How to Breathe Better to Relax, Recover, & Overcome Chronic Stress

Chronic pain is associated with elevated levels of stress and an overactive nervous system. Breathing can fix this. This article explains how to breathe well and introduces 4 breathing tools you can use to improve your life and reduce stress by controlling your nervous system.

Breathing and the Nervous System

Our nervous system includes the part we control (somatic) and the subconscious part (autonomic) that regulates the body's involuntary actions. This subconscious, or autonomic, branch of your nervous system has 2 primary functions:

1. Sympathetic - the fight-or-flight stress response

2. Parasympathetic - rest-and-digest relaxation response

The sympathetic nervous system helps us deal with stress, but modern stress is different because it's constant and unrelenting, so whereas ten thousand years ago your greatest stress was running from a lion, today the stress from your boss at work or your retirement portfolio cause you to spend too much time in the fight-or-flight mode. This is disastrous for fitness goals. When we're stressed, we don't digest food efficiently and struggle to recover from exercise so all the work you put in can be a complete waste of time!

The 4 essential breathing exercises I'm going to share (later in the article) will help you to relax and spend more time in the rest-and-digest mode so you feel less chronic pain and get better fitness results.

How to Breathe

~20,000 times per day you have the opportunity to help or hurt your body, and it all depends on how you breathe. The primary breathing muscle is the diaphragm - connecting the bottom of your lungs to your spine. You can visualize and feel your diaphragm muscle pressing down into your abdomen as you breathe in.

The secondary breathing muscles are the intercostal muscles between your ribs that help to expand your rib cage and open your lungs - with each inhale feel your rib cage expanding out 360 degrees around your torso. The breath should be horizontal instead of vertical. Think about expanding out laterally instead of up and down.

Common mistakes include belly breathing without expanding the rib cage and shallow breathing without expanding the diaphragm. To breathe with good technique we need both habitually.

Find a comfortable position with a neutral spine, place your hands on your lower ribs, and inhale deeply to expand your torso. Breathe into your belly, sides, and back. Think of your torso as a cylinder and fill up every direction possible 360 degrees and then relax to exhale.

The o2 trainer by Bas Rutten is a tool that can help you connect with and train your breathing muscles. Inhale with force as deeply as you can and then relax to exhale. Practice taking 30 deep breaths 1 time per day to connect with your breathing muscles. I highly recommend this product.

Habitual mouth breathing is associated with higher levels of stress, poor facial development, and disrupted sleep. By training yourself to breathe through your nose instead of your mouth, you can help your body stay calm & centered, even in stressful situations. Breathe habitually through your nose. If your nose is clogged, unclog it by closing your nostrils with your fingers and holding your breath for 5-10 seconds, then breathe deeply. Repeat this process until your nose clears. Nasal strips that open the nasal passage can help.

The best book I've found for learning good mouth posture is called The Beauty Potential and if you're a mouth breather it can completely change your life.

Processed foods have removed the need for chewing, which has led to an epidemic of underdeveloped facial structures, which cause impaired breathing and crooked teeth (learn more with this seminal nutrition book and this more modern book).

To correct for underdeveloped faces, we must expand our palates - literally grow our faces - by improving tongue posture and by chewing more often. Improve tongue posture by pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth, as if you were making the "ng" sound. The practice is called mewing and it improves facial structure (Learn about Orthotropics from Dr. Mike Mew).

Choose whole foods that require chewing and consider chewing mastic gum to further develop your facial structure. To support nasal breathing and overcome snoring when sleeping, you can also place a small piece of surgical tape over your mouth to promote a closed mouth.

I was a mouth breather for the majority of my childhood because I didn’t know any better! It’s now been close to 5 years since I’ve begun making an effort to nasal breathe, and while it has not been easy, my quality of life is much better now.

Learning how to breathe has improved my ability to overcome simple ailments like stomach aches and headaches, and it’s improved my cardio and recovery abilities. Learn how to breathe and put in the effort and I guarantee you your life will improve.

4 Essential Breathing Exercises

These techniques will help you to engage with your parasympathetic "rest and digest" nervous system to relax your body and reduce your stress. Anyone with chronic pain can benefit by implementing these into their daily routine.

4 Breathing Relaxation tools:

1. Slow down

2. Sigh

3. Hum

4. Yawn

Slow Down

When at rest, each breath should take between 6-10 seconds to promote relaxation and health. When we lengthen the exhale we decrease our heart rate. If you want to be more relaxed, lengthen the exhale.

Pausing can help to lengthen the exhale: Inhale, exhale, pause. This is how a person naturally breathes at rest.

I prefer to pause at the end of my exhale, but you could also pause between each movement: Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.

Don’t hold your breath, just pause. If you want to stay relaxed in a stressful situation, breathe slower by lengthening the exhale and pausing. This tool alone gives you greater control over your nervous system.

Sigh

The sigh is magical. It's a tool to relax your body and release your nerves. Sighs are deep breaths that help regulate breathing patterns and maintain healthy lung function. Use a sigh of relief one time or repetitively to release stored emotions, stress, and traumatic experiences in the body.

Inhale twice as big as normal and sigh to relieve your body. Enjoy it. The bigger the inhale, the more relieving the sigh. Take your time on the inhale and allow the air to expand and flow to every part of the body. When you let the exhale go, let it go with a sigh. Let your jaw go, let your face go. Let it all go! Inhale twice or three times as big.

At the same time when you release the breath with a sigh, let your muscles go, let your joints go. Add imagery to this sigh of relief to get the greatest benefit. Release the tension in your forehead, eyes, mouth, jaw, neck, and shoulders. Visualize your body relaxing and releasing as you sigh.

Hum

Humming moves us into a relaxed and enjoyable state. It’s a sign of pleasure. Humming is a beautiful exhale. It's musical and euphoric.

Humming relaxes your nervous system and connects you with the universe.

• Play around by humming different tones, hum at different intensities.

• Hum while you’re busy or working.

• Notice how it feels as you breathe this way.

• Sing a rhythm or song as you hum on your exhales.

Yawn

Yawning is a powerful breath work exercise to release tension. Move the body, make noise. Give it everything you have! After yawning, notice how your body feels.

• Fake a yawn until a real yawn happens.

• You need to yawn until your eyes start to water.

• Yawn once, then again. One yawn after the next. Keep yawning until your eyes water.

• Make the yawn full body. Make noise. Make the yawn shakespearean or theatrical.

• Notice how your throat opens up.

• Yawns are seen as impolite, so you have years of built-up yawns you can now release.

• When you yawn, you’re not doing it. It’s your ancient brain and body taking over control and releasing fluids, hormones, and muscles.

• At the very peak of your yawn, let out a roaring sigh of relief. Sigh out of that opening the yawn creates.

Conclusion

Learning how to breathe has improved my ability to overcome simple ailments like stomach aches and headaches, and it’s improved my cardio and recovery abilities. Applying the 4 breathing strategies helps me to stay connected with my body and relax before bed or during stressful times. Learn how to breathe and practice these breathing exercises and I guarantee you your life will improve.

Hope this helps! - Tom