The majority of people breathe incorrectly

Hand on heart, now that you are reading this article: have you made yourself comfortable in your favorite armchair with a fine cup of coffee or tea? Do you sigh comfortably because of the enjoyable reading break? Or are you like the majority of people: You may have freed up some time to read, but your mind is still not on it. While your eyes dart across the lines, part of your brain is busy doing other things. And breathing is short and shallow, rushed.

the surface Breathing is a widespread disease – why is that?

When healthy people breathe in short cycles, the vernacular speaks of shallow breathing that only takes place in the upper chest. Evolutionary, it goes back to so-called “fight or flight” situations: when the body is in an alarm state, rapid breathing activates the heart rate, keeps blood pressure high, floods the body with the stress hormone cortisol – all with the aim of reacting quickly at all times to be able to

Although only a few in this country are effectively lying in wait in their work or family life in survival mode, the clear majority of healthy people breathe much more shallowly than nature intended. Is this due to the constant availability demanded everywhere these days? At the high stimulus level? Or does it fall back on the posture of the upper body hunched over keyboards and screens? Or does tight-fitting clothing force you to suck in your stomach?

The fact is that shallow breathing, which puts the body in an artificial state of stress, can have health consequences: increased blood pressure, headaches, tension, lack of concentration and reduced digestive activity.

Deeper breathing can reduce stress and lower blood pressure

When you breathe freely, the inhaled air not only flows into the upper chest, but further down into the abdomen. In this diaphragmatic breathing, the diaphragm contracts and creates that negative pressure in the lungs that manifests itself as inhalation. Deeper breathing should not only contribute to relaxation and calming, but also reduce stress and fatigue, lower pulse and blood pressure, massage the digestive organs, strengthen the immune system and reduce feelings of anxiety.

In search of deeper breathing and its positive effects, you can turn to mindful breathing and the appropriate techniques – or confront your body with physical activity. Best of all: do one thing and don’t neglect the other. An obvious starting point would be to integrate exercise into everyday life. Stairs instead of lifts, bicycles instead of cars, walking instead of taking the tram. Clean yourself instead of having them cleaned. Similar shopping instead of delivery service.

Those who want to combine guided breathing with physical training should be happy in group fitness lessons aimed at better perception of the body. This includes all forms of yoga, Pilates, and body & mind lessons, when conscious inhaling and exhaling as well as noticing your own breathing is explicitly instructed by reputable trainers. Other fitness lessons are also suitable: from conditioning training in all variations, core and strength training to controlled martial arts and artistic sports. Always on the condition that the trainers guide you through conscious breathing.

If you prefer to travel individually, endurance sports are available: running, cycling, hiking, ski tours, cross-country skiing, swimming. In order for these sports to promote deeper breathing, you should make sure that after a careful warm-up you don’t constantly move in the comfort zone, but also consciously challenge your body a little. For example, by going a little faster or adding a few meters of altitude. Because the harder the muscles work, the higher the oxygen requirement, the faster and deeper the breathing.

Breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth

In general, you breathe correctly intuitively in sport. However, one rule applies to all exercise that takes place out of the water: never hold your breath. This should be adhered to, especially during strength training. Ideally, lifting and lowering weight should be consciously linked to inhaling and exhaling. Even in endurance sports, breathing usually flows intuitively in a rhythm adapted to the pace.

Running coaches say they’ve seen more stitches when they impose a breathing rhythm on beginners. Whether you breathe in through your mouth or nose when jogging depends on your anatomy and individual preferences. Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth makes sense for everyone who is exposed to many pollutants (traffic, agriculture) while jogging. This technique is also worthwhile at temperatures below zero degrees. This not only filters dust and dirt particles out of the air, but also humidifies and heats them at the same time. This makes it easier for the lungs to absorb air.

Hardly any sport promotes regular breathing better than swimming

Swimming promotes deep breathing in several ways. For one thing, proper crawl or breaststroke swimming (not swimming with your head above water) requires steady exhalation into the water and explicit breathing above the water. Because the wet element also exerts permanent pressure on the lungs, you have to inhale and exhale more forcefully when swimming than on land. And to avoid water entering the nose, certain strokes (lying on your back under water, turning) exhale explicitly through your nose.

So there is hardly any sport that promotes regular, deep breathing in a more versatile way than swimming. It is not for nothing that many people feel wonderfully relaxed and recovered afterwards, despite the physical exertion.

How to train the lungs

Since the lungs have no muscles, they cannot be enlarged through exercise like the heart or skeletal muscles. Lung volume is also primarily dependent on anatomical and genetic factors and cannot be trained. As a rule, high-performance athletes do not have larger lungs than normal mortals. The maximum breathing volume, i.e. the amount of air that can be ventilated, can be influenced by training. This is done by strengthening the diaphragm and rib muscles and keeping them flexible (too much body fat restricts the mobility of the chest wall!), so that the amount of air sucked in increases. It is therefore worth training the diaphragm muscles like other muscles and strengthening them with strength exercises.

Enormous training effects through physical activity can be achieved with internal breathing or with the metabolic processes in the body that follow internal breathing. The more frequently and longer we force the body to transport larger amounts of oxygen to the muscles and organs (or pollutants away from them) during sport, and the faster this has to happen, the greater the ability to adapt to the metabolic processes that take place with oxygen.

Optimized gas exchange in the 300 million alveoli

Through physical training, the gas exchange in the 300 million alveoli is constantly optimized, the metabolism works more economically, which means that more oxygen gets into the blood, the heart and ultimately the muscles faster. This in turn has the consequence that the breathing rate is reduced because more oxygen is transported with one breathing cycle. Adaptation processes in the heart strengthen the heart muscle and increase its stroke volume, which results in a lower number of beats and lowers the heart rate.

Those who are looking for a way to breathe more deeply in physical training will ultimately benefit twice: from the positive effects that come with deep breathing. And of an optimized, economical gas exchange in the body, which has a noticeably positive effect on health and athletic performance.