If you are a person who cannot exercise vigorously, or at times when you cannot exercise, another good way to increase oxygen to your brain is with deep breathing. Deep breathing is a great way to oxygenate your blood and brain. And as you will see below in Step # 4 on Stress Management, it has a very potent mood-elevating effect, Although this is often taught in conjunction with yoga, crossing your legs and saying Ohmmmm are optional. One of the most effective forms of breathing is called SKY breathing. Learn more about it’s benefits and where to obtain training in the SKY breathing technique under Just Breath in Step # 4 on Stress Management below.
Almost any strategy that will slow and deepen your breathing may help. For example, simply counting to four while you breathe in, and again counting to four while you breathe out, can slow your breathing. Around 6 breaths a minute seems to be an effective pace.
Also it’s helpful to breathe from deep down using your diaphragm, rather than using just the top of your lungs. It may help to imagine you have a balloon in your tummy, that expands as you breathe in and count to four, and deflates as you breathe out and count to four. Simply doing a dozen or so repetitions of this deep breathing can do much to reduce the tension in your body, and oxygenate your brain!
Sitting or Standing Which Is Best For Your Body & Brain?
From Advanced Bionutritionals
You've probably heard all the advice about how sitting is bad for you. You may have even heard those slogans like "sitting is the new smoking" and "stand more, sit less."
It all sounds great. But until recently there wasn't any actual research proving it was true.
Well, a team of researchers did a study to find out. They tracked 83,000 adults wearing activity monitors to measure exactly how much time they spent sitting, standing, and moving. Then, they tracked the health of the participants for 7 years to see what really mattered. As you'd expect, sitting around all day isn't great for your health. If you sit more than 10 hours, you increase your risk of heart problems [and likely cognitive issues, since brain health is closely tied to cardio vascular health].
In fact, every extra 30 minutes of sitting increases your risk of heart [and likely cognitive] problems by 15%!
But that's not all. Every extra 30 minutes of sitting also raises your risk of orthostatic issues by 26%. That means your blood pressure can drop when you stand, which can make you dizzy, lightheaded, or even blur your vision. [That low of blood pressure is correlated with confusion and other brain issues.]
Even more surprising: Standing for more than 2 hours a day is also bad for you. Every extra 30 minutes of standing increases your risk of heart and orthostatic issues by 11%. So if you have a standing desk and you stand for 4 hours, you've just increased your risk by a whopping 44%!
Bottom line: don't just swap standing for sitting. Instead, make sure you get plenty of movement throughout the day. "Stand more, sit less" is a nice slogan. But the correct advice should be "Sit less, move more."
Ok, but what about those confined to a wheel chair, or otherwise unable to walk?
"Move what you can, when you can" seems to be the advice for that population. If one cannot move their legs, they can move their arms. If you can't move either, hopefully you can find some muscle groups that you can move, otherwise, it's back to breathing. See notes above. (Amazingly, some who are quadriplegic seem to be able to compensate for that, like Stephen Hawking, who, although seriously physically handicapped, was able to keep his brain in excellent shape, likely through persistent active use.
