How to Use Breathing for Wellbeing
Have you already tried breathing exercises? With intentional breathing techniques, you can take control of your health and wellbeing. From improving mental clarity to relieving stress and anxiety, discover how breathing practices can promote relaxation and provide an overall boost to your mental state.
Breathing 101
First, I want to give you some information about your respiratory system and breathing so that you can better understand the high value of breathing exercises.
Why breathing is important
Your respiratory system, which includes your airways, lungs, and blood vessels, but also muscle,s has several vital functions:
- delivering oxygen, which is essential for energy generation for every single process in your body
- detoxification – excreting volatile waste, including carbon dioxide, but also others (think of the alcohol or garlic smell of breath)
- sound formation when airflow passes the vocal cords in the throat and resonates in the chest
- sense of smell, which is also possible only due to the airflow in the nose
- modulation of mental and emotional states
Respiratory system facts
How Breathing Works
For breathing, we mainly use the ribcage muscles and the diaphragm (the layer of muscles separating the chest from the abdomen).
During inhalation, the lungs expand. This is an active process:
- the ribcage muscles contract to lift the ribs
- the diaphragm contracts to move downward
During exhalation, the lungs contract due to a passive process:
- the ribcage muscles relax, and the ribs fall together under the influence of gravity
- the diaphragm relaxes and pushes the lungs up under the pressure of the abdominal viscera
Breath control
Your breathing changes depending on:
- the level of physical activity (sitting, running, or singing). At rest, you breathe around 12 to 20 times a minute
- quality of the air that you breathe (unventilated room air, fresh forest and sea air or high-altitude air in the mountains)
- your mental state (asleep, sleepy, or fully awake)
- your emotional state (calm, positively excited, anxious, panicking)
Your breathing is controlled by the involuntary nervous system, called the autonomic nervous system:
- The parasympathetic system relaxes the body and slows your breathing rate (eat-and-digest).
- The sympathetic system creates arousal and increases your breathing rate (fight-freeze-or-flight).
Your breathing rhythm always correlates with your heartbeat and blood pressure (cardiorespiratory coupling), as well as with the activity of the autonomic nervous system. This link between the breath and heart rate is so tight that every single time you breathe in, your heart accelerates, and every time you breathe out, your heart slows down.
Importance of nasal breathing
It appears that there is an essential difference between nasal and oral breathing. Nasal breathing synchronizes the activities of various brain areas, whereas oral breathing does not.
Nasal breathing supports the regulation of behavior, thought, emotion, and memory retrieval, so much so that cognitive performance declines during oral breathing.
Breathing Exercises
Whereas you cannot influence the autonomic nervous system directly or change your blood pressure, you can change the rhythm of your breath. And when you do so, the changed breathing alters instantaneously your heart rate, blood pressure, and brain activity.
The effects of controlled breathing have been recognized and used in yogic practices for centuries. There exist various breathing exercises, both yogic and their modern adaptations. Which alter one or several aspects of breathing:
Normal Breath
Breathing Exercise
Comparison of breathing exercises
A study conducted by Stanford University compared four different breathing techniques and their effectiveness:
Mindfulness meditation consisted of observing the natural flow of the breath without further interference.
During cyclic hyperventilation, the inhale was longer than the exhale, which was followed by a pause in breathing (apnea). This exercise closely resembles the yogic technique Bhastrika. Deep rhythmic inhales lead to hyperventilation and physical arousal.
Box breathing consisted of inhaling, pausing, exhaling, and another pause. All four elements were equal in time. This exercise resembles square breathing and yogic Pranayama techniques, in which the flow of the breath is interrupted by pauses between inhalation and exhalation.
The physiological sighing exercise consisted of a double inhale followed by a single prolonged exhale, mimicking natural sighing.
