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Why slowing your breathing helps you relax
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Frequency of breath
Even though we have been breathing for all our lives, we can still learn a lot about this most basic instinct.
Quick, shallow, and unfocused breathing may contribute to anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. However, scientists find that around six exhalations a minute can be restorative, triggering a relaxation response in the brain and body.
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Breathwork
Breathwork is not the same as mindfulness. Mindfulness involves passive observation of the breath, whereas breathwork requires you to actively change the way you breathe.
Breathwork includes ensuring you breath with your diaphragm, rather than the movement of your chest. It will fill your lungs with more air while also slowing the pace of your breathing.
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Speed ramp to relaxation
Right breathing can have a profound effect on calming the mind quickly and can act as a speed ramp into the meditation practice by getting you to that place of no-thought.
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Slow breathing benefits
Slow breathing is a quick and easy way to change your state, whether it is to decrease stress or increase your energy and focus, or even in creative problem-solving. Other science-backed benefits include:
- There is a short-term reduction in blood pressure after guided, slow breathing exercises.
- It can alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety.
- It appears to help relieve insomnia.
- It can improve people’s management of pain.
- It can help patients cope with chronic conditions like arthritis.
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Key Ideas
Breathing exercises
Breathing is at the core of ancient (and currently trendy) mindfulness practices, from yoga and tai chi to meditation.
However, studies suggest that breathing exercises alone, derived from...
Deep, controlled breathing
It involves filling the lungs to the max and goes by various names like belly or diaphragmatic breathing.
It has been linked to improved cognitive performance, lower stress levels, and lower blood pressure.
Breathing and yoga
Central to ancient Hindu philosophy was prana, described as vital “airs” or “energies” flowing through the body. Stemming from that belief, yoga was built on pranayama or breath retention.
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Key Ideas
Sama Vritti or “Equal Breathing”
How it’s done: Inhale for a count of 4, then exhale for a count of 4, all through the nose, which adds a natural resistance to the breath. Once you manage it, you can go up to a c...
Abdominal Breathing Technique
When it works best: Before an exam, or any stressful event.
Nadi Shodhana or “Alternate Nostril Breathing”
How it’s done: Starting in a comfortable meditative pose, hold the right thumb over the right nostril and inhale deeply through the left nostril. At the peak of inhalation, close off the left nostril with the ring finger, then exhale through the right nostril. Continue the pattern, inhaling through the right nostril, closing it off with the right thumb and exhaling through the left nostril.
When it works best: Crunch time, or whenever it’s time to focus or energize.
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DRAFTS
The Importance Of Breathing Techniques
- Many different civilizations have practiced different breathing techniques as a part of their culture and their lifestyles, such as Taoists and Hindus.
- Proper breathing a...
The Special Power Of Breathing
- The power of breathing is evident with people who have breathing disorders. As emotions affect our well-being, so does our breathing.
- Our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems are in control of producing feelings of calmness and the latter, the body's rapid involuntary response to stressful situations.
- Many studies have confirmed the effects of breathing techniques against anxiety, stress, and insomnia. Although they do not disappear entirely, it helps alleviate their symptoms.
Cardiac Coherence
- It is a popular technique that promotes relaxation by coordinating our breathing, slowly and steadily, with our heart rate, stabilizing the heartbeat.
- There are many versions to cardiac coherence: 5-second inhale-exhale for a 5-minute repetition or 4-second inhale 6-second exhale cycle.
- Cardiac coherence’s stabilization of the heartbeat can dampen anxiety powerfully.