Breathing Needs a Rebrand

What first comes to mind when you think of breathing exercises? Meditation? Breathwork? Yoga?

An estimated 2–6% of the global population has meditated before.

For those of us who haven’t tried or didn’t stick with it, meditation now occupies a dusty storage box in the recesses of our mind labeled “mindfulness stuff”.

You might also find a half-empty gratitude journal in there or an expired subscription to Headspace. Chances are, “breathwork” has ended up in there too, and with it all conscious control of our breathing.

This isn’t due to lack of self-discipline — many of us who haven’t rummaged in the mindfulness box for a while enjoy healthy eating and a regular exercise routine. It’s just that “we’re not into all that stuff”.

Mindfulness Overload

For the majority, our only exposure to breathing exercises today is in a mindful, even spiritual context.

If that’s not for you, it’s pretty hard to embrace breathing exercises without bumping into all that dreaded mindfulness stuff. And yet we’re missing out on some serious benefits.

Controlled, deep breathing (through the diaphragm not the chest) reduces cortisol, and therefore lowers stress levels. High levels of cortisol affects our sleep, causes weight gain and chronic diseases.

If we’re exercising and eating healthily to prevent these things, why aren’t we doing simple breathing exercises too?

Let’s take a second look

Yufang Lin, MD, an internal medicine doctor at Cleveland’s Center for Integrative Medicine explains that when you engage in deep breathing “you’re slowing down the heart rate, reducing your blood pressure, and relaxing your muscles.”

She’s “had patients who were anxious lower [their] blood pressure and heart rate significantly with just a minute of deep breathing.”

The key to sustaining these benefits is regular practice, which can result in patients lowering their blood pressure by 30 points or more.

This 2017 study showed that participants who attended 20 sessions of diaphragmatic breathing over eight weeks had much lower levels of cortisol and higher attention spans than the control group.

But it’s not just about stress. Deep breathing can also reduce muscle tension, which helps with headache pain, lactic acid build-up, and IBS — relieving tension in the digestive tract.

In short, breathing exercises promise us a calmer, healthier life. So why aren’t we embracing it?

Like what you’re reading?

Breathing needs a rebrand

For anyone who struggles to embrace the mindfulness movement, breathing isn’t cool (yet). Gym workouts like F45 and CrossFit are cool because they create a community of committed regulars. Protein bars are cool and taste like chocolate bars without the guilt. Gummy vitamins are cool and taste like… well, gummies.

There’s no sociable class-based alternative for breathing exercises, you don’t ‘sweat it out’ as you would in a spin studio and you can’t replace the exercises with vitamin gummies.

But what if we took inspiration from boutique gyms?

Welcome to… BREATH45.

5–4–3–2–1 and HOLD screams the trainer, beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he stares you square in the eyes. BREATHE DEEPER.

45 minutes later we chug a bottle of purified air on the way out of the neon-lit studio and it makes us feel TOUGH.

Jokes aside, like exercise, breathing is a form of biohacking. Why hasn’t an industry emerged around it in the same way as sports or nutrition?

Over time, as some people transitioned from active work outside to sitting at a desk all day we started exercising in gyms to compensate for our lack of activity.

According to Harvard Medical School, we stopped breathing properly a long time ago due to a series of modern factors including body image.

Instead of pushing our stomachs out when we exhale to fill our diaphragm with air, we have a habit of holding in our stomachs, interfering with deep breathing and making shallow chest breathing the norm, which increases tension and anxiety.

There’s very little that’s been done to compensate for this.

Apart from representing an untapped commercial opportunity, it would help us all if breathing exercises became an accepted part of mainstream health and wellness.

Where to start?

Before “Breath45” opens its doors in a town near you, here are some reflections on how to start and how to stick to this new routine. Like exercise, consistency is the key to feeling the benefits.

Simple Exercises

For each of these, it’s tempting to lose heart and worry if we’re doing it right. Instead, focus on doing it regularly, even if you don’t feel it’s 100% ‘correct’. You’ll still feel the benefits.

4–7–8

Inhale for 4 seconds. Hold your breath for 7 seconds. Exhale for 8 seconds.

Set a timer, get into a rhythm, and stick to it for at least 5 minutes. 10 minutes before bed helps you enjoy a much deeper sleep.

Box Breathing

This technique is used by the Navy Seals in stressful situations.

Find a four-sided object in your line of sight. Inhale for four seconds and follow one side of the four-sided object from bottom to top with your eyes, as if you’re mentally tracing the image. Then hold for four seconds as you trace the next side. Exhale for four as you follow side three and hold for four to complete the square shape before starting with your inhale again.

If four seconds doesn’t feel right to you, pick a different number. As long as you’re consistent, you’re off to the races.

Sticking Power

Breathing exercises aren’t the most exciting way to spend our time (why stare into space when you can scroll social media?), so creating a routine can help you stick to them.

Try doing your exercises at the same time in the same quiet spot every day and removing distractions such as buzzing notifications.

Tie the timing of the session to your goal. If it’s to sleep better, make it the last thing you do at night. If it’s to destress at work, block time slots in your calendar.

Once you feel the benefits, make a mental note so the brain begins to associate these exercises with the same reward you feel when you’ve been to the gym.

If you’ve read this far despite ditching the green juice and neglecting your gratitude journal, it might be time to give breathing exercises a second look.

And of course, if breathing exercises get a glamorous rebrand in your nearby boutique gym or cans of purified air hit your local supermarket shelves, let me know.

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