Using Your Breath to Your Advantage
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“People don’t think much about breathing. Of all the things we take for granted, breathing must be number one. It’s our main source of life and energy. When I started focusing on my breathing, I became a stronger athlete and was better able to control my levels of effort and pain.”
— LAIRD HAMILTON
Oxygen is fundamental for life. Oxygen is required to create energy for activity, thinking, digestion, and every other physiological action. For example, our brain cells use oxygen to fuel the chemical processes that allow us to think; our muscle cells use oxygen to fuel the processes that make our muscles contract.
Our ability to deliver oxygen from the environment to our cells is done through the oxygen transport system. This starts with the lungs, where oxygen in the air that we breathe enters our bloodstream via diffusion (during which carbon dioxide is removed). By contracting our diaphragm and the muscles attached to our rib cage, our chest expands, creating negative pressure which allows air to enter (i.e. inhalation). The opposite occurs when we expel air (i.e. exhalation).
In general, breathing isn’t something we control or even think about for the majority of the day as it’s controlled by the autonomic nervous system (the involuntary nervous system). Your body will respond appropriately to certain physiological cues and increase or decrease your breathing rate accordingly. If you hold your breath, you stop gas exchange in your lungs, causing oxygen levels to drop and carbon dioxide levels to rise in the blood. Chemoreceptors notice this change and send signals to the brain, telling you to breathe. You will experience a similar effect if you start exercising. As your muscles are using more energy, oxygen consumption increases, and carbon dioxide levels gradually increase. Your chemoreceptors sense rising carbon dioxide levels and send “breathe harder” signals to your brain.
However unlike other autonomic processes such as heart rate or digestion, we can actually control our breathing - by changing the frequency of our breathing, how deep or shallow we’re breathing, or even how we’re breathing. This means that we can use breathing to manipulate our nervous system - and thereby how we feel and perform! We’ll go over a few ways you can adjust your physiology and mindset by simple breathing exercises below.
To decrease stress: Belly breathing
One of the simplest breathing techniques you can incorporate into your life is belly breathing. Belly breathing (or diaphragmatic breathing), is focusing on using your diaphragm to inhale air, which results in a deeper breath. This type of breathing allows you to breathe deeper, brings your attention to the present moment, and activates your parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system. Here’s how to do it:
1. Sit in a relaxed position or lie face up with one hand on your navel.
2. As you inhale, expand your belly, pulling more air down into the lower part of the lungs. Your hand should rise as your belly expands.
3. As you exhale, contract your belly and push the air out so your hand falls and your belly returns to a resting position.
Doing this a few times throughout the day will help bring your attention to your breath, help you release mental and physical tension, and lower stress and anxiety.
To get into flow: Box breathing
In stressful situations like public speaking, standing on the start line of a race, or participating in a meeting, staying calm, cool and collected can make all the difference between positive and negative outcomes. Controlling your breathing is one way you can stay calm so you can enter into flow.
One example of this is Combat Tactical Breathing (CTB), a technique military personnel are trained to use to control their mindset during operations. It’s designed to help keep the sympathetic nervous system (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic nervous systems in balance. Here’s how to do it:
1. Breath in, count to four.
2. Hold your breath, count to four.
3. Exhale, count to four.
4. Hold your breath, count to four.
This simple technique can help you to do what you need to do at the highest level under the most challenging conditions so that you can respond to the pressure rather than simply react to the situation. Try it the next time you’re feeling nervous about something you need to do and watch your nervous system calm down and your mind settle and relax.
To improve physical activity: Sync your lungs and muscles
As mentioned above, you usually don’t need to think about breathing. Your body and brain will adapt to increase or decrease your breathing to match your metabolism. During physical activity like walking, you will naturally adopt the most efficient and least costly pattern of natural breath. However, you can deliberately optimize your breathing during exercise by leveraging a phenomenon known as entrainment.
Entrainment is the matching of your breathing rhythm to your exercise movement patterns. The idea is to align your exhale with the muscle contraction or power move of the sport. For example, rowers will inhale as they lean forward to place the oar in the water and then exhale as they pull the oar through the water. Similarly, tennis players will exhale forcefully in time with hitting the ball, then breathe as efficiently and relaxed as possible to recover between points.
When we bring the breath into alignment with the movement, the effort required to breathe and to move both decrease, making the activity seem much easier. Experiment with different patterns to find the rhythm that makes the exercise feel easier and more relaxed.
Those are just a few different breathing exercises you can use depending on your situation. However, there are countless breathing techniques and many resources available to help you. One app you can use to practice breathwork is Othership, which offers a lot of guided sessions.
If you’re using the VIIVIO app, remember to record any breathwork you do in the RECHARGE function! And remember you can download VIIVIO here.
