You Gotta Hear About This Wellness Trend
What if you could feel less anxiety, sleep better, and have more energy? Is your answer to buy a bushel of kale? Hop on the Peloton bike trend? Test intermittent fasting? Relax in an infrared sauna? Those all have their merits, but there’s a superior solution. In fact, it’s how you lose weight.
You guessed it…breath!
According to Ruben Meerman¹, “If you lose 10 pounds of fat, precisely 8.4 pounds comes out through your lungs and the remaining 1.6 pounds turns into water. In other words, nearly all the weight we lose is exhaled.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/health/lose-weight-where-does-it-go-partner/index.html
Be honest: did you guess breath? Breath likely wasn’t top of mind because it’s an automatic process occurring in the background of your life, like a white noise machine that’s always connected to you. Since you can’t see it, suboptimal breathing is not easily recognizable like a skin breakout or weight gain.
Unfortunately, many people are affected by poor breathing in today’s world. Ineffective breathing patterns arise from poor posture, injuries, anxiety, stress, pollution, sedentary lifestyle, and more.
Poor breathing puts you at a higher risk for heart disease, cognitive problems, low energy, hypertension, digestive issues, muscle tension, and difficulty sleeping. If you’ve ever gone running and had painfully sore calves the next day making it difficult to walk, the same effect can happen if your breathing muscles are tight. And if this persists over months and year, your body unfortunately, adapts to this poor pattern.
Proper breathing is practical and advantageous in the same vein as walking; it’s curious why you don’t hear about it more in the media–except when you remember it’s free. It’s hard to sell a subscription breathing plan service, straight to your door, for only $49.99 a month (albeit I’m sure it’s been considered in Silicon Valley).
Breathing is the only voluntary and involuntary function of our body². A voluntary action is lifting your hands, and an involuntary action is sneezing (although some people hold in and control their sneeze; which is both unsatisfying and ill-advised). The respiratory center in the brainstem is responsible for controlling a person’s breathing rate. It sends a message to the respiratory muscles telling them when to breathe⁴.
Cartoon by Toons
Luckily through voluntary exercises, you can alter your involuntary breathing habits and reap halo benefits from your respiratory system improvements.
A Breath of Fresh Air
Breathing was both the problem and solution for me. Until stress lured me onto a yoga mat several years ago, my knowledge of breath was as insufficient as my breathing patterns themselves. Despite contorting my body in strange and unfamiliar yoga postures on a slick mat, befuddling me the most was the teacher instructing us to engage our ujjayi breath throwing out phrases like “breath into your back ribs” and “constrict your breath as if you’re steaming up a mirror.”
Yoga Expectations vs. Reality by Adriana Rodríguez León
In yoga, Pranayama is known as life force or breathing and is the quickest and most effective way to change your state. Eventually, this would hit home. There is a direct connection between the ‘prana’ or energy of breathing and its effects on energy liberation in the body. Cellular metabolism (reactions in the cell to produce energy) for example, is regulated by oxygen provided during breathing⁴.
I pursued my yoga practice which launched my meditation practice of simply observing my inhales and exhales. Simply used here lightly (fellow meditators will understand). Through yoga, meditation, and breath books, my view on breathing had drastically evolved.
I now grasped the power of proper breathing.
According to Dr. Belisa Vranich, in her book Breathe, how well you breathe is the best indicator of how healthy you are and how long you’ll live. “If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip,” says Dr. Andrew Weil², “it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.”
Given all of the conflicting health advice plastered on Instagram, I appreciate this sweeping statement but if you’re still unconvinced take it from Dr. Arthur C. Guyton, “All chronic pain, suffering, and disease are caused by the lack of oxygen at the cell level…proper breathing nourishes the cells of the body with oxygen, and optimizes the functioning of the body on all levels.”
By doing breathing exercises, I discovered I’m a subtle hyper-ventilator and ever so faintly hold my breath in times of stress. Which in our always-on digital world is often. The irony was my stress was causing hyperventilation which was causing anxiety³.
