Everyone breathes all the time, even during sleep; when breathing stops, life ends. The interesting thing is that this basic physiological function is unconscious. However, when people become aware of their own breathing patterns, they can also take control of their breathing and improve their health.
How you breathe affects your health
Breathing deeply or intentionally controlling your breathing can affect your body in many positive ways. First, slowing down your breathing can lower blood pressure and stress levels, allowing you to think clearly.
It is very common to feel calm and centered after taking a deep breath. Secondly, breathing exercises can also promote a sense of well-being.
Deep breathing is a valuable health-boosting tool that requires no special equipment and can be used at any time of the day.
What is the function of breathing?
Breathing has two phases: inhalation and exhalation. When you inhale, the diaphragm , which is located between the lungs and heart, contracts and moves downward. This creates extra space in the chest into which the lungs expand; upon exhalation, the diaphragm relaxes as the amount of air in the lungs decreases.
Breathing is vital to life because the human body needs oxygen to function properly; moving the body, digesting food, and even reading these words are all processes that the body needs oxygen to complete.
Breathing also helps the body remove carbon dioxide , which is a waste product produced by these processes.
What is deep breathing?
Take a deep breath to purposefully fill your lungs with air. Most of the time, people do not take deep breaths when breathing normally. If you breathe shallowly, you can inadvertently put stress on your body, or feel stress that causes shallow breathing.
However, when people take deep breaths, their breathing rate naturally slows down. When sitting down or doing non-strenuous activities, most people take an average of two seconds to inhale and two seconds to exhale. This is a typical breathing rate where people are not really aware that they are breathing.
Deep breathing requires relaxing the abdominal area while taking a deep breath. When you inhale, you slowly fill your lungs with air, causing them to expand and your diaphragm to contract. As you exhale, release all the air while your diaphragm relaxes and your chest wall recedes. By focusing your awareness on this process, you can slow down your breathing pattern.
Controlling your breathing can be part of a yoga or mindfulness practice, but breathing-focused meditation isn't limited to deep breathing. Some yogic breathing is similar to breathing with the diaphragm, but sometimes it can be very different.
For example, for some breathing patterns in yoga, practitioners should keep their mouths closed. When breathing through the diaphragm or taking deep breaths, it is often encouraged to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Meditation that focuses on breathing helps to focus your attention and experience the feeling of "living in the moment". In meditation or guided relaxation, the practice often begins with awareness of inhalation and exhalation, but without changing the breathing pattern.
Disadvantages of shallow breathing
Stress will change breathing. Most people use shallow breathing when facing pressure or in a tense state. This is often associated with arousal of the body's sympathetic nervous system, , which is activated during states of stress. Also known as the "fight or flight response," the release of the stress hormone cortisol can increase breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. This response allows the body to survive a real or perceived threat.
Shallow breathing can cause tension in different parts of the body, including the shoulders, jaw, hands, or back. This feeling of tension is also associated with gastrointestinal distress.Overall, shallow breathing has a snowball effect - stress triggers shallower breathing, and then the body reacts causing more stress.
Abdominal breathing and chest breathing
People are born to take deep breaths. Think of a sleeping baby. His belly rises and falls slowly and regularly. This is the pattern of deep breathing. As people get older and start moving and running more, they switch from abdominal breathing or deep breathing to more chest breathing.
Chest breathing still does the job of moving air through the lungs, but the breaths tend to be shorter and shallower. For most people, only the upper half or upper third of the lungs are used during daily breathing. When you take a deep breath, your chest rises, but for most people, your belly doesn't move at all.
Abdominal breathing begins in the nose and moves into the stomach as the diaphragm contracts, causing the abdomen to expand and the lungs to fill with air. Not only does abdominal breathing bring in more oxygen than chest breathing, it's also more efficient because it pulls the lungs downward. The resulting negative pressure allows more air to flow into the lungs.
Potential health benefits of deep breathing
A key benefit of deep breathing is that it helps reduce stress, which is the cause of many health risks. While research results on deep breathing vary, experts agree that deep breathing is safe for most people.
Whether done on its own, as a meditation practice, or combined with exercise like yoga, this complementary therapy is worth trying.
For example, deep breathing can improve:
● Improve gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome by lowering stress and anxiety levels;
● high blood pressure ;
● By reducing stress and promoting relaxation, reducing Mental health issues, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as sleep disorders such as insomnia;
● Pelvic floor problems, such as overactive bladder;
● Improve circulatory function and life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Mass, reduce hyperventilation in people with moderate to mild asthma and improve their lung function;
● Skin diseases, including eczema (atopic dermatitis) and psoriasis attacks;
● Autoimmune diseases , such as rheumatoid Arthritis , Lupus ;
Neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease (which can cause difficulty swallowing and breathing problems in its later stages) and Migraines ;
● Hot flashes and others Perimenopause symptoms of discomfort;
● High blood sugar levels and oxidative stress , which can lead to type II diabetes disease progression;
● Help digestion and relieve the symptoms of GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) by reducing the tension in the digestive tract , constipation, diarrhea, and ulcerative colitis.
In terms of emotional health, when you find yourself overwhelmed or stressed out, deep breathing can be very helpful in improving your sensory function and improving your thinking skills.
Despite their complex origins, mental health disorders are associated with high stress levels. Since the COVID-19 epidemic, more and more people are suffering from chronic stress, and their normal breathing rhythm has been disrupted.
This imbalance can lead to anxiety, insomnia, or a number of other adverse effects. By taking conscious, deep breaths, the functions of the respiratory system can hopefully be rebalanced. ■
