Breathing exercises are also used in mindfulness and meditation.
We breathe all the time, and most of the time you don’t even notice it’s there.
It goes without saying how important breathing is, but did you know that adjusting your breathing can give you the ability to change your thoughts and feelings in an instant, especially slow, deep breathing.
Controlled breathing can help you decompress and even sharpen your mind.
BBC science presenter Dr Michael Mosley discusses the health effects of controlling your breathing, and some ideas surrounding it in the latest episode of Just One Thing podcast Amazing science.
First, the way you breathe affects almost every organ in your body.
Breathing is more than just supplying oxygen to the brain and body. The way you breathe can also change how you think and feel. It can alter heart rate, lower blood pressure, reduce stress, reduce anxiety, reduce pain, and even alter brain chemistry to sharpen the mind.
It is therefore no coincidence that many time-honored practices such as meditation and yoga are based on breathing exercises.
brain reset button
A lot of breathing exercises are used in yoga
When a person is stressed, the level of the chemical noradrenaline in the brain increases. This is when the brain’s attentional network gets disrupted, making it impossible to think properly (some people start to hold their breath at this point, but this can make things worse). Carbon dioxide levels in the blood begin to rise, activating the locus coeruleus region of the brain.
The nucleus locus coeruleus refers to a specific area of the brain whose function is related to the stress response. It produces more norepinephrine. As norepinephrine levels rise further, the attentional networks start to get out of sync, making it difficult to focus on one thing.
And take a deep breath, like the brakes to bring the whole system to a halt. It’s like a reset button for the brain. If you stop and take a deep breath, count to four, and then breathe out again, count to six.
This targets the nucleus locus coeruleus of the brain, allowing norepinephrine to drop and the attentional network to resynchronize and function normally.
UK neuroscientist Professor Robertson said it was the “most precise” drug we could give ourselves without any side effects. And it can also be practiced in meetings, no one knows.
Power of Breathing
Breathing exercises can be done anytime, anywhere.
Professor Robertson explains that controlling your breathing can help regain your confidence in self-control. It gives people a sense of control over their brains, emotions, and thoughts. Once you do it for a few seconds, it starts to work.
“Suddenly, you feel like maybe emotions are no longer the biggest fear you have no control over,” he said.
How to practice breathing?
The key, says Professor Robertson, is not to struggle to control your breathing. If you can let the exhale take a little longer than the inhale, you’ve done it right.
Next time you’re feeling stressed, remember that a few deep breaths can change brain chemistry whenever and wherever.
Research proves that deep breathing is not only good for the lungs, but also for the mind and body.
Here are five things you can do easily by controlling your breathing:
One, stress relief and anti-anxiety
Calm your mind by taking deep breaths to lower your heart rate and reduce your fight-or-flight response. It can break the vicious cycle of panic thinking and make people feel more in control of their own mind and body.
Second, improve memory and decision-making ability
Research has shown that breathing control can improve memory and improve problem-solving ability. If you need clearer thinking right now, try slowing your breath. Thinking has become clearer.
You can also use deep breathing to help make better impromptu decisions. A study of a group of students at a French business school found that after just 2 minutes of deep breathing exercises, their performance on decision-making tasks improved by nearly 50 percent.
Third, it helps reduce chronic pain
Chronic pain is closely related to long-term stress. The greater the stress, the more excited the body is. Therefore, the body is more sensitive to pain signals. One way to break this cycle is to focus on your breathing and reduce your resting stress response.
Fourth, help to get back to sleep
If you wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep, you can try taking deep breaths, it may help calm your brain down , reduces the activity of the locus coeruleus, and reduces your alertness, which helps you return to sleep.
Five, Long-Term Benefits
Whether through breath-based meditation, breathing exercises, or even breathing training as part of a vocal lesson, focus Breathing can have lasting benefits.
In addition to helping better control the stress response, it allows the body to enter a more calm resting state over time, with long-term effects on overall health – from improving heart health, to reducing chronic inflammation.