This study, led by Prof. Huberman and Prof Spiegel, showed that just 5 minutes of daily practice of any of the four techniques improves mood and reduces anxiety. This positive effect increased over the one month of regular practice. Controlled breathing exercises showed better results than breath observation (mindfulness meditation), with the physiological sigh being the most effective.
Sighing
Sigh is a natural breath that occurs when the activation state of your brain changes when you change your physical or emotional state. As Ramirez points out in his review article, sighs are critical for flexibility and adaptation to your day-to-day activities.
For example, you sigh when you lie down after sitting, when you are bored, or after you feel nervous (babies sigh when calming down after crying), and when transitioning into sleep. A study by Leuven University showed that the act of sighing itself provides relief and reduces physiological tension (a sigh of relief).
Sighs also play an essential regulatory role in states with low oxygen levels and elicit an arousal response. You may sigh as you wake up before opening your eyes.
Because sighs reset psychological and physiological states, adults sigh frequently, and babies sigh even every few minutes.
A sigh consists of augmented double inhalation and single exhalation, followed by a pause in breathing (apnea). Augmented inhalation allows you to expand your lungs and alveoli, maximizing ventilation.
Physiological Sighing Exercise
As explained above, you can use the physiological sighing exercise to quickly and significantly reduce anxiety and improve your mood.
And regular daily practice of just a few minutes a day will strengthen this positive effect.
Note that, in addition to the daily practice, you can apply the exercise throughout the day as needed. Remember that sighing is essential when shifting to any state.
So, you can calm down quickly by using physiological sighing with a prolonged exhalation. Or you can support the state of enhanced performance by sighing during any physical exercise in the rhythm of your movements.
Benefits of Breathing Exercises
Because breathing is directly linked to heart rate, blood pressure, and the autonomic nervous system, regular intentional breathing practices increase heart rate variability (HRV), activate the parasympathetic nervous system (eat-and-digest), and support healthy autonomic function.
HRV is a vital heart health parameter that shows how well the heart rate adjusts to different states of physical activity, like increasing during exercise and decreasing at rest. Both healthy heart rate variability and autonomic function are known to decrease mortality and boost longevity.
Breathing exercises for stress
Stress can be caused by various factors, such as a high workload, extensive travel, financial problems, or parenting. When issues remain unresolved and cause ongoing psychological and physiological arousal, stress becomes chronic. Chronic stress contributes to anxiety and depression, but also cardiovascular diseases.
Breathing practices can help you to alleviate stress. They can become a part of your long-term strategy for reducing stress and supporting your physical and mental health.
Breathing exercises for anxiety and panic attacks
Anxiety disorders are the number one psychological issue affecting people around the globe and impacting the quality of their lives.
Multiple studies have proven that breathwork is effective in reducing anxiety and preventing panic attacks. And the Stanford University study mentioned above showed that the physiological sighing practice is especially effective in alleviating anxiety.
When talking about breathwork for anxiety, it is essential to consider that the anxiety state has a typical breathing state. When you are anxious, your breathing becomes shallow and fast. Such breathing causes hyperventilation, leading to high blood oxygen levels, which only increases psychological arousal.
Some researchers warn that any hyperventilation breathing techniques will only enhance the hyperventilation caused by anxiety and should therefore be avoided.
At the same time, other researchers defend the theory that voluntary hyperventilation techniques differ from involuntary hyperventilation caused by anxiety. Studies showed that voluntary hyperventilation techniques induce intense altered states of consciousness and increase self-awareness, which helps combat anxiety disorders.
Therefore, in an anxiety state or during a panic attack, it is crucial to counteract the shallow and fast breathing pattern:
- slowing down your breath
- prolonging the exhale
- breathing into the abdomen
You may want to introduce a daily practice of physiological sighs or any other breathing technique to reduce and prevent anxiety and improve your emotional state.
Because anxiety is closely related to insomnia, alleviation of anxiety may also improve sleep quality.
Breathing exercises for weight loss
Deep abdominal breathing can raise oxygenation levels, accelerating your metabolic rate. This effect can positively affect weight loss.
