How breathing techniques improve wellbeing

Where do these benefits come from? The question hasn’t been fully studied, but a 2018 American study offers an answer: breathing affects the brain’s function. The researchers studied four female Northshore University Hospital patients with epilepsy, who had electrodes implanted into their brains.

During the experiment they were conscious, which allowed researchers to gather data that’s never been seen before. The electrodes were used to record data from different regions of the brain, studying the differences in activity between unconscious breathing and consciously performing a breathing exercise. What they found was that focusing on inhaling and exhaling activated neural connections in the anterior cingulate gyrus, the premotor and insular lobes, as well as the hippocampus. When breathing unconsciously, however, the frontal and temporal lobes show increased communication with the insular lobe. In other words, the data show that breathing can alter the state of your brain.

It’s also possible that breathing gymnastics provide these benefits thanks to a brain neuron cluster that regulates respiratory rhythm, known as the pre-Bötzinger complex. In 2017, Stanford University researchers established, with an experiment on mice, that this neural cluster is also involved with the “blue spot”, an area of the brain that helps shape the body’s physiological response to anxiety and stress.

Moreover, measured breathing influences the “wandering” vagus nerve’s activity. The vagus nerve is an important part of the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the central nervous system that activates the body’s rest response.  The vagus nerve controls many internal organs, including the heart, lungs, stomach, and even the pancreas. When slow inhalation and exhalation stimulates this nerve, it lowers your pulse and blood pressure, and relaxes your muscles. These signals are received by the brain, bringing you a sense of calm.