ANXIETY

I’m a life-long learner and am constantly listening to or reading about ways we can improve our health and live our best lives. There’s a lot of information out there to wade through, so I’m excited to be able to share something that I’ve come across, and then further researched that strikes me as something that is simple and easy to access to help you live a better life. 

Today I wanted to touch on the topic of anxiety.  Billions of people world-wide suffer from anxiety and while there are a plethora and wide variety of options to treat it, this landscape can often become overwhelming….. leaving the anxiety sufferer with more questions than answers. 

I am going to share with you today two, zero cost tools that have been studied to reduce anxiety symptoms up to 65% in real time.  I will give credit to Dr. Andrew Huberman at the Huberman Lab podcast as I learned about these techniques while listening to his podcast. 

The first is what is referred to as the physiologic sigh.  Dr. Huberman runs a neuroscience lab at Stanford University and they studied the physiologic sigh.  The physiologic sigh consists of a long inhale through the nose and then a second quick inhale followed be an extended exhale through the mouth.  In Dr. Huberman’s study they found this breathwork technique to be more effective than mindfulness meditation at reducing respiratory rate and more effective in enhancing mood and affect.  There are several Youtube videos explaining this technique and how to perform it correctly including a 5-minuite guided session with Dr. Huberman.  https://youtu.be/P2rg7c0EQoE?si=hmAAmH-tnv2KocPt   

The second tool is a specific song entitled Weightless by Marconi Union https://youtu.be/UfcAVejslrU?si=DH6FzxymCpt6er58   This specific song was found in one study to reduce the anxiety and stress by an impressive 65% when tested against other similar songs resulting in this song being referred to as the world’s most relaxing song.  Another study tested the effectiveness of Weightless to reduce in anxiety in preoperative patients against the widely prescribed sedative, midazolam.  Both interventions were equally effective in reducing anxiety, but Weightless had to distinct advantage of no side effects.  One additional study showed significant improvements in sleep metrics with listening to this song.  You can find free downloads of this song on the internet including a continuous 10-hour version.  I personally find listening to this song to be very relaxing indeed!

Thanks and I hope you now have a few actionable tools at your disposal to help alleviate stress and anxiety! Stay tuned for my next post arriving soon!

Dr. Scott