Starting With the Breath: Practices for Health, Focus and Stress
Core - Edition Nº30
We can’t avoid every ounce of stress in our lives—nor should we want to. But we can develop healthier ways of responding to them.
I like to think of breathing as an art intimately linked with our mind-body connection. It’s an essential and heuristic part of most Eastern meditative traditions for countless millennia, often crucial in reaching the meditative state of consciousness.
But Western culture has recently taken hold of breathwork’s value, labelling it as mainly beneficial to our health status—used for general wellness, relaxation, and stress reduction—but little attention goes into the deeper effects of pure breathing control on consciousness and meditative functions: how breathing positively develops our focus, energy and performance, and restfulness around the clock.
We often hear of the “fight or flight” stress response, which is how our body prepares to confront or flee a situation. Harvard states that, when invoked, our stress response can help us overcome many challenges. But it becomes a greater issue when “less momentous, day-to-day events, such as money woes, traffic jams, job worries, or relationship problems” continually provoke our stress response. Entrenched health problems can arise, such as high blood pressure and, thus, heart disease. A suppressed immune system. Increased susceptibility to colds or illness. And not least, the buildup of stress before anxiety and depression.
Breathwork is a powerful tool and foundation for controlling our brain-body state. Even knowing just how deliberate inhaling and exhaling give us better control of our heart rate allows us to regain control over our state of mind and body as needed.
What are we breathing for?
We breathe to draw in oxygen (O2) and discard carbon dioxide (CO2). Breathwork is a thorough practice of deep, diaphragmatic breathing—also called abdominal breathing, belly breathing, and paced respiration—which helps us avoid overbreathing (explained below) as a precursor to focusing difficulties and anxiety.
Slowing down our breath allows us to balance our internal O2:CO2 ratio. Inhaling (or inspiration) brings oxygen through our nose, filling and passing millions of tiny sacs called “alveoli” in our lungs, and our lower belly rises. Once the oxygen enters the bloodstream, our haemoglobin (a protein and carrier module) brings oxygen to our brain and body cells. Carbon dioxide, while predominantly being a cellular waste product that traverses the opposite way out our nose or mouth, assists the oxygenation of our cells by altering the haemoglobin’s shape to help oxygen enter the body’s cells and tissues.
As explained by Dr Andrew Huberman, “improper oxygen-to-carbon-dioxide ratios can put our body in a hypoxic state (lack of oxygen) and negatively impact our cognition and physical function.”
Our nervous system autonomously regulates our breathing patterns to monitor O2 and CO2 levels in the body. Hence, deep breathing can feel unnatural. One rarely considered reason for this is the negative impact of body image and culture on respiration: people consider a flat stomach more attractive, so women and men tend to hold in their stomach muscles.
Over time, “Chest breathing” has become a norm, promoting shallow breathing and increased muscle tension in our muscles. It also limits our diaphragm’s range of motion, inhibiting the lower part of our lungs from getting a fair share of oxygenated air. Conversely, deep breathing encourages full oxygen exchange—a beneficial trade of oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide—which subsequently lowers (or stabilises) blood pressure and reduces our heart rate.
Getting more value per breath
We all breathe without thinking. But the difference is in how we breathe. Faster breathing under stress—or, contrarily, a simple sigh of relief—is enough to change the biochemistry in our brains. At rest, the typical exchange rate for a healthy adult male is 6 litres of air per minute or 500ml of air per breath (called tidal volume), and slightly less for a female. Some of the air (the first 150ml) doesn’t participate in the exchange, also known as the tracheal dead volume.
This costs around 12 shallow-to-moderate breaths per minute. The problem, however, is many people habitually “overbreathe”—likely from chest breathing or withholding tension to maintain a flat stomach—leading to something more like 15-to-18 breaths per minute.
Overbreathing leads to over-exhalation, reducing oxygen delivery to the brain. And if the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, cognition (focus, anxiety) issues begin to arise.
If you ever find yourself struggling with overbreathing:
Take small pauses between breathes to give yourself time to refocus
Prioritise nasal breathing: the higher resistance of the nostrils automatically extends the length of the exhale
There’s no feeling quite like taking a big deep breath.
Something I’ve also found fascinating is understanding why nasal breathing is preferred at rest (mouth breathing is helpful during exercise). According to Huberman:
It maximises lung inflation through each breath and increases oxygen delivery
Our nasal passages warm the incoming air, which is healthier for the lungs
Nitric oxide (gas) from the nasal passages relaxes the muscles and improves blood vessel dilation, more efficiently removing waste, delivering nutrients and helping relieve sinus congestion.
It improves facial aesthetics, including elevation of the eyebrows and cheekbones, sharpening of the jaw, and improvements in tooth and jaw structure.
Overbreathing can induce problems at night, such as sleep apnea from shallow or infrequent breathing and inhibiting our oxygen intake (leading to temporary hypoxia). A habit which may drive frequent waking. Other symptoms include sleepiness, snoring, morning headaches and irritability. As well as problems with cognitive function and our libido.
Testing and routines
Most importantly, practice controlling your diaphragm more often. You can do so by deliberately expanding your stomach during inhalation and letting it return during exhalation.
Try the CO2 tolerance test by Brian Mackenzie:
Take 4-5 normal breaths. Then deeply exhale once through your nose until you fill your lungs
Start a timer to see how long it takes to slowly exhale all of the air. It must be as slow as possible
Stop the timer when done, and then note how long it took. Don’t worry about how long you can hold your breath.
Check this table to know your results. Follow up with a few minutes of box breathing throughout the week, which will help reduce overbreathing at rest and improve performance during exercise—and reduce anxiety to go with it.
Box breathing: Think of it as a four-sided box. inhale-hold-exhale-hold.
Repeat the test after 1-2 weeks of practice.
It’s a good idea to practice in a special place where you can sit or lie down comfortably and quietly. Don’t try too hard, because the idea is to be as relaxed as possible. Take it easy at the start, but remember: you can’t really do it wrong. Everyone has a few minutes to spare for this, so quickly establish a routine that works for you.
Breath focus work will help you return to slow, deep breathing when needed. It’s another practice that has stood the test of time for thousands of years. I’ve found it to be one of the most beneficial ways to relax during a stressful situation. Whether you do this every day or once a week, you’ll find it one of the most potent techniques in your toolbox for being present and working under pressure.