IDENTIFYING THE MOST POTENT & TIME EFFICIENT STRESS REDUCING & MOOD ENHANCING PRACTICES Recently, my laboratory @stanford.med published a study in @cellpress testing brief (5 min daily) practices for reducing stress, improving sleep and heart rate variability and mood. We compared five minutes daily of either mindfulness meditation, or breath work. We also compared different breathwork practices to each other: 1) Box Breathing (equal timing for inhale-hold-exhale-hold). 2) Cyclic Physiological Sighing (two nasal inhales to lungs full, followed by a full exhale to lungs empty, via the mouth). 3) Cyclic Hyperventilation (deep nasal inhale and mouth exhales for 25 cycles, followed by 15-30 sec breath holds with lungs empty; then repeat). There are a lot of data in the paper. The reference is below. But in short, five minutes a day of cyclic sighing was the most effective practice for improving mood and various aspects of physiological arousal around the clock (not just during the breathing practice) and it assists sleep and heart rate variability and more. If you’re interested in potent stress reduction practices these zero cost methods can help. The full paper is free to access if you want to learn more about the physiology of breathwork and meditation and why they work and which are most effective. Special thanks to my lab members and collaborators @stanford.med for your contributions to the study! www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(22)00474-8 Please put your questions in the comments section below this post and as always, thank you for your interest in science! @hubermanlab @stanford.med @stanford @nihgov @nimhgov @nih_nccih @societyforneuroscience @cellpress #neuroscience #science #ciencia #neurociencia #neuroplasticity #stress #breathwork #autonomic #hormones #sleep #health #adaptogens #mood #mentalhealth #physicalhealth #heartratevariability