How to breathe better
The benefits of breathing less.
In my younger years practicing a variety of sports, fitness exercices and comptetivly training as an athlete I would think of those days as feeling fit. We often measure our fitness as our ability to be able to breathe more slowly when we are training, and our ability to recover our breath from hyperventilation ( rapid breathing ) to hypoventilation ( shallow breathing ).
Both of these forms of breathing have thier benefits but let’s take a look at the effects they have on the body / mind and what I have found from my history exploring these.
Hyperventilation is irregular breathing that occurs when the rate or tidal volume of breathing eliminates more carbon dioxide than the body can produce. This leads to hypocapnia, a reduced concentration of carbon dioxide dissolved in the blood. Less blood goes to the brain and the heart, and then less oxygen can get absorbed in the lungs.
In my experience of doing a variety of exercices inducing hyperventilation, this would increase my stress response ( fight / flight ) and would often leaving me feeling exhausted, hungry and potentially agitated afterwards.
Breathing ‘more’ definitely has it’s benefits and i loved my days in competetive sports, but i want to clarify how this effected my body / mind. Especially after.
My BJJ days focusing on explosiveness and cardio vascular fitness
Hypoventilation occurs when ventilation is inadequate (hypo meaning "below") to perform needed respiratory gas exchange. When you breathe less than normal (hypoventilate) you begin to accumulate more carbon dioxide.
‘Carbon dioxide causes the expansion of the blood vessels to the brain and heart (vasodilation) improving blood flow. It opens the bronchial tubes in the lungs (bronchodilitation), thus improving breathing. It calms the nervous system reducing stress and many other nervous conditions. Carbon dioxide is also the main reason for the Bohr effect, which causes more oxygen to be deposited in your body cells. When oxygen is used in your cells in the metabolism of sugar, you get 19 times as much energy as compared to when you metabolise sugar in the absence of oxygen.’
The Bohr effect refers to the shift in the oxygen dissociation curve caused by changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide or the pH of the environment. Since carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid, an increase in CO2 results in a decrease in blood pH,[2] resulting in hemoglobin proteins releasing their load of oxygen.
Padmasana
Increased levels of CO2 and carbonic acid in the body tend to promote the following effects:
Increased transfer of oxygen via the lungs to the blood (bronchodilitation)
Increased blood flow to the brain and heart (vasodilation)
Increased transfer of oxygen from haemoglobin in the body cells (Bohr effect)
Increased calmness of the nervous system (pH effect on nerves)
Decreased hunger (pH effect on desire for acidic foods)
As i said before, both of these ways of breathing have thier benefits, but what i have experienced over the years in my yoga practices is the notable changes in how i feel after sessions, which can be very intense at times within my Ashtanga Yoga practice.
Generally within my Yoga practice i am almost always breathing through my nose and focusing on lengthening my breath. Controlling it could be another description where i am focusing my attention almost solely on how i am breathing and regulating this very counciosuly with my diaphragm and abominal muscles. This is a very focused point within all my my yoga an pranayama practices.
All of my dynamic Yoga sessions always finish with a gradual slowing down of my body, breath and nervous system where towards the final few finishing postures i do, my breath becomes very slow and elongated. After this i ususlly meditate for 10 to 20 minutes and then take rest.
The results over the years i would describe as drastically different from my competetive sports days in how i feel. Even after very intense sessions of Yoga I generally feel rested, calm, less stressed, more focused and clear, not hungry and quite often i have creative ideas, feel happier and tend to laugh and smile much more easily.
How I ate naturally changed too
Often after sports I would need to eat almost immediately and would feel ravenous at times where my body was trying to ‘rebalance’ itself. I could describe this as a kind of stressed state to be in.
Even after very intense yoga sessions this was not the case and I often go without food for much longer and don’t feel a need to eat after practice. The need for food feels different.
What i have observed over the years is that i go naturally for much longer periods without food. Most days i have a natural fast between dinner and breakfast for around 15 hours or more. My choice of foods has changed, volume of food as naturally reduced and i eat more slowly. None of this was intentional but came naturally from the change in my practices that shifted how my body balances itself after rigorous activity. Generally this feels much better and my body feels great these days as i approach my 44th birthday soon.
We could say the goal of physical activity is to oxygenate the body
Exercise sends oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and helps your cardiovascular system work more efficiently. And when your heart and lung health improve, you have more energy to tackle daily chores. This is done in essence by breathing less as explained above.
As an athelte the thing I disliked the most was being sick or inured. When i started to incorporate yoga, pranayama and meditation practices into my life, both of these improved massively. I was, and am sick much less often and rarely injured as i have built up a more balanced relationship with my body and nervous system.
If you are looking to incorporate a yoga / mobility practice into your life to balance your body, gain better mobility and improve your overall health please check out The Better Mobility Guide below:
The ultimate state of pranayama (yogic breath-control) and meditation is a state where breathing is reduced as much as possible without force.
Learning how to breathe correctly using your abdomen (diaphragmatic breathing), and from your chest (thoracic breathing) is a practice in and of itself and takes time to cultivate. Once you learn how to control your breath in this way it can then be applied to your movement practices which is why i always reccomend students study and practice some form of pranayama by itself.
In Ashtanaga Yoga you learn this when you begin as we learn to use Ujjayi breathing as part of the system but i would advocate a seperate pranayama practice on top of this to aid in your development.
This is not specifically just related to yoga as learning how to breathe fully will benefit everyone, especially if you have some kind of focused sport or movement practice. With mastery over your breathing you can help to improve your cardiovascular health, respiratory muscle function, physical strength, mental control, emotional stability, levels of hunger, your ability to digest food, your energy levels, your reproductive health and well as your ability to regenerate body tissues at a cellular level.
Specifically from the perspective of yoga and mobility training, i can easily say that the control i have over my body and how my body responds to strength work and stretching is directly linked to how my breathing has improve over the years. Having a much deeper connection to my diaphragm and abdominal muscles has increased the moblity in my spine and hips dramatically as well as having more control of my breathe when in deeper postures and able to regulate my breathing after, and coming out of intense periods of activity.
If you are interested in learning how to breathe more fully please check out my Pranayama online course followiong the link below.
