🔋The Science Behind Why Long Exhales Calm You Down (ATP#32)

If there’s one tool I wish I had learned earlier, it’s how to use my breath to influence my mind.

For years, I acted like my brain was the only thing that mattered, as if the rest of the body only served to carry it. That reminds me of a classical PhD comic: 😆

Brain on a stick, that captures how I thought for years (and reminded me to check out the latest PhD comics)!

More recently, I’ve developed a keen interest in brain-body interactions. It’s fascinating how you can control your mind through your body, and one key tool is your breath. Lengthening your exhales is one of the simplest ways to calm your nervous system on demand.

Let’s explore how it works and how you can integrate it into your toolkit.

What long exhales do

Your lungs sit on each side of your chest. They’re a complex system, smartly designed with thousands of alveoli (tiny sacs in the lungs) that could cover the total surface area of a small studio apartment (50-75 square meters)! When you breathe in, the lungs expand and the alveoli fill up.

Below the lungs is the diaphragm, a muscle that contracts and moves downwards when you breathe in and relaxes and moves up when you breathe out.

Breathing influences your heart rate (the number of heartbeats per minute):

• When you inhale, your heart rate rises.

• When you exhale, your heart rate falls.

So, longer exhales tend to shift your system toward a lower heart rate.

But what happens in your brain when you breathe like this?

Long exhales increase vagal tone, the influence of the vagus nerve on your heart and nervous system. The vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, the ‘rest-and-digest’ division that calms you down.

Long exhales signal to your brain via the vagus nerve: “You’re safe. You can calm down.” This breathing technique initiates a calming bidirectional loop between your brain and body.

How to implement this in your life

There are two main applications:

• Instant relief: Whenever you feel agitated, scared, or stressed, use conscious breathing to calm down your nervous system in the moment.

• Daily practice: Just 5 minutes of breathwork daily can have long-lasting effects on your mood, your heart rate variability, and overall well-being.

A technique with good scientific evidence is cyclic sighing, also called the physiological sigh.

One cycle goes as follows:

1. Inhale deeply through your nose.

2. Do a second, shorter inhale to fill up your lungs as much as you can.

3. Fully exhale through your mouth. Exhale slowly and for longer than you inhale.

For your daily practice, sit or lie down, set a 5-minute timer, and practice the technique until the timer runs out. A recent study showed that practicing this routine daily for a month improved positive affect and respiratory rate more than a mindfulness practice.

Wrapping up

Your breath is a terrific tool available to you for free. Learning to control your mind by controlling your breath can be a true game-changer!

So if it’s not in your toolkit yet, I hope this newsletter edition encouraged you to add it.

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That’s it for today!

And now?

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Until next time!

Best wishes,

Patricia (Dr. Schmidt) from creatorschmidt.com.