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blog by Chuck Thompson, June 2009, in Men's Journal. To improve your athletic performance and to feel clearer all the time, start with the most fundamental act of life. Excerpt: "We all come into the world with the ability to take full, unencumbered breaths, but as we get older we forget how to breathe properly," says Don Campbell, a journalist turned wellness expert who champions a new movement among doctors and athletes known as "conscious breathing." A host of challenges conspire against our breathing well, Campbell says: "Poor posture, restrictive clothing, bad habits such as smoking, diets that lead to high blood pressure and racing hearts, increasingly rapid and emotionally stressful lives, lack of exercise, multitasking, polluted environments, and slouching in front of computers are just a few of the things that literally take our breath away, creating a lifestyle that's incongruent with proper breathing." Modern life causes the average person to use about a third of his natural lung capacity, while drawing about 15 breaths a minute." Breathing exercises: Relearn How To Breathe Do this exercise five times a day and you'll start thinking and performing better in no time: 1. Inhale deeply 2. Exhale with a short burst (as if blowing out a candle). This helps activate your diaphragm, which most people don't use. 3. Exhale with a long, slow finish to empty the lungs. Breathlessness comes from not expelling enough CO2. 4. Inhale, filling your lungs from the bottom to the top, instead of taking short sips. Most use a third of their lung capacity. 5. Hold for a moment to allow oxygen to saturate the cells. 6. Exhale slowly and completely. 7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 for five minutes. Read more: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/you-re-breathing-all-wrong-20130227#ixzz2t8BfTHcj Follow us: @mensjournal on Twitter | MensJournal on Facebook

Linda Stone's key blog in Huffington Post on "Just Breathe: Building the Case for Email Apnea", 2/8/2008 Excerpt: Now I want to know: Is it only the Big Mac that makes us fat? Or, are we more obese and diabetic because of a combination of holding our breath off and on all day and then failing to move when our bodies have prepared us to do so? Can fifteen minutes of diaphragmatic breathing before a meal tune us in to when we're full? If, when we're doing sedentary work, and O2, CO2, and NO are optimally balanced, through healthy breathing, will we escape the ravages of an always-on sympathetic nervous system? Can daily breathing exercises contribute to helping reduce asthma, ADD, depression, obesity, and a host of other stress-related conditions? I predict, within the next 5 to 7 years, breathing exercises will be a significant part of every fitness regime. In the meantime, why not breathe while doing email? Awareness is the first step toward wiping out email apnea! *Email apnea - a temporary absence or suspension of breathing, or shallow breathing, while doing email (Linda Stone, February 2008)

Updated blog post by Linda Stone on screen and email apnea, Huffington Post, May 7, 2012. Eighty percent of us seem to have it. I broke the story about it in early 2008 on the Huffington Post, and called the phenomenon, "email apnea." Later in 2008, in talks and interviews, I referred to it interchangeably as "email apnea" and also, as "screen apnea." Definition: Shallow breathing or breath holding while doing email, or while working or playing in front of a screen. Excerpt: Recently, researchers, Gloria Mark, Stephen Voida, and Anthony Cardello, have made headway into formally validating the impact of email, using HRV. Why are we doing this? Our posture is often compromised, especially when we use laptops and smartphones. Arms forward, shoulders forward, we sit in a position where it's impossible to get a healthy and full inhale and exhale. Further, anticipation is generally accompanied by an inhale -- and email, texting, and viewing television shows generally includes a significant dose of anticipation. Meanwhile, the full exhale rarely follows. The stress-related physiology of email apnea or screen apnea is described in some detail in my 2008 post, linked to above. What's the remedy? A new way of interacting with technologies that I call: Conscious Computing. Technologies like the Heartmath emWave2, Huffington Post's GPS for the Soul, and a variety of optimal breathing techniques, can support us in using technologies in healthier ways. Instead of sending an email, call or walk over to your colleague's office. And there's always that other possibility: every now and then, just turn everything off. When you text or use email on your smartphone, when you check and respond to your email, are you breathing or do you hold your breath? Is it worse when you're using a laptop vs. an iPad? How might you incorporate some of the remedies?

Video of the Breath of Joy, the yoga breath that Jacklyn had us do at the IFWE conference.

website on using breathing to get healthier, smarter, more accomplished, etc. Has good links to other interesting and seemingly valid sources.

Digital Overload? article in Entrepreneurship/Technology, NYT, by Jessica Kraft, July 20, 2012. new apps to relieve digital stress by helping us learn how to maintain better breathing habits and achieve healthier life balance

Linda Stone's blog, April 20, 2012. Runs something called The Attention Project. New terms: conscious computing, email and screen apnea, continuous partial attention Excerpt: "Thirty years ago, personal computing technologies created a revolution in personal productivity, supporting a value on self-expression, output and efficiency. The personal communications technology era that followed the era of personal productivity amplified accessibility and responsiveness. Personal technologies have served us well as prosthetics for the mind, in service of thinking and doing. Our focus has been on technologies as prosthetics for the mind, and human-as-machine style productivity. This has led to burn-out, poor health, poor sleep, and what I call email apnea or screen apnea. We wonder where our attention has gone. Turns out, it's right where we left it - with our ability to breathe fully. We can use personal technologies that are prosthetics for our beings, to enhance our lives. I call this Conscious Computing. We can use technology to help enable Conscious Computing, or we can find it on our own, through attending to how we feel. For advice from a musician on how to do Conscious Computing, I interviewed the organist, Cameron Carpenter. Conscious Computing with the help of passive, ambient, non-invasive Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology is poised to take off over the next few years. It has the potential to help all of us learn the skills that musicians, athletes and dancers have, that immunizes them from email apnea."

interesting blog post by Dina Spector, 11/3/2011, on a survey of 8,000 young people on how important internet access is to them. Excerpt: A new study by Cisco Systems reveals that one in three college students and young professionals under 30 believe the Internet is as important as air, water, food, and shelter (via CNNMoney). The study, which polled 8,000 people in 14 countries, found that more than half of the participants said they could not live without the Internet, citing it as "more important than owning a car, dating, and going to parties." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-cisco-poll-2011-11#ixzz2t86UUkO7

Bog post by Denise Alvarez, 9/23/14 on revamping in-house publication and importance of reflection. "It's important to take a moment to reflect. As YPs in the association world, we're given many opportunities to revamp or re-create materials, programs, and more. It's a great idea to take a moment after the project is complete to breathe and enjoy the finished product. See what you learned from the process and be sure to tell yourself "Well done!" when you hit the nail on the head."

Love this cogent blog post by Jonathan Rees on why MOOCs are failing --because people need the social supports of learning online or in the classroom. published November 15, 2013.