An Introduction to Breathing
Why do we start with breathing? Because it influences nearly everything within our body. How we breathe affects our physiology, our psychological state, how we perform, and how we move. Our body is going to prioritize breathing over all else because, well, bad things happen when you don’t breathe.
The average person takes over 20,000 breaths per day, and each one of those breaths will influence our body and mind. For example, rapid and quick breaths will increase our sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system tone, and our heart rate. This breathing often comes with a sense of excitement, nervousness, or anxiety. Slow and controlled breaths, with a focus on exhaling, will have the opposite effect: it will increase our parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system tone, lower our heart rate, and promote a sense of calm and ease. The depth and rhythm of your breathing also will change how you move and behave.
You may think that if you are breathing at all, your body is doing a good enough job. But “just breathing” is the bare minimum and it is definitely less than optimal. How you breathe does matter. Let’s look at it from a performance lens. If you inhale as you perform a forceful movement (kick an object, lift heavy weight, jump) you likely won’t be able to produce much force. Also, the less air you are able to move during a physical event, the less energy your body is capable of producing and the worse your performance will be.
We can also look at it from a movement and health perspective. It is not uncommon to overbreathe, where we breathe more than we need. A multitude of things happen in this scenario. First, we are likely to overuse muscles that are meant to assist breathing, not drive it. This will cause these muscles to become tense, tight, overworked, and maybe even painful. We also are likely to become oversensitive to CO2, which will paradoxically prevent oxygen from being delivered into our muscles and it can contribute to feelings of anxiety and stress.
Of course, you are still on the right side of the ground if you are able to breathe at all, but this is just the bare minimum. How you breath affects nearly every system in your body. In future posts, we will explore the anatomy and physiology in more detail, as dive deeper into how we can breathe better for both health and performance.