However, breathing practices also have other effects that indirectly influence weight loss.
Breathing techniques alleviate stress and anxiety, improve mood, and increase self-awareness. And all of this reduces emotional eating and cravings, increases satiety, and naturally supports weight management.
Conclusions: Breathing for Wellbeing
- Breathing techniques have been used in ancient spiritual practices for a very long time.
- Modern research shows that breathing affects your psychological and physiological states, and that intentional breathing exercises can modulate them.
- Regular breathing practice will reduce stress and anxiety in as little as 5 minutes a day, elevate your mood, increase resilience, and support weight loss. This effect increases with regular practice time.
- One of the most effective modern breathing exercises is physiological sighing.
If you recognize a need for more profound shifts in your beliefs and behaviors, hypnotherapy can be an excellent choice. Transformational hypnosis will help you to work on the root cause of the issues, be it fears and anxiety or weight gain, and achieve fast and long-lasting personal breakthroughs.
Book here your discovery call to discuss with me your challenges and goals:
FAQ about Breathing Exercises
What is the most effective breathing exercise for anxiety?
Research from Stanford University found that physiological sighing produced the greatest reduction in anxiety among four breathing techniques tested. It involves a double inhale through the nose followed by a long, slow exhale. The study showed measurable improvements in mood and anxiety within a single five-minute session, and the effect grew stronger with regular daily practice over one month.
How does controlled breathing calm the nervous system?
Your breath is the one part of your autonomic nervous system you can consciously control. When you slow your breath and prolong the exhale, you directly activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the rest-and-digest state. This slows your heart rate and lowers blood pressure almost immediately. The link between breathing and heart rate is so precise that every inhale accelerates the heart and every exhale slows it.
How quickly do breathing exercises produce results?
Even a single session of five minutes produces measurable improvements in mood and anxiety levels. The Stanford study confirmed that this effect compounds with daily practice over four weeks, meaning the longer you maintain the habit, the more resilient your baseline emotional state becomes.
Should I breathe through my nose or through my mouth?
Nasal breathing is consistently more beneficial. Research shows that nasal breathing synchronizes activity across multiple brain regions involved in behavior, thought, emotion, and memory retrieval. Oral breathing does not produce the same synchronization, and cognitive performance has been shown to decline when breathing switches from nasal to oral.
Can breathing exercises help during a panic attack?
Yes. During a panic attack, breathing becomes shallow and fast, which raises blood oxygen levels and increases physiological arousal, making the panic worse. The most effective counter is to:
* slow your breath deliberately
* prolong the exhale beyond the inhale
* shift to diaphragmatic breathing, directing the breath into the abdomen
Physiological sighing is particularly well-suited here because the long exhale is its defining feature.
How do breathing exercises affect weight loss?
The connection is indirect but meaningful. Deep abdominal breathing raises oxygenation and can slightly elevate metabolic rate. More significantly, regular breathwork reduces cortisol and chronic stress, both of which drive emotional eating and cravings. It also increases body awareness and the sense of satiety, supporting more intuitive and regulated eating patterns over time.
How much daily practice is needed to see a benefit?
Five minutes a day is sufficient to produce measurable changes in mood and anxiety, according to the Stanford research. Consistency matters more than duration. Short daily sessions produce stronger cumulative effects than longer, infrequent ones.
About the Author
Olga Willemsen, Ph.D. > Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist & Transformational Coach
Olga is the founder of New Empowered You, specializing in helping professionals break through complex weight-loss plateaus. With a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences, she blends a pragmatic, evidence-based mindset with advanced hypnotherapy.
A certified member of the International Association of Counselors and Therapists (IACT), Olga is also trained in RTT, Neo-Ericksonian Hypnosis, and the Simpson Protocol. She helps clients worldwide update the mental “software” that governs their physical health.
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References
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