Everybody breathes, which is why it can be easy to ignore how important it is to your overall health and wellbeing (beyond the obvious supply of oxygen). In fact, learning about your breathing can be a very powerful tool for self awareness and stress relief. In this article we’ll talk about 5 things you might not know about your breathing and how once you do, it can have a huge positive impact on your mental and physical wellbeing.
- You can calm your mind and body with your breath.
- Your breathing reveals how you and others are feeling.
- Breathing is a powerful part of meditation.
- Your breathing affects how you sleep.
- You can reduce pain using just your breath.
It’s hard to imagine anybody who can’t benefit from some of these - but for most of us it’s all of them!
You can calm your mind and body with your breath.
When your grandma used to tell you to take a few deep breaths to calm down she was absolutely right. It’s not an outdated piece of advice - it’s well proven science about the body’s physiology. You see, the sense of being either stressed or calm is entirely controlled by a specific part of our nervous system called the autonomic nervous system. It has two branches, and depending on which once is activated depends on how we feel and how our body reacts. When something happens that we perceive as a threat our body lights up the “get stressed” side of this system and gets our body ready for action. A part of this response is making our breathing faster and shallower. There’s lots more to learn about this response but the bottom line is the science shows you can improve your mood and reduce your stress levels, using only your breath.
Your breathing reveals how you and others are feeling.
Poker players will know this one already so if you’re a professional Texas Holdem player skip this bit. As we just learned, the body reacts to the brain’s perception of something stressful in lots of different ways. The interesting thing is, you might not necessarily be conscious that your feeling that way - especially if you’re somebody who deals with a lot of stressful situations. Paying attention to your breathing speed and depth at regular intervals throughout the day is a great way to consciously “tune in” to this subconscious system. When you notice your breathing is shallow and fast it’s time to take a moment and reset your nervous system with some conscious breathing. When you get really good at this - you can even notice it in others which helps build your empathy skills - or a good poker player!
Breathing is a powerful part of meditation.
If you’ve never meditated it’s common to think it’s about trying to “empty your mind” - but that’s not it at all. Emptying your mind is impossible - that doesn’t even happen while you’re asleep! In fact, mindfulness meditation is actually about tuning into your thoughts and building an observational awareness of them. So, rather than being at their mercy you can practise letting them go and returning your focus to something singular. And what’s more perfect for that singular focus point than your breathing? It’s right there with you whenever you need it. If you combine this with an element of consciously deepening your breathing, perhaps with the help of meditation tools such as Luma³, Headspace or Calm, it can have a profound effect on how you feel both short term (calmer body) and long term (calmer mind).
Your breathing affects how you sleep.
Ever noticed how a stressful day often leads to a restless night? It's not a coincidence. If we don’t help our nervous system calm down before we go to sleep at night, those stressed breathing patterns can continue through the night. This can prevent your body and brain getting the most restorative sleep. The good news is there’s two ways we can use our breath to combat this. Firstly, by taking regular breaks during the day to stop, check in, notice your breath and breathe deeply we become better at resetting our nervous system and give our brain time to process some of what has happened during the day. Secondly, before bed make sure to take some time away from other sources of stimulation (yes, this means your phone!) and do the same - perhaps with an extended breathing exercise.
You can reduce pain using just your breath
Yep, you read that right, using only your breath you can reduce pain. Slow, deep breathing techniques, where the out-breath is significantly longer than the in-breath, such as the 4-7-8 technique have been shown to reduce pain intensity and unpleasantness in both experimental and clinical settings. If you’ve been through labour giving birth this one probably make complete sense to you - it’s one of the reasons why you practise your breathing so much in the run up to having a baby. But of course - it’s not limited to child birth. You can use your breath to reduce pain at any time in any place.
Tools for feeling less stressed
Isn’t it incredible to think that something as seemingly simple as how you breathe can have so many positive and powerful effects on how you think and feel. It’s why we do what we do and spend so long building our wellbeing products and helping to educate children and adults about the power of breathwork. If you’re interested in learning the best breathing techniques for stress relief then check out our Luma³ products in our store.
