Inhale, exhale: the forgotten art of breathing properly

You push 10,000 litres of air through your airways every day – a seemingly effortless feat of strength that the body handles autonomously and automatically. You start the very first seconds of your life (post-partum) with a deep breath in, kick-starting a survival system that remains with you until your last breath. Your breath carries you through life in two simple movements: inhaling and exhaling.

The process doesn’t just keep you alive – it keeps you healthy, too. People who breathe properly sleep better, are less easily stressed and focus more intently. In times of chronic stress and hectic daily lives, healthy breathing is all the more important. It’s the only way to prevent your day-to-day from literally taking your breath away.

Vienna-based breath coach and author of «Atem und Bewegung» (Breath and Movement) Norbert Faller knows this all too well: «We’re seeing the way we live today reflected in our breath. People are stressed, their breathing is getting shallower, coming only from the chest, and their breathing rate is increasing.» The good news is that you can learn the art of healthy breathing with a little bit of practice every day.

What’s the right way to breathe? And is it possible to get it «wrong»?

Your body breathes on its own, every second of the day. So how could you get it wrong? First things first, let’s get one thing straight. You’re doing absolutely nothing wrong. However, your breath is susceptible to physical vulnerabilities such as stress. «A person’s constitution is revealed in their breath. Generally, we really can say that the way most people breathe these days isn’t healthy,» Faller says. Stress makes your breath shallow, meaning it doesn’t go deeper than your chest area. You also breathe faster and don’t pause between breaths. When this shallow breathing doesn’t abate and «a certain pattern persists permanently, regardless of the situation or physical condition», you’re breathing incorrectly.

So what makes for healthy breathing? First and foremost, flexibility. Healthy breathing reacts flexibly to each situation and condition. It gets faster when you’re excited and is calm when you’re relaxed. Ideally, you should also breathe through your nose. This warms and filters the air before it gets into your lungs. Another important aspect of healthy breath is the pause between inhalation and exhalation, Faller says. Preferably, you should also breathe deeply. The motion of your breath extends into your abdomen and doesn’t just get stuck in the chest area. Consequently, healthy breath mirrors the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The respiratory centre is subject to the influences of the ANS and vice versa: they both impact each other.

Fight or flight: your breath and the autonomic nervous system

Your breathing responds to physical sensitivities like stress, trauma and relaxation. This is down to the respiratory system being closely wired to the autonomic nervous system, where opposing nervous systems – the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems – are located. While the sympathetic nervous system drives your heart rate up and increases activity, the parasympathetic nervous system ushers in phases of rest and regeneration. In an ideal scenario, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems alternate depending on the situation. Put simply, your sympathetic nervous system energises you when you get up. Your parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, lulls you to sleep.

When you’re stressed, the sympathetic nervous system is constantly activated, putting you in «fight or flight» mode at all times. Using your breathing, you can release this tension and calm the autonomic nervous system. This is one of the insights gained by a comparative study published in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. It states, «Slow breathing has a strong influence on the parasympathetic nervous system.» By inhaling and exhaling deeply and, most importantly, slowly, you can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, calming your body. Norbert Faller agrees: when we breathe deeply, we slow down. «Deep breaths stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and, in turn, our ability to recover.»

This works in reverse too: by hyperventilating – quickly breathing in and out – you activate the sympathetic nervous system and your body goes into performance mode. For instance, before an important sporting event or before taking an ice bath.

How does breathing right affect your health?

Since you can influence your autonomic nervous system with your breathing, researchers consider controlled breathing to be a remedy for sleepless nights. Studies like this one in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine show that participants who did slow breathing exercises before bed were more likely to sleep through the night and less likely to be plagued with restless nights.

Conscious breathing also positively impacts our impulse control and ability to concentrate, as discovered by researchers for the journal Frontiers in Psychology. After eight weeks of diaphragmatic and abdominal breathing training, participants displayed less stress and a more relaxed approach to traumatic experiences. In addition, researchers observed an increased ability to concentrate after as little as 15 minutes of breathing exercises.

Inhale, exhale: 3 exercises to do at home

So, there are good reasons not to leave breathing entirely to your body’s reflexes. Working on healthy breathing every now and then can put you into peak performance or complete relaxation mode. Sound good? Norbert Faller has shared three breathing exercises (link in German) with us that you can incorporate into your everyday life.

1. Feel the motion of your breath

Healthy breathing is deep breathing. This exercise is about feeling where in the body the breath flows to. Does it stay in the chest? Or does it go deeper – into the abdomen and pelvis? To do this, sit comfortably with your legs firmly planted on the floor and close your eyes. First, place one hand on the parts of your body where the motion of your breath is going. Then place your hand over your lower abdomen, followed by your chest and finally on your back and see if you can feel the motion of your breath under your hand. Faller explains, «During this exercise, targeted areas of the body are activated and you become calmer and more relaxed.»

2. Stretch the nostrils

This exercise helps you to clear your airways by stretching them, making air flow more easily. To do this, sit comfortably in an upright position and close your eyes. Start by stroking your nose from top to bottom. Then place your thumbs against the inner walls of the nostrils and gently pull them apart. As you do so, breathe in. Then, as you release them, breathe out. Pause for a short while after exhaling. You can repeat this seven to eight times. «This gently widens the airways, making it easier for air to flow in and out,» says Faller.

3. Rock your feet as you breathe

Sit comfortably with your feet on the floor, parallel to one another, a hip-width apart. Then close your eyes and relax. Lift your front foot as you breathe in, then set it back down as you exhale. After a short pause, lift the heel of the same foot on your next breath in, setting it down again as you exhale. Repeat the exercise on the other side. «The exercise is supposed to be done at a pace that the breath can effortlessly adapt to in a relaxed manner,» says Faller. «It’s supposed to result in an interaction between movement and breath.» This way, your body and breath play off each other, causing them to slow down. It’s a perfect exercise for more rest and relaxation.