Every day you take between 17,000 and 30,000 breaths (1). You have been doing this since you took your very first breath on this planet. Question is, are you doing it right? Chances are you’re not!
Take a moment and watch your breath. This is not something that you normally think about so you’re forgiven for having to take some time to figure out how to do so. It’s probably fair to say that you have become aware of your chest moving up and down, in and out, with belly sitting, doing nothing. In fact, chances are you’re holding your belly in, because somewhere along the lines, most likely when you were a child, you were taught to do this. Someone probably told you that it makes you look thinner, with modern-day societal pressures applied, and now you found yourself always holding your stomach in.
It was in that moment when you realised that by holding your stomach in you could give the impression that you were slimmer. That, inevitably, reprogrammed your mind and consequently stopped breathing properly.
So why am I asking you about how you’re breathing?
Breathing is integral to life, that goes without saying. However, deep breathing has other beneficial effects. Breathing not only stimulates relaxation in your body, but also directly activates essential pathways for health improvement.
To understand this we must go back to the basics and first bring you up to speed on your nervous system. Your nervous system splits into two main branches: the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for the flight or fight stress response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for rest, digest and heal response). These two branches work like a seesaw is a children’s play park. If one side is up (on), the other side must be down (off). They cannot work simultaneously.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. If you’re like most people in the modern world, your sympathetic system is almost always on. In the very old days it was triggered by being chased by sabretooth tigers, these days it’s triggered by stress, over-scheduled calendars, chronic illness, financial worries, relationship drama etc. This means that your parasympathetic system that is in charge of optimising detoxification, digestion and immunity isn’t able to function.
As a consequence your body is almost always flooded with stress hormones and inflammation. Digestion has slowed in most cases to a near halt and your immune system isn’t working. Basically, you’re effectively in a state where your body promotes disease rather than health. Not a great place to be.
Your body has a remarkable ability to heal itself, however, to do so one of the key factors is that you’re relaxed, in the parasympathetic state. This is even more important if you have an autoimmune condition or chronic disease.
One of the quickest and easiest ways of getting here is though deep breathing. It’s one of the reasons that when a child or even a friend is panicking you tell them to take deep, slow breaths that send an instant message to your body to begin healing.
When you breathe properly your …
- Energy and Metabolism will increase: Deep breathing increases oxygen in your body which results in increased energy and believe it or not weight loss. (2)
- Detoxification Rate Increases: Deep breathing allows for the release of carbon dioxide from the lungs trigging the cells of the body to enter “clean-up” mode. Especially important if you have an autoimmune or chronic disease. (3)
- Blood Pressure and Heart Rate will decrease: Studies suggest that deep breathing can significantly reduce blood pressure and heart rate. (4)
- Blood sugar normalises: High blood sugar triggers inflammation which in turn promotes the disease process in the body. Blood sugar levels can be reduced by triggering parasympathetic nervous system moderating insulin release. (5)
- Cortisol levels (stress hormone) Normalize: Raised cortisol levels can lead to adrenal fatigue, weight gain (the spare tyre effect around your waistline), blood sugar imbalances, insomnia, hormonal imbalances and lowered immunity. Deep breathing counteracts the stress response in your body.
- Lower your pain levels: The stimulation of your parasympathetic nervous system through deep breathing has been shown to reduce the perception of pain in those suffering from chronic pain like fibromyalgia. (6,7)
- Optimise your digestion and absorption – Food like knowledge is power, however, just like knowledge, food is only powerful if you can absorb it. Optimum digestion only occurs when your body is in the parasympathetic state.
Deep breathing is a powerful tool, it can instantly change what’s happing in your body. So, if you suffer from autoimmune or chronic health issues you want to aim to have your body in the parasympathetic (healing) mode as much as possible. The great news is that within a few seconds of deep breathing your body understands the message and begins to relax. Your cortisol levels decrease, you’re able to digest and detoxify at a much better rate and your immune system starts to behave.
So how do you breathe properly?