Email Apnea (day 77)

An unexpected find today had be smiling all the way to the bus stop.  I was listening to the Spark podcast of November 3rd (which is a great one btw, two longer interviews both on fascinating topics).  Nora interviewed Linda Stone who coined the term 'email apnea' to refer to the lack or shallow breath that happens when we are anticipating the next email, tweet, or txt.  This is wonderfully in line with the investigation in the Breath I/O project.    This is an excerpt from our grant application:

We have chosen to work with lungs as a visceral representation of personal interior space that is in a direct relationship of exchange with the environment. Even more directly than the heart, the lungs are a link to life and health. They offer the first clue to the quality of the surrounding environment, and breathing patterns are in a reciprocal relationship with emotional states. With these traits in mind, sounds and image streams are added to the environment of the lungs to mimic our modern situation of being surrounded and sometimes overwhelmed with images and sounds. Our relationship with media sources competing for our attention is often one of unconscious ingesting in a constant search for meaning, connection, diversion. This can be compared to shallow breathing where the body is forgotten and left to react to a starving mental state. Conversely, images and sounds may bring attention to the body by matching its rhythm or otherwise bringing the mind out of its usual patterns, triggering curiosity or calm attention. This can be compared to deep mindful breathing. Breath I/O intends to investigate the individual and collective act of apprehending media spaces as it relates to personal history and the physical body.

I was so happy to hear/read Linda Stone talk about her breathing practice and how she noticed that when she sat down in front of the computer her breath became shallow and sometimes stopped.  She has since studied the phenomenon and how it relates to the sympathetic nervous system.  She has written an article about this in the Huffington Post and this is an excerpt from her interview with Nora Young (starts at about 28 minutes into the podcast).

...email apnea means...temporary cessation of breath or shallow breathing in front of any screen it could be a computer screen it could be a television set it could be a mobile device.  ...with anticipation most mammals humans most certainly do a sharp intake of breath like that and so between the inhale not exhaling because of our posture we were breath holding and many people think of breathing really as an inhale take a deep breath and they go but the really most important part of breathing is the exhale...There are a number of things that begin to happen when you cumulatively over time shallow breathe or breath hold the first is that it kicks sometimes low level sometimes not so low level flight or fight stress response.  The part of the autonomic nervous system that is all about flight or fight is the sympathetic nervous system so this breath holding up regulates or really activates the sympathetic nervous system sending us into flight or fight.  A few things happen when we're in fight or flight.  The part of our brain that creates habit is activated, it blooms so to speak. and we become more compulsive in all our bevaviours and I'm sure that we've experienced and those listening can recognize gee I just can't stop texting or I just can't stop checking my email.  It activates actually the part of our brain that compulsively behaves.

The interview is really interesting and I highly recommend hearing it in its entirety.  I completely relates to what she is saying and I would love to integrate some of the thinking into the Breath I/O project, particularly integrating some of the sounds of our devices that call us to immediate attention: the small chirp of TweetDeck, the trill of the iPhone when a new txt comes in, the ding dong of a new email.  The moment where there is nothing happening and we wait for it like a kid anticipating the movement of a monster in the closet.  Or we stop waiting for it and turn on the light and look everywhere.   For me the sounds are much more evocative of what she is talking about than the actual content of the information that is constantly pouring in.  It would be great to bring the affect of that anticipation into the chorus of lungs.

A song for this post.