“Breath is the bridge…which unites your body to your thoughts.”
The average person breathes an astonishing twenty-two thousand times a day. Most of those breaths go unnoticed. So, how can you use this automatic process to improve our brain health?
Even as an adult, your brain can rewire connections and form new patterns because it has plasticity. Researchers can observe activities that cause brain changes through behavior, feelings, and brain scans.
Breathwork is any exercise that uses the breath. Studies show that people can use breathwork to alter the make-up of their brains. This can provide various health benefits, from anxiety reduction to improved performance.
In this article, you’ll learn about three different breathing styles and how they benefit your brain health.
Diaphragmatic breathing
The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that sits under the lungs. When you’re comfortable, you will probably take deep breaths, allowing your stomach to rise and fall naturally. However, anxiety and stress can alter how your body works. In an anxious state, you are more likely to tense your neck and shoulders and take shorter, shallower breaths.
Deep breathing using the diaphragm can improve migraines and mental health conditions, including anxiety. One small study found that diaphragmatic breathing can also enhance attention and reduce negative feelings. The researchers also observed its anti-anxiety effects in the blood. The blood cortisol levels of participants using breathwork decreased during the study. Cortisol is the principal chemical that the human body releases when under stress.
Stress and cortisol are helpful if you’re running away from a bear or standing up to a rude neighbor. But long-term anxiety and stress damage the brain, leading to a higher risk of conditions like depression and dementia.
Next, we’ll take a look at a kind of diaphragmatic breathing that has been used for centuries.
Pranayama breathing
Pranayama breathing is a type of diaphragmatic breathing. It’s a practice that stems from yoga, using deep breaths to slow down breathing.
One study took a group of students and separated them into two categories. One group practiced pranayama for a semester while the other, known as the “control group,” continued studying without using breathwork. The researchers found that the students who practiced pranayama breathing had half the pre-test anxiety and achieved higher grades compared to the control group.
Researchers used a brain scan to observe participants’ brain activity in another study. They concluded that pranayama breathing can strengthen connectivity between parts of the brain associated with emotion management, attention, and awareness.
Next, we’ll look at another breathing technique that improves brain health – mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation is a breathing practice that derives from Buddhist teachings. In Buddhism, meditation is a tool for increasing awareness, kindness, and more. When performing this style of meditation, you sit quietly, observing your breath, while allowing thoughts to come and go freely through your mind.
Researchers have proven that mindfulness meditation can change grey matter in the parts of the brain associated with emotion regulation, learning, and memory.
But how might these changes affect you?
Mindfulness meditation can reduce anxiety and stress and make you feel more positive. In addition, it can aid people in overcoming addiction. For example, in a study of smokers, the group given mindfulness training managed to reduce the number of cigarettes they smoked and maintained the improvements in a follow-up assessment.
Another study found that mindfulness training can improve concentration. Researchers concluded that participants who experienced a reduction in mind-wandering had improved cognitive function. Additionally, these brain changes may help adult ADHD sufferers.
Meditation may also protect your brain. As you get older, your brain function reduces. However, long-term meditation might slow age-related decline. Additionally, there is some evidence that mindfulness meditation may help with brain injuries, such as concussions.
Conclusion
Breathing is a simple process that it’s easy to forget about as you go about your day. However, taking the time to practice mindfulness meditation or diaphragmatic breathing will improve the health of your brain.
Breathwork isn’t a panacea but it may be a step in the right direction to minimize the effects of brain aging, support your mental health, and improve attention.