Performing repetitive breathing exercises, and taping my lips with paper tape at night (yes, you read that correctly), I have improved my breathing and reaped positive effects in reducing stress, wiping out 3:00 am involuntary wake-ups, staying calm in tough situations, increasing workout stamina, and eliminating my Austin allergies.
Breathe A Sigh
We hold our breath in fear, labor our breathing in lovemaking, and sigh our breath in sadness. Our breath is a barometer of our emotional state. Def Leopard captured the connection between emotions and breath in his song Breath A Sigh, “Just a little bit of lettin’ go, yea, I don’t want you to know, I wanna cry, But I breathe a sigh.”
In The Breathing Book, renowned yoga expert Donna Farhi says “Everything you do, the pace you keep, the feelings you have, and the choices you make are influenced by the rhythmic metronome of your breath.”
Gasp…Anatomy Is Fun
Now that the benefits are laid out, when is the last time you thought about the mechanics of breathing? If you’re like me, a refresher is needed.
1. Inhale
When you breathe in, your lungs fill with air, and your diaphragm flattens and lowers to make more room for your lungs to fully expand, and your ribs and abdomen to push out if done correctly. With more space, the pressure in the atmosphere exceeds the pressure in the chest and air flows inside to balance these pressures. Think of your rib cage as a bucket with handles that raise up and out as you lift.
2. Exhale
When you breathe out, your belly contracts and your diaphragm rises. Your rib cage closes in and down. The diaphragm and external intercostal muscles relax, restoring the thoracic cavity to its smaller volume, forcing air out of the lungs into the atmosphere.
Pause for a few moments and take 3 breaths. What do you notice? Are your exhales short and choppy? Do you breath from the chest?
Here’s a visual of this process from the Yoga Dork:
Dome-shaped, the diaphragm muscle is responsible for 75% of all respiratory effort and is as critical as the heart but severely underrated (side note, I’m a fan of the psoas muscle).
However, there’s more than your diaphragm helping you to breath. The intercostal muscles wrap up and around your ribs, like a lattice pie crust, which aid in expanding and contracting your ribs. Your outer core helps control your posture and movement.
Understanding and visualizing the process that occurs for each breath day after day fills me with appreciation for the human body.
Take My Breath Away
From sleeping soundly to erasing seasonal allergies to being calmer and a better public speaker, the benefits I’ve experienced have transformed many areas of my life.
What will you gain from healthier breathing?
Hopefully, you’re finishing this article aware of your breath and the impact is has on your emotional health, energy, sleep, digestion, cardiovascular system, and more.
Get my next post in this series on How To Breathe Correctly distilling expert knowledge from Breathe, The Breathing Book, and The Oxygen Advantage which will include exercises to identify and enhance your breathing patterns.
What did you learn about your breathing? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
One Final Breath
Before we go, here’s a few fun facts to flaunt your newfound breathing knowledge with your friends.
True or False:
Breathing can’t improve the way you feel
The diaphragm is the only dome in your body.
You breath to lose weight.
Your nasal cavity cools down your breath before it travels to your lungs.
Taking a deep breath out of the mouth is good for you.
You take about 8,000,000 breathes a year.
Getting up during the night to urinate is most likely due to breathing with the mouth open.
If the lungs were open flat they would cover the size of a tennis court
The lungs are the only organs in the human body to float on water.
Men breathe at a faster rate than women.
Follow me below to catch the next post in the breath series: “How To Breathe Correctly”
Answers:
False. Slowing down your breath activates your parasympathetic reaction calming you down.
False, there are two more in the throat and pelvis.
True, you paid attention. Awesome TedX explanation on this topic.
False, it warms it up.
False, more to come on this in the next post.
True.
True.
True
True
False, women breathe faster than men on average.
References:
¹: https://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/body-mind-spirit/stress-anxiety/breathing-an-introduction/
²: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/health/lose-weight-where-does-it-go-partner/index.html
³:http://www.journalofosteopathicmedicine.com/article/S1443-8461(04)80007-8/abstract
⁴: https://alchemicalbody.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/the-science-of-breathing/
⁵: https://www.amazon.com/Breathe-Revolutionary-Program-Improve-Physical/dp/1250106427
