Slow, deep breathing is probably the most important and yet undervalued key to wellness. Oxygen is the body’s #1 fuel source. Without it we die in minutes. Conversely, Carbon Dioxide, which can kill you in high enough quantities, is a toxin you need to fully expel.
Thousands of years ago, Taoists monks observed that the animals who breathed the slowest, such as the elephant and tortoise, lived the longest; while the animals that breathed the fastest, like cats, dogs and birds, had very short life-spans. From this observation, they deduced that in order to live longer, we need to breathe deeper. They later realized, through meditation, that all matter, including the air, was imbued with energy they called “chi”. And this was several thousand years before Einstein’s famous formula, E=MC2 , stating that all matter is energy! In Chinese, “Chi” means two things: “life-force energy” and “breath”. So, how is breath perceived as being synonymous with vital energy?
While Taoism relied on intuitive realizations, modern science has since discovered that there is in fact a powerful link between Breath and Energy. You see, every cell in our body has a power plant called the mitochondria, which converts glycolytes (fats and sugars) into a liquid fuel called Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). When the cell has enough oxygen, it uses a process called Aerobic (with oxygen) Cellular Respiration, to make this conversion, and when your cell doesn’t have enough oxygen, it falls back on a different process called Anaerobic (without oxygen) Cellular Respiration. What’s important for you to understand is that when your cells have enough oxygen to use Aerobic Respiration, they get 13 times more ATP or fuel! So the more oxygen you give your body’s cells, the more energy they have to perform at their maximum, whether they be brain cells, heart cells, liver cells, muscle cells, or skin cells.
The deeper you breathe, the more oxygen you bring into the lungs and the more carbon dioxide you expel. The slower you breathe, the more time you give the alveoli of your lungs to absorb oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. So, imagine how much healthier you could be if every breath was full-in and full-out; if every cell in your body had enough fuel to operate at 100% efficiency. As one Nobel Prize winning scientist put it, “Disease cannot thrive in an oxygen-rich environment.”
Scientific research has shown that deep breathing positively affects the brain, the digestive and immune systems, and the cardiovascular system. It has been shown to reduce blood acid levels, thin the blood, reduce blood pressure, and reduce levels of cortisol (a stress response hormone that increases belly fat). Dr. Mladen Golubic, of the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Integrative Medicine says that through deep breathing “"You can influence asthma; you can influence chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; you can influence heart failure."
Deep breathing also has a calming effect on our nerves. When you are stressed or upset, practice focusing only on your breath for a minute. Then try to slow and deepen your breath for a few minutes. Then try to absolutely maximize your breath, so that you breathe all the way in, just beyond what is comfortable, pause, and then breathe all the way out and pause until you have to breathe in again. Then repeat. In just a few minutes, you’ll feel calmer and you’ll think more clearly. This is also a good practice when you’re having trouble falling asleep. Focusing on your breath, takes your mind into the body and distracts it from the 10,000 things going on in your life. Practicing intentionally slow, deep breaths will also expand your lung capacity and allow you to breathe deeper even when you aren’t trying to.
If you find that you are easily “winded” during exercise, it is most likely because you aren’t focusing on taking deep and slow breaths. When running, for example, try breathing in for as many steps as you can, then out for as many steps as you can. Typically, full exhalation takes longer than inhalation, so your breathing rhythm may be 3 steps in & 4 steps out, or 5 steps in & 7 steps out, depending on the depth of your breath. The more often you engage in aerobic exercise with deep breathing, the more your lung capacity will expand over time. This even works for people with an asthma diagnoses.
There actually is a technique to full, deep breathing, called abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing. As a demonstration, stop right now, look down at your torso and take a deep breath. Did you observe your chest expanding or your belly expanding, or both? Most adults will probably take a deep chest breath, but have you ever watched a baby sleep on its back and seen its belly going up and down with each breath? This is actually our natural state of breathing. The chest or thoracic breath is the breath we take when we are stressed, and it is, in fact, more shallow. The image below demonstrates the difference between belly breathing and thoracic breathing.
Notice that the chest breath actually pulls the diaphragm muscle toward the head, interfering with the expansion of the lungs, while expanding the abdomen during the inhale pulls the diaphragm down toward the pelvis, allowing the lungs to fill completely. To easily practice this technique, while lying down, place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly, and feel which hand rises or falls when you breathe in deeply. Next, try to imagine the air bypassing your lungs and going straight into your abdomen, filling it up like a balloon, and lifting your belly hand up toward the ceiling. At first, you may need to intentionally pull your abdominal muscles out and up, thus pushing the belly hand toward the ceiling, while trying not to move your chest hand. It may feel difficult at first, but be assured that if you continue to practice this for only 5 minutes, it will become easier, and that with regular practice, deep abdominal breathing will replace shallow chest breathing as your default.
- Michael Raphael, LMT, CPT
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