How breathing better can improve health and wellness
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I’ve been a fan of Dan Harris’ podcast Ten Percent Happier for a while now, but I was particularly excited when he posted an episode featuring James Nestor, the author of “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art” – a book I’ve had on my want-to-read list for ages.
Dan Harris is the author of “10% Happier,” where he shares how meditation changed his life (and, you guessed it, made him happier). In his podcast, he interviews experts in all types of disciplines such as meditation, happiness, psychology, and in James’ case, breathwork.
I’ve been interested in learning more about breathwork ever since I did biofeedback therapy a few years ago. In each session of biofeedback, I learned how to reduce the somatic symptoms of anxiety (increased heart rate, muscle tension, etc.) using muscle relaxation and deep breathing. Once my body is calmer, my mind follows suit. It’s pretty amazing, so of course I want to share the power of breathing with my clients.
As he discusses in the podcast episode, James is a science journalist who suffered from various respiratory ailments. Like any good science journalist, he learned all he could about the science of breathing. He shared his findings in his book, as well as on the Ten Percent Happier podcast. Here are some of my biggest takeaways from the episode.
This following is a summary of James Nestor’s research and theory as detailed in his book, but is not intended to be offering medical advice.
Effect on anxiety
James emphasized how important breathing is on mental health with an anecdote: he recently chatted with Dr. Richard Brown, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, who studies the effects of breathing on the mind and body. Dr. Brown told him that when someone with anxiety comes into his office for help, the first thing he does is to help them fix their breathing. In his experience, all his anxious patients suffer from overbreathing (breathing too quickly and thus taking too many breaths per minute) and also holding their breath too often. James summarized the effect that breathing has on anxiety as bringing balance back into a stressed out body.
Modern life isn’t conducive to proper breathing
According to James’ research, there are a few ways that we’ve evolved to become bad at breathing:
We slouch too much. Slumping in our chair while we work for 8 hours straight or while we’re hunched over, scrolling our phone throughout the day, prevents us from taking full, deep breaths. A straight spine is the most efficient position to allow our lungs to inflate and our diaphragm to sink down lower.
Our mouths are too small. Weird, right? Apparently about 300-400 years ago, the human mouth started shrinking, which caused crooked teeth and a caved-in upper palate. This caved-in palate pushes into our sinus cavities and makes it harder to breathe through our nose (more on why this is no bueno in a bit).
We eat processed foods. How does what I eat have to do with how I breathe? Well, according to the research, when our ancestors ate un-processed, whole foods, they chewed more. Starchy roots and vegetables, meat, etc. takes a lot of chewing, but the processed foods we eat are much easier to get down, so we chew less. The more we chew our food, the better our breathing.
We’re breathing bad air. Pollution, soot, and mold comes to mind initially, and those certainly impact healthy breathing as well, but James pointed out that another culprit is breathing too much carbon dioxide by being inside so much. Quick solution: open a window or crack a door if you can to let some oxygen into the room.
Nose breathing > mouth breathing
The first step to improve breathing is switching from mouth breathing to nose breathing. Most of us primarily breathe through our mouths which causes some issues. First, when our jaw hangs open, our tongue isn’t in the proper position for breathing. This leads to chronic congestion and difficulty exhaling, and generally just puts stress on our body. Second, the nose is a much better filter from the body and lungs. The nose is the “first line of defense,” said James, when it comes to keeping the bad stuff out. Here’s how:
It fights off viruses.
It heats up the air so it doesn’t enter your body too cold.
Nose hair catches microscopic solids or liquid droplets that are small enough to inhale and cause health problems; slows air down that’s entering your body; and captures moisture.
Tip: to train your body to start nose breathing instead of mouth breathing, James suggests using a lightly sticky tape like surgical tape to cover your mouth, forcing you to nose breathe. Start off for 10 minutes at a time, then 30, then an hour, then try overnight. Soon enough, your body will start doing it automatically.
James interviewed a dentist and airway specialist about how to start mouth taping:
Take it slow
Once you’ve got nose breathing down, the next step is slowing your breath down. Slower, more rhythmic cycles of breathing enhance the diaphragm’s ability to rise and fall, which massages your organs and helps them work better. Good news for yogis or meditators: you’re likely already doing this! Yoga and meditation have slow, rhythmic breathing built in.
Tip: slow down your breathing by practicing “coherent breathing,” which focuses on taking less breaths per minute. Create a rhythm by inhaling for 5 seconds (filling your belly with air), exhaling for 5 seconds, then repeating.
