Nutrition Nugget! Bite-sized bonus episodes offer tips, tricks and approachable science. This week, Jenn is talking about Senobi breathing, a Japanese breathing technique that headlines are claiming can help you lose weight. The buzz is based on a 2010 study from Japan that found some pretty compelling hormonal and body-composition changes in participants who practiced this simple one-minute exercise three times a day. Could a few deep breaths in a specific posture really shift your metabolism, activate your nervous system, and burn body fat? Jenn digs into the actual study, breaks down what Senobi breathing is, why it might work, and what the science does and does not actually tell us. She sees the intrigue, but does she buy it? Like what you're hearing? Be sure to check out the full-length episodes of new releases every Wednesday. Have an idea for a nutrition nugget? Submit it here: https://asaladwithasideoffries.com/index.php/contact/
KEYWORDS: Jenn Trepeck, Nutrition Nugget, Salad With A Side Of Fries, Health Tips, Wellness Tips, Breathwork and Metabolism, Senobi Breathing Weight Loss, Senobi Breathing, Breathing Technique For Weight Loss, Japanese Breathing Exercise, Sympathetic Nervous System, Parasympathetic Nervous System, Fight Or Flight Response, Noradrenaline, Breathwork And Metabolism, Deep Breathing Benefits, Nervous System Balance, Body Fat Percentage, BMI, Stress Response, Rest And Digest, Brown Fat Activation, Basal Metabolic Rate, Posture And Metabolism, Thoracic Spine Breathing, Scapula Position, Breathing Before Meals, Habit Stacking, Eustress, Good Stress, Heart Rate Variability, Urinary Hormone Secretion, Estradiol, Growth Hormone, Abdominal Breathing, Chest Opening, Weight Loss Tips, Natural Weight Loss, Hormone Balance, Wellness Podcast, Nutrition Nugget, Breathing Exercises For Women, Metabolic Health, Mind Body Connection, Stress And Weight Gain, Breathing And Cortisol, Women Over 40 Weight Loss, Japanese Breathing Exercise For Weight Loss Women Over 40, Does Senobi Breathing Help Lose Body Fat
Transcripts
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[00:00:27] Have you heard of this one? So I'm not totally sure why it's resurfacing now, because the study was from back in 2010. But anyway, headlines are saying that Sonobe breathing helps you lose weight. And so I heard that, I made a note, and you know, I skipped the article. I went directly back to the study. So this was 2010.
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[00:01:19] In their abstract it says, "After one minute of Sonobe breathing, substantial upregulation of sympathetic nerve activity and increased urinary hormone secretion was observed in the overweight women, but none in the healthy controls." We'll talk more about the controls thing in a second. It says, "Moreover, after repeating the exercise for a month, the obese patients showed a significant loss of body fat.
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[00:02:11] So admittedly, this is intriguing. So let's start with understanding, like, what Sonobe breathing is, and then we can go back to some of the details of the study to assess where this leaves us. So Sonobe breathing is a Japanese breathing technique. To do it, you stand with your feet, like, hips width apart, you extend your arms overhead And then lean back.
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[00:03:01] So it's 10 seconds per breath. You do that three times, that's 30 seconds. Then you stand up again and you do the second type of Sonobe breathing where you basically do the same thing, but this time your fingers, instead of your arms being straight up, you intertwine your fingers and turn your palms toward the sky or toward the ceiling.
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[00:03:51] So essentially the breathing and the posture activate the nervous system. And we've talked about this many times. So the sympathetic nervous system is fight or [00:04:00] flight. That's your stress response. Noradrenaline, which they saw upregulated increase in the study participants, noradrenaline upregulates the fight or flight response, which they say tends to be lower in those with high body fat percentage.
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[00:04:53] And what I've seen in some research, and we talked about this, I think it was in our triggers episodes, where our system can [00:05:00] almost get stuck in that stress response, that we don't move through it. We sort of live in it. And I wonder if that's what they're talking about, whereby increasing the noradrenaline helps us move through the stress response and then that breathing, the open chest, helps us then come down the other side of that stress response and reactivate the rest and digest.
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[00:05:55] So they also talk about the posture of the [00:06:00] stretch can also improve posture. Those with poor posture tend to have a lower basal metabolic rate. So they talk about the arm posture and the two different hand positions that change the location of the scapula, so that's your shoulder blades. So changing that hand position changes where the shoulder blades are sitting on your back, and that forces breathing from the abdomen and then from the thoracic spine with those two different hand postures, and they believe that this may activate the brown fat that's often sort of in that spinal area.
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[00:07:19] So do we really have a control group of people with the same BMI and body fat percentage not doing some of these things? We have zero information about what they ate, what exercise they did, what other things any of the participants did over the 30 days. And the thing, I said this before, but the thing about upregulating the sympathetic nervous system may be to me that, you know, we have to move through that fight or flight response, and that that may have an impact on our metabolism.
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[00:08:33] There was one from Pakistan in 2022, but I couldn't find the results of the study. I could only find where they designed the study of what they said they would do. So with that, like I said, I think it's intriguing. While I wouldn't put 100% of my belief in it, I also think a few deep breaths a couple times a day isn't gonna [00:09:00] hurt us, right?
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[00:09:23] As always, everybody, I'm your host, Jenn Trepeck. Connect with me on Instagram or all social media. I'm @jenntrepeck, J-E-N-N-T-R-E-P-E-C-K. Website is asaladwithasideoffries.com. Pick your platform, send a message. I truly love hearing from you. Abby Sharp, thank you, thank you again for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
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[00:10:01] You'll get this week's recipe for the Mediterranean bowls that are high protein, high fiber, quality fat all together. Well, friends, that's it for today's episode of Salad with a Side of Fries. Congratulations for making yourself and your health a priority. Thanks so much for joining us. Be sure to click subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform.
