Why You Need To Breathe Less If You Want To Live Healthier And Longer

Taking six breaths per minute has been shown to improve your cardiovascular, respiratory, and autonomous nervous systems.

“Improper breathing is a common cause of ill health.

If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.

There is no single more powerful — or more simple — daily practice to further your health and wellbeing than breathwork.”

– Dr. Andrew Weil, Integrative medicine physician & author

We all breathe — from the day we’re born to the day we die.

The facts

Breath is our life force — yet we take it for granted! The average person breathes 22000 times daily, but most of us don’t even think about it. Not once! We just let it flow in and out.

But this is not only true for the common Joe. I went through years of med-school, and the healing effects of the breath have never been mentioned.

This starkly contrasts with Eastern cultures, which have long known the positive effects of controlling the breath to improve one's health. One of the best-known examples is yogic breathing (pranayama), of which multiple forms exist.

But the world is slowly catching up, and since the mid-1900s, breathing techniques and their acclaimed health benefits have become increasingly popular in the West.

The science

So much so that it tickled the interest of scientists, who were determined to assess the claims related to health benefits and its promise to treat various medical conditions.

Physicians such as Buteyko have shown the healing power of breath in the late 20th century. But there are also more recent examples of individuals “discovering” breath as a way to heal and prevent diseases, such as Wim Hof.

A recent scientific review of existing literature and/or studies regarding the frequency of breath has shown many positive effects on the body, some of which include:

• Respiratory: Enhances ventilation efficiency and arterial oxygenation via alveolar recruitment, distension, and reduction of alveolar dead space.
• Cardiovascular: Increases venous return, filling of the right heart, stroke volume, and cardiac output, as well as decreasing blood pressure.
• Cardiorespiratory: Improves pulmonary gas exchange efficiency.
• Autonomic nervous system: Shifts towards parasympathetic dominance and improves autonomic responsiveness to physical perturbations.

In summary — the authors suggest that controlled, slow breathing has been associated with decreased mortality in patients with certain diseases and longevity in the general population.

How you can slow down your breath

As mentioned before, an adult takes approximately 22000 breaths daily, averaging 10–20 times per minute. But as with many things in life, less is sometimes more. Eat less (i.e., fasting) and enjoy the many health benefits that come with it. Earn less and pay less taxes. Work less and enjoy more of your time with friends, family, and hobbies. You get the picture.

Hence, in order to experience health benefits, a rate of 4–10 breaths per minute is desirable.

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering by now how you can benefit from breathing less. You want to know how to start (without fainting). The good news is that it’s relatively easy to learn — the bad news is that it will require some effort from you, especially in the beginning.

I’m a big fan of pragmatism and hate complicated descriptions. So, let me break things down for you by keeping it simple.

1. Use your diaphragm to breathe — it’s also referred to as abdominal or belly breathing. During inspiration, the abdomen expands first, and the chest expands afterward.
2. Breathe in for five (at least) seconds — the longer you breathe in, the better, but at least five seconds are considered a minimum.
3. Hold your breath for the same amount of time it took you to breathe — so if it took you five seconds to breathe, hold your breath for the same number of seconds. As you get more experienced, you can hold it longer.
4. Breathe out for five seconds — as you get more experienced, you can breathe out two times longer than you breathe in.

There is a technique called the “365 method.” As the name suggests, at least three times per day, we should breathe six cycles per minute for five minutes in a row.

If you’re very new to this, you can follow the 365 method as suggested — that is, without holding your breath. Just breathe in for five seconds and then breathe out for five.

I use this daily, which has helped me beyond the benefits mentioned in this post. Of course, I’m only a data point of one, but it has helped me stay healthy while everyone in my family got the flu. But that’s a story worth telling in a separate post.

It’s surprising to me how few people know about the positive effects of slowing down our breaths. Hence, I hope this post will help spread the message.

Please remember that this post's information is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your physician before attempting any of the described breathing exercises to ensure you don’t have underlying medical conditions.