Your Daily Breath

Learning to breathe better not only boosts your energy levels. A controlled, calm breath can help reduce stress, improve your thinking, ease chronic pain and bridge the connection between your body and mind.

- Nikki Davies

As a way to quickly and effectively take back control over your body and mind, the breath has long been used as a way to calm even the most fevered of emotions. Yet most people don’t breathe very well; they over-breathe, chest-breathe or hold the breath when they should be filling their lungs with rejuvenating oxygen. Given that breathing is an automatic function of the body, this chronic lack of skill is a curiosity of the modern era.

The breath, it would seem, is often only focused on when compromised. In so many ways, breath and breathing are intrinsic to wellbeing. Becoming more attuned to the breath can improve memory, anxiety levels, digestion and chronic pain among other things. Learning about the breath and becoming more efficient at breathing can not only boost energy levels and improve thinking, it can also enhance the connection between the body and mind.

The act of breathing

Physiologically, the act of breathing is completely automated, controlled by the respiratory centre in the brain’s medulla oblongata. This sends signals to the muscles that control respiration, causing breathing to occur.

Each breath you take allows oxygen to be absorbed into the body while each exhalation pushes carbon dioxide out. Your breath filters out microbes and debris, cycling fresh oxygen to organs and tissues while removing waste gases the body doesn’t need.

The muscles that control the lungs include the diaphragm, which sits underneath the lungs, and the intercostal muscles between the ribs. When you breathe well, nourishing oxygen flows through the body; however, when you don’t breathe well, you can restrict oxygen through half-breaths or saturate yourself by over-breathing.