Tag: book

  • Why How You Breathe Matters More Than You Think: Lessons from James Nestor’s Book “Breath”

    Why How You Breathe Matters More Than You Think: Lessons from James Nestor’s Book “Breath”

    Most of us think breathing is just something that happens. You do it 25,000 times a day, so you must be an expert, right?

    by the time you finish reading this short article, you will have taken about 40 to 60 breaths without even realizing it. Like a computer program running in the background, your breathing stays on “autopilot” while you focus on your phone or your coffee.

    We rarely stop to check the quality of those breaths. But it turns out that how you breathe might be just as important as what you eat or how you lift.

    James Nestor’s book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is full of insights and if you like this article you should get the book. Here are the big ideas that stood out to me:

    1. The Belly Breath

    Most adults only use a tiny bit of their diaphragm (the muscle under your lungs). When you take shallow breaths, your heart has to work twice as hard. By taking deeper breaths, focusing on expanding into your belly, you let your diaphragm do the heavy lifting, which lowers your blood pressure and gives your heart a break.

    2. We Are “Over-Breathing”

    Just like you can over-eat, you can over-breathe. Taking too many quick, shallow breaths keeps your body in a “stress” mode. The goal is to breathe less but better.

    3. The 5.5 Second Rule

    If you want the “perfect breath,” here is the math:

    • Inhale for 5.5 seconds.
    • Exhale for 5.5 seconds.

    That’s about 5.5 breaths per minute. Nestor points out that this isn’t a new discovery; humans have been doing this for thousands of years through prayer and chanting.Whether it’s the Catholic Rosary, the Buddhist mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum,” or Native American and African spiritual chants, they all seem to land roughly on this 5.5-second rhythm.

    4. Breath Through Your Nose, Not Your Mouth

    Your nose is a filter and a heater; your mouth is just a backup. Breathing through your nose releases a gas called Nitric Oxide that helps your blood carry more oxygen, it also helps you sleep better. Excessive mouth breathing can lead to a lot of poor health outcomes.

    5. Why Our Jaws are Shrinking

    Modern food is too soft. Because we don’t chew “hard” things anymore, our jaws have become smaller over generations. This makes our airways narrower, leading to crooked teeth and snoring. Chewing—and breathing through your nose—helps keep your airway open.

    6. Exhaling is Half the Battle

    Many people focus on getting air in, but the real problem is often getting the “stale” air out. If you don’t exhale fully, you leave old air in your lungs, which makes it harder to get fresh oxygen on the next breath.

    If you want to live longer, don’t just worry about your step count and calories, start paying attention to your breath. Breathe slow, breathe deep, and keep your mouth shut.

  • My Top Takeaways from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

    My Top Takeaways from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

    This book is packed with absolute bangers. Eric Jorgenson curated a collection of wisdom from entrepreneur and philosopher Naval Ravikant. He has a way of stripping away the noise of modern life until only the fundamental truths remain. What you’re about to read is just a tiny fraction of the insights that actually resonated with me—the “greatest hits” that changed how I look at my time, my work, and my head.

    I’ve organized these takeaways into three main pillars, like the actual book is organized: Wealth, Happiness, and Philosophy & Learning. But keep in mind, this is just a highlight reel. If these ideas spark something for you, do yourself a favor and get the full book. It’s stated better, deeper, and more completely there. Consider this the appetizer; the book is the feast.

    Wealth

    • Financial freedom comes from owning equity not renting out your time: If you’re working for someone else they will only pay you the bare minimum required to keep you doing the job and you can only work so much. You must own equity – a piece of a business – to gain wealth. Owning equity will enable you to earn money while you sleep.
    • Cultivate specific knowledge to become irreplaceable: Specific knowledge is knowledge that cannot be trained for. If it’s something that can be taught and trained for, you can be replaced by someone else or automation. You find this knowledge by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion, it should feel like play to you but look like work to others.
    • Pursue permissionless leverage: Labor and capital are traditional forms of leverage, but in the world we live in today code and media are forms of leverage that have no marginal cost of replication. Unlike hiring more people or raising money, these tools are permissionless. You don’t need anyone’s approval to write a book, record a podcast, or write code that works for you 24/7.

    Happiness

    • Think of Happiness as the default state that emerges when you remove the sense that something is missing: Happiness is a skill that can be learned and a choice only you can make. When you stop your mind from running into the past to regret or the future to plan you achieve the internal silence of being content.
    • Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want: Choose your desires carefully, ideally limit yourself to one specific desire at a time rather than bucket of fuzzy ideas.
    • Life is a single player game: Society encourages us to play “multi-player” competitive games for status and money. Your interpretations, memories, and feelings are all internal with no external progress or validation. You are only competing against your previous self.

    Philosophy & Learning

    • Read what you love until you love to read: Many people don’t enjoy reading because they were forced to read things that didn’t interest them in school, to fix this you should read things that interest you and follow your curiosity. If you truly do this you’ll end up reading a lot and hopefully love reading eventually.
    • Master the skill of knowing how to learn: In an evolving world where professions can become obsolete overnight the most important skill is knowing how to learn. focus on the basic foundational subjects, arithmetic, logic, science, and philosophy. With a good foundation you can read any book and absorb advanced concepts as needed.
    • No one else can do the work for you: Doctors won’t make you healthy, teachers won’t make you smart, and mentors won’t make you rich. You must take responsibility for your own life. Start by prioritizing your physical health above everything else, “peace of body” makes it much easier to achieve “peace of mind”.