Breathe In, Drink Up
Take a deep breath and drink a glass of water before you read this
Among the things that we take for granted, breath and hydration figure somewhere right at the upper end. The body is good at signalling to the brain when it is low on water or oxygen(or for that matter, pretty much anything else), but we tend to misinterpret these signals. A common mistake is that we confuse thirst for hunger and satiate ourselves with unnecessary snacking. The issue with breathing is worse. A completely involuntary activity that runs in the background, we never pay enough attention to the patterns and quality of breathing. Oxygen deficiency in the blood stream often shows up as headaches to start with — this is not an excuse to pop that aspirin.
Let’s start with water. An average adult needs to consume about 2 litres of water a day. The problem though is that few keep track of it at all. I’ve tried the 8 glasses of water a day hack, but I usually lose count by glass 5. Or was that glass 6? I don’t know.
The habit I incorporated into my day yesterday was to drink half a litre of water on an empty stomach in the morning. This wasn’t too alien to me, I’ve practised this many times in the past — just not with a good level of consistency. Here’s the idea though — if I cover 25% of my daily required intake even before my day has begun, my target for the duration of the day is more manageable. Not to mention the benefits of flushing your body with water, first thing in the morning.
Breath factored in after I stumbled upon Wim Hof again. I’d first heard about Wim over a year ago, when he was popularised as the Ice Man. Surprisingly enough, despite my voracious appetite for podcasts, Wim’s was one that I never listened to at the time. His name has popped up over the course of the last year in a few more podcasts/shows and if you don’t know who Wim is or what he does, I’d wholeheartedly recommend getting to know this amazing person through this documentary or this podcast. (You may also read the footnote on this post for a summarised intro to Wim.)
What I did pick up from Wim yesterday was the importance of breathing deep consciously and how a simple act like that can completely turn your body’s chemistry on its head and supercharge you. I began with a simple target — 25 counts of deep, conscious inhaling and exhaling first thing after I wake up every day. Takes about 2–3 minutes, but your brain jumps into a higher gear. Trust me, kids, oxygen is the best drug for optimal performance!
In ritualising my consumption of water and conscious breathing, I am eliminating the inconsistency of my intake of water and oxygen. Do you know of any better ways to make drinking water and breathing consciously a habitual part of your day?
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Footnote: Wim Hof is one of the most interesting people alive — the man is usually found submerged neck deep in a vat of ice, or swimming under ice sheets formed on oceans for an incredible distance on a single breath, or being injected with toxic E. coli and having his immune system miraculously wipe it out in less than a quarter of an hour (for the sake of research!), or running barefoot marathons in the Polar ice caps, or pretty much any other weird thing that you would absolutely not do even if someone paid you to do it. His wikipedia describes him as a Daredevil but he’s so much more than that. His seemingly superhuman techniques have been researched extensively by scientists and they have backed many of his intuitively derived theories with the evidence they’ve acquired.
PS: I woke up at 6:00 AM again today, probably owing to the fact that I slept at 12:00 AM last night. My body is not completely on board with rising early, but the incremental difference is positive enough so far.
