HitPoint Health Weekly: 5/7 .Strandberg*, Breathwork, Music recovery and more

Good morning everyone, and happy Sunday! I know that you'll have a great start to the week. And I hope that this email finds you well, and helps you get there.

Stuff I did this week:

.Strandberg*

This week, I spent too much money on my dream music set-up. I have been playing guitar since I was a kid, off and on. Ever since I have seen the headless guitars years ago, I've always wanted one but they were way out of my price range. And realistically, they still are, at far over $1,000. But one of my friends put his up for sale and gave me a good deal on it, and I have one now.

Playing it has reinvigorated my love for music. It feels like butter when playing it, and makes me want to learn how to navigate the neck like the back of my hand. I've never really been great at music theory, but I have always wanted to learn. I've always wanted to play jazz with the best of them, being able to hear a 2-5-1 progression in whatever key I am, throw some 7ths onto fancy cord voicings and sound like a neo-soul prodigy.

So that's what I'm going to do. This year I am going to use this new purchase to teach myself music theory, to the best of my ability. I'll keep you updated on this new skill journey! It really does seem like learning a new language. It isn't easy for a theory beginner. But I know that I can do it and understand it.

If you take anything away from this week's newsletter, it's to never stop learning new skills, and right now is the best time to learn skills that you've always wanted to learn. Why not?

You can do anything that you put your mind to.

Breathwork

When dropping all of that money on this thing that I've always wanted, it still made me feel uneasy. Big purchases that aren't necessary always make me feel that way. I suppose that it's a good defense mechanism to overspending but at the same time, life is meant to be enjoyed.

Something that I do to regulate this stress during uncertain times is breathwork. I also utilize meditation and tapping, but breathwork, and yoga Nidra are my favorite tools, and the most powerful for me, personally. But when feeling anxious or stressed out, breathwork tends to work wonders.

When using breathwork in the style of Wim Hof, or breathwork that is designed to be invigorating, it can use that anxious energy and turn it into something powerful. Energy can be transformed, and this is especially true with anxious energy. This energy is already close to excitement in frequency, and breathwork is the perfect tool to get it to where you want it to go.

The Wim Hof style of breathing, and similar energizing breathwork styles, seen in apps such as Othership (phenomenal app by the way) utilize a deep inhale and short exhale to increase oxygen uptake into the body, and then long breath holds to have that oxygen circulate while you calm your mind. It's a potent 1-2 combo.

My personal favorite of this breathwork style is the morning one that is available for free in there Othership app. I highly recommend trying it out to start your day, or when you aren't feeling 100% or energized.

Fire Emblem Engage

I've played through this one on hard classic, and I loved it. The difficulty curve, the new character introduction flow, the flow of combat and the use of rings, it all felt clean and optimized. I got this game on release date, and played through it then, and returned to it to check out some of the DLC, which was great, but at the same time I felt that it took away a little bit of the overall challenge, particularly in missions with limited amounts of emblem rings available.

Either way, if you are into fun and challenging strategy gameplay, of course I would recommend Fire Emblem, it is considered the gold standard in the genre. And while I personally prefer Three Houses in almost every way (other than perhaps tightness and balance of gameplay), Fire Emblem Engage is definitely worth the pickup, if you haven't got it already! Something to play when you get exhausted of exploring in the new Zelda game soon. I'm not sure how possible that is however.

Weekly Recommendations

Music recovery

Above, I discussed my love for music and creating it. But did you know that there is some evidence to suggest that listening to music not only can enhance your workout in the process, but can continue to have benefits post workout? Yeah, a study from a few years ago in the journal of medicine and science in sports and exercise, shows that there are both psychological and psychophysiological benefits to listening to relaxing and recuperating music after a hard workout session.

As someone who works out regularly and relies on heavy hardcore to hit my numbers, utilizing relaxing music post workout seemed something I wouldn't want to do. I want to ride that hardcore train until my heart rate gets back to normal. But trying it once or twice, I do think that there is something to it, as several studies have suggested.

Glucose Revolution

I'm sure that you're aware by now if the importance of regulating your glucose, spikes and insulin. It seems to be one of the factors connected to almost all aspects of disease and I'll health.

This book, by Jessie Inchauspie goes into detail about regulation of blood sugar, strategies to get it under control, and the importance of doing so. It's fasci hearing statistics about insulin resistance, glucose, and the how it correlates to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and neurogenitive diseases. Many of the basics covered in this book have been covered in books such as Metabolical, Ben Bikman's Why We Get Sick, and in Peter Attia's Outlive.

But just because it has been covered before doesn't mean that there is no new and important information to be had here. A lot of it goes into detail about the importance of monitoring your glucose to ensure that the "curve" is as flat as possible. Jessie asserts that the flatter your glucose levels are, the least amount of spikes possible, leads to better overall health. And this is something that I have been coming to agree with, and one of the reasons I consider myself to be a relative advocate for a keto diet. Although I don't think it's right all the time, nor is it right for everyone, a keto diet can be a good catalyst for positive health changes.

Retinol

I'm sure that you've heard that taking vitamin A is good for your eyes and skin. But the form that is in the vast majority of supplements is in the form of carotenoids, which our bodies are supposed to convert into Retinol. The problem with that, like many other nonconverted forms of nutrients, is that our bodies don't make Retinol very easy from the carotenoids in these supplements.

It's interesting, you wouldn't think that something as essential and common as vitamin A would make a difference in energy and brain function, but after I added daily retinol supplements to my routine, I've noticed an increase in energy and more balanced energy. I would recommend taking all of the fat soluble vitamins together in the morning, these being A, D, E and K. For most of these, it's hard to have too much and easy to have too little. And they're generally inexpensive!

That's it for this week! Thanks for reading as always, I really do appreciate it.

Hope that the rest of your week is good, and that something great comes your way.

Thanks again,

Matt, HitPoint Health.

Some sources, and further reading this week:

Karageorghis, C., Bruce, A., Pottratz, S., Stevens, R., Bigliassi, M., & Hamer, M. (2018). Psychological and Psychophysiological Effects of Recuperative Music Postexercise. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

Ben Bikman: Why We Get Sick. I think that this book is available for free on Audible. Very worth the listen!