thing is that we are very good at splitting our attention. Humans can multitask. All old-world primates have what's called covert attention. I can look at you and have a conversation with you, and I can attend to the glass just to the right of my right hand, so I can split my attention into two cones.
play_arrow
stop
Humans Can Multitask; All Old-World Primates Have Covert Attention
Memory and recall for material that's consumed on a phone is much lower than on the written page.
play_arrow
stop
Reading on a Smartphone Inhibits Psychological Sighs, Preventing Recall
One of the hardest things to do is to calibrate one's consumption of social media or any kind of high-potency information. If you think about it, this is the first time in human history that you can scroll through 50 movies in one minute.
play_arrow
stop
For Nervous System Benefits, Andrew Recommends Setting Social Media Constraints
There are a whole set of things that shift workers suffer from: digestive issues, mental health issues, they're prone to more cardiac events and suicides. I mean, it's obvious that shift work, especially swing shift work where people are alternating their schedule pretty frequently is extremely detrimental to brain and body.
play_arrow
stop
Shift Work Adversely Affects Digestive & Mental Health
Dopamine is very strongly regulated by seasonality in a lot of animals ... When days are short and nights are long, levels of dopamine are reduced.
play_arrow
stop
The Dopamine & Melatonin Systems Are Regulated By Seasonality
Even brief 20-minute periods of resting or napping after a learning bout can greatly accelerate the neural plasticity process.
play_arrow
stop
20 Minutes of Napping or Yoga Nidra After a Learning Bout Accelerates Neural Plasticity
Anytime you're learning something, it pays to have random intervals in which you stop and do nothing.
play_arrow
stop
Gap Effects: When Learning, Stop & Do Nothing at Random Intervals
I think the current numbers are somewhere between 10 and 11% of young folks are now diagnosed with ADHD, and I think that's probably accurate.
play_arrow
stop
Humans Can Multitask; All Old-World Primates Have Covert Attention
It's commonly thought that people with ADHD cannot focus, but that's simply not true. If they are engaged in something they really care about or like, they can focus very intensely.
play_arrow
stop
ADHD Drugs Increase Dopamine, Narrowing the Visual Window & Enhancing Focus
Some people who have trouble with attention, especially while reading, are finding it very beneficial to listen to audiobooks while actually reading the book.
play_arrow
stop
Reading & Listening to a Book Simultaneously Can Improve Focus
I've personally found hypnosis to be very valuable for enhancing my ability to get into sleep and for any time I'm dealing with a problem that I can't seem to solve simply by talking, running, and a couple good night's sleep...
play_arrow
stop
Hypnosis Is a State of Deep Calm, High Focus, & Limited Context
Relief from trauma, in some way or another, almost always involves deliberately bringing oneself back into the state of mind and body that occurred during the trauma. As horrible as that might seem, avoiding that seems to be an issue.
play_arrow
stop
Re-Experiencing the State of Mind That Occurred During Trauma Is Essential for Relief
If ever there was a truth in neuroscience, it's that the nervous system can change in response to experience. The more heightened or critical that experience is the faster, the faster those changes are going to occur.
play_arrow
stop
Wanna Change Your Self-Percetion? It Starts With Action
