Breathing. It’s important, really important. If I, you, or anyone didn’t do it, they’d be dead. And for most of us, it’s easy. We don’t think about it, and our bodies do the work. But did you know that we can manipulate this mundane task to benefit the mind and body?
This manipulation of breath is called “breathwork”, and it's gaining popularity in the world of health and wellness. According to recent Google Trends, searches for "breathwork" have increased 6x over the past five years. In the past, those who engage in yoga and meditation have looked to the breath to aid in their respective practices, but now individuals are realizing that breathing alone is associated with a variety of benefits…
Stress-relief
A 2017 journal Frontiers in Psychology study published that participants who completed 20 breathwork training sessions for eight weeks had significantly lower cortisol levels when compared with those who did receive any training. Cortisol is the stress hormone responsible for the body’s stress response and the chronic inflammation associated with it.
Decreased blood pressure
A 2001 National Institute of Health (NIH) study published that practicing breathwork with music for just 10 minutes a day qualifies as an effective, non-pharmacological technique to lower blood pressure. Following this study, a 2015 study via the Krida Wacana Christian University published that patients with hypertension saw a significant drop in blood pressure following slow, deep breathing. Also, a portable electronic device, called Resperate, designed to aid users in breathwork is now an FDA-approved tool for reducing blood pressure. A clinical review of Resperate reports that it "significantly lowers office BP without adverse effects" and is “a useful adjunct to current antihypertensive medications and to nonpharmacologic interventions in achieving better [blood pressure] control”.
Reduced depression
In 2017, researchers saw that people who engaged in Iyengar yoga and coherent breathing for 12 weeks exhibited a decline in depressive symptoms and demonstrated clinical improvements. This result mimics those of a 2016 report from the University of Pennsylvania that reported that breathing-based meditation could help treat clinical depression in people who did not respond to antidepressant medication.
Breathwork may even decrease the size of the amygdala, the part of the brain that detects and responds to fear, triggering the fight-or-flight response and increasing the complex thinking of the prefrontal cortex.
Sharper focus
A 2018 study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition found that yoga in conjunction with breathwork boosted attention span among participants. Likewise, a study from Trinity College Dublin found that regulated breathwork can balance the body’s amount of noradrenaline, the chemical messenger that affects attention and enhances focus.
Pain management
There is evidence that slow, deep breathing can reduce the perception of chronic pain or help those afflicted cope with the discomfort. Biochemical pain pathways are regulated by norepinephrine, so breathwork that balances cortisol and decreases inflammation can decrease pain perception.
Breathwork sounds great! … But how do you do it?
There are a number of breathwork techniques, including box breathing, 4-7-8 breath, 2-1-4-1 breath, and alternate-nostril breathing.
Jorge Roman Lopez’s book, Return to Human: How Modern Medicine, the Media and the Mundane Have Destroyed Our Immune Systems and How to Move Back Towards Optimal Health, outlines the following breathing techniques: Bhastrika followed by Rechaka, 4-7-8 breathing, and box breathing. Here is an excerpt:
“Bhastrika followed by Rechaka. These breathing techniques come from a practice called Pranayama used in yoga. Bhastrika is done by sitting upright and cross legged on a mat or bed, forcefully inhaling through the nostrils, and simply letting go of the breath when exhaling. Find the rhythm that works for you––experiment with quick breathing and slower breathing. Do around 30 breaths. Do rechaka right after, as it is the antithesis to the more stressful bhastrika. Rechaka activates the parasympathetic (rest and digest) portion of the nervous system. Simply inhale through the nostrils effortlessly and extend the exhale as long as you can, lightly pursing your lips.
4-7-8 breathing. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7, exhale for 8 seconds. This is great for reducing anxiety and stress.
Box breathing. Breath in for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four, then repeat. Find the number which works best for you. Four seconds is merely a suggestion. This is great for productivity, relaxation, and mental clarity.”
Experiment with different types to see which one you like best.
If you’re particularly intrigued by breathwork, I recommend checking out James Nestor, an author and journalist who just published a book called Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. According to Nestor, the book “explores the million-year-long history of how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly and why we’re suffering from a laundry list of maladies—snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, autoimmune disease, allergies—because of it. I ended up traveling the world in an attempt to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers, I discovered, weren’t found in pulmonology labs but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of Sao Paulo. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head."
Here is a link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/0735213615
If you want to get a taste of Nestor’s work, I highly recommend these two podcasts with him.
Good luck and happy breathing!
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