How Do You Breathe?

Are you aware of how you breathe?

In daily life, we don't think about if or how we breathe. It usually happens unconsciously and automatically, controlled from the brainstem by the autonomic nervous system (which is involuntary). Signals from the body, such as carbon dioxide levels, stress hormones, and more, influence and control the breathing rate. But we can also switch over and, to some extent, breathe consciously and voluntarily, which we will explore in more detail here.

Why is how we breathe important?

Of course, you can't always be conscious of how you breathe. But thinking about it now and then during the day can provide many health benefits. Above all, you can try to breathe through your nose as often as possible. Eventually, it becomes a habit, and you do it without thinking. Many people today breathe through their mouths, which is unhealthy for several reasons. You can get dirt particles directly into your lungs, it's less efficient, and you usually breathe more shallowly and more frequently. Mouth breathing also raises blood pressure.

Over millennia, we have slowly developed narrower and longer skulls and jaws, resulting in narrower nasal cavities. Our ancestors, many thousands of years ago, had wide jaws with perfect rows of teeth and wide nasal cavities. They breathed through their noses and had no risk of snoring.

The skeleton of the skull is malleable and is influenced by, among other things, how we breathe. Like all tissue, it is affected by how it is used, and primarily breathing through the nose and forcing air through the nasal cavity with deep, slow breaths will cause the nasal cavity, and thus the entire skull, to widen. Breathing through the nose will therefore slowly widen the shape of the skull.

Chewing is also an important factor affecting the shape of the jaws and skull. Chewing food slowly and thoroughly widens and strengthens the jaws and also improves digestion. In the past, people had to chew their food carefully as they ate more "raw food"; the meat was not trimmed, and they ate more tendons and fascia, more tough parts. Nowadays, most people eat a lot of processed and easy-to-chew food, which gives the jaws no exercise (and also contains poor nutrition). In the last century alone, our jaws have shrunk, and our teeth often don't have enough space.

Chewing properly also reduces the risk of sinus and ear infections and, in the long run, reduces the risk of snoring.

How does my breathing affect my health?

In the nasal cavity, there is a labyrinth of bones covered with a mucous membrane with cilia, which also contains a first line of defense of immune cells. The function of the nasal cavity is primarily to clean the air and filter out intruders, but also to moisten and warm it so that we get clean, suitably warm, and moist air into our airways and lungs. Most people probably know what it feels like to take a breath through the mouth on a winter day and get dry, ice-cold air straight into the lungs. It results in a severe coughing fit.

In the mucous membranes of the nasal cavity, nitric oxide (NO) is also formed as air passes through, and NO has a relaxing effect on the blood vessels, thereby lowering blood pressure. NO also has a calming effect on the nervous system, strengthens the immune system, and is antiviral. Six times more NO is produced during nasal breathing than during mouth breathing. Breathing through the nose also increases oxygen uptake by a full 20%. So, nasal breathing has many important health benefits.

The resting respiratory rate for an adult is normally 12-20 breaths/minute. During strenuous work, it increases to 100-120 breaths/minute.

A slower resting breathing rate with fewer breaths per minute has many healthy effects and results in more efficient oxygen uptake. A deep inhalation, where the diaphragm is pushed down and the chest expands, allows the lung alveoli to fill more effectively, leading to better oxygen utilization. This is followed by a slow, conscious exhalation, where you push out as much air as you can, increasing air exchange in the alveoli. This keeps the lungs healthier and cleaner and increases the inhalation volume for the next breath.

What happens if I never think about how I breathe?

Over the last 300-400 years, we have more or less lost the art of healthy breathing. A major study in the US showed that 50% of Americans were mouth breathers, leading to inefficient and shallow breathing with health problems such as chronic hyperventilation, sleep apnea, lung diseases, allergies, metabolic diseases (diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity), cardiovascular diseases, stroke, depression, ADHD, tooth loss, and more.

What happens if you never think about breathing consciously is entirely individual. It depends on factors such as how calm or stressed you are and whether you naturally breathe through your mouth or nose. The more stressed you are and the more you mouth-breathe, the greater the benefits you will obviously gain from pausing for conscious breathing to calm down your entire system and train a healthier breathing pattern.

How do I get started with conscious breathing in a simple way?

It doesn't have to be complicated to breathe more consciously. A good start is to sit down a couple of times a day and try to take deep, slow breaths. This can be done while sitting on the bus or train to and from work, during short breaks at work, on the sofa at home, or while lying in bed.

Draw the air in through your nose; first and foremost, think about nasal breathing on inhalation. It's important that your shoulders and chest don't rise during inhalation; instead, let your stomach "swell out." The air should "fill the belly" so that the abdomen expands, the ribs are pushed out, and the diaphragm is pushed down. Try to feel the movement of the diaphragm; it often moves minimally when we are stressed and have poor posture. Be mindful of your posture, even when sitting, as a slumped posture compresses the lungs, reduces lung volume, and hinders the movement of the lungs and diaphragm.

Remember that it takes practice to breathe deeply and slowly and to change your breathing habits. It's good to start with simpler breathing exercises: a conscious slow inhalation and a slow exhalation, each for 5-6 seconds. You can also hold your breath in between for 5-6 seconds. A deep inhalation through the nose, followed if necessary by a forced exhalation, where the ribs and diaphragm act as the main pump. Exhaling is easier through the mouth with slightly pursed lips, as it's easier to push out more air (push out as much as you can). A slow exhalation calms the nervous system. If you also add a humming sound during exhalation, it can increase NO production in the nasal cavity 15-fold.

A goal can be to get down to 3-6 breaths per minute, which you will notice is not so difficult after a little practice. Practice deep breathing for at least 5-10 minutes, a couple of times a day.

People often start mouth-breathing when they exercise and get out of breath. It feels like you're getting more air and oxygen, but that's not the case. The breathing immediately becomes shallower, more frequent, and less efficient. Practice nasal breathing during exertion as well, and don't train harder than you can while still breathing through your nose.

An interesting fact to take advantage of is that when you breathe through your left nostril, the nervous system is calmed (activation of the parasympathetic system), which lowers blood pressure and heart rate and activates the right hemisphere of the brain (spatial awareness, holistic thinking, and intuition).

Breathing through the right nostril has the opposite effect, activating the sympathetic nervous system, which raises blood pressure and heart rate, increases body temperature, and activates the left hemisphere of the brain (language and logical thinking).