Breathing Health
Take Control of Your Breathing
Proper breathing is foundational for better oxygen uptake and reduced stress. Learn how diaphragmatic breathing and slow breathing techniques calm your nervous system.
Breathing Health
Proper breathing is foundational for better oxygen uptake and reduced stress. Learn how diaphragmatic breathing and slow breathing techniques calm your nervous system.
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Everyone can breathe—there's nothing to think about, right? Or is there?
You've probably noticed that your breathing quickens in stressful situations, such as before an important presentation or exam. But have you ever paid close attention to how you actually breathe during calm moments?
We'd like to invite you to a simple experiment. Place your left hand on your chest and your right hand on your belly, then observe how your hands move as you continue breathing normally. After 30 seconds, you can keep reading ;)
Ideally, your left hand (on your chest) moves very little, while your right hand (on your belly) rises and falls with each inhalation and exhalation. This indicates that belly breathing, also called diaphragmatic breathing, is dominant.
Diaphragmatic breathing is remarkably powerful. In one study with athletes, it reduced cortisol levels and protected against oxidative stress by increasing melatonin and the body's antioxidant capacity (1).
If primarily your left hand moves, you're relying heavily on chest breathing. This means you're mostly using your intercostal muscles rather than your diaphragm. The problem? Chest breathing underutilizes your lung capacity and is more taxing for your body.
When chest breathing dominates, you must increase your breathing rate to get enough oxygen. And a higher breathing rate brings several unwanted effects.
But first, let's dive into some biochemistry. Breathing is about exchanging two gases: oxygen (O2) is taken up in the lungs, transported via blood to the tissues, and released there. This creates carbon dioxide (CO2), which travels back to the lungs and is expelled.
Crucial in this context is the so-called Bohr effect. It works like this: as CO2 partial pressure increases (meaning pH decreases), hemoglobin's affinity for oxygen decreases. What??
Sounds complicated, but it's actually simple: oxygen is only released from hemoglobin when enough CO2 is present.
If we breathe in too much oxygen and/or exhale too much CO2, our blood becomes maximally saturated with oxygen but struggles to release it to muscles and other tissues.
The result: chronic oxygen deprivation. This can cause serious symptoms for which doctors often find no organic cause (see reference 2):
The good news: these symptoms can disappear through consistent breathing exercises.
Admittedly, this sounds paradoxical at first. But it makes sense on closer inspection. We've just learned that we need a certain amount of CO2 in our blood to deliver oxygen to body tissues.
The more and faster we breathe, the more CO2 we exhale. The extreme form is hyperventilation. Usually triggered by stress or panic, it involves breathing too quickly and forcefully, raising O2 and lowering CO2. This is why breathing into a paper bag helps—it returns some of the exhaled CO2 to your system and rebalances your respiratory gases.
Beyond acute hyperventilation, there's also a chronic form that goes unnoticed in daily life. We simply breathe a bit more and a bit faster than we actually need to.
12–20 breaths per minute is the population average. Research suggests, however, that the optimal breathing rate is between 5 and 10.
For example, heart rate variability measurements, which indicate parasympathetic activity, peaked at 6 breaths per minute. This means the nervous system is in its most relaxed state (3).
At 8 breaths per minute compared to 16, blood pressure and heart rate decreased within just 5 minutes (4). No medications or supplements needed—just slow breathing! Remarkable.
How many breaths do you take per minute? Feel free to repeat the experiment from the beginning and count how often you breathe.
Then try drawing your breath deeper into your belly and slowing your breathing rate. A practical technique is 5:5 breathing: inhale for 5 seconds and exhale for 5 seconds. This automatically brings you to 6 breaths per minute.
Throughout your day, pause regularly and simply observe your breath. Practice the 5:5 technique multiple times daily and notice how your stress level drops!
We wish you a wonderful Christmas season and happy breathing :)
Martarelli D, Cocchioni M, Scuri S, Pompei P. Diaphragmatic Breathing Reduces Exercise-Induced Oxidative Stress. Evid-Based Complement Altern Med ECAM. February 10, 2011;2011:932430.
German Medical Association Editorial. Deutsches Ärzteblatt. 1999 [cited November 13, 2024]. Series: Functional Disorders – Functional Breathing Disorders – Hyperventilation Syndrome. Available at: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/16088/Serie-Funktionelle-Stoerungen-Funktionelle-Atemstoerungen-Das-Hyperventilationssyndrom
Russo MA, Santarelli DM, O'Rourke D. The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human. Breathe. December 2017;13(4):298.
Li C, Chang Q, Zhang J, Chai W. Effects of slow breathing rate on heart rate variability and arterial baroreflex sensitivity in essential hypertension. Medicine (Baltimore). May 4, 2018;97(18):e0639.
