How Deep Breathing Benefits Your Health

At Genki World, we want to make the important health discoveries that scientists and researchers publish accessible and actionable for everyone. This week, we reviewed research on deep breathing and put it into practice.

We invite you to read the research and test it for yourself, or share deep breathing by sending a Genki World card.

The Research: Slow deep breaths several times a day can give you more energy, lower stress and optimize your well-being. Proper breathing is like a massage for your brain, heart and muscles.

The Practice: Focus your breathing 5-6 times a day. Breathe through your nose. Breathe with your diaphragm (not your chest). Breathe with a relaxed face. Breathe silently, rhythmically. Inhale for 2-3 seconds, exhale for 3-4 seconds and repeat.

Our Experience 

I use the slow and deliberate breathing technique to clear my mind of stressful thoughts that create chaos and clutter in my mind. Deep, mindful breathing helps declutter the mind of endless amounts of data and thoughts that become meaningless and obstructive over time. Like how we declutter our house of things that are no longer needed.

It’s a very powerful tool, simple, free and easy to do. I also used the breathing exercise with my daughter when she was really stressed out as a child and couldn’t vocalize her issues. It really helped her calm down. Kinda like Taylor Swift’s “You need to calm down. You’re being too loud”.

– ZC

I tried the deep breathing exercise several times a day for several days, while I was sitting at my desk. I would breathe in for 3 seconds, out for 4 seconds, over several minutes. To get enough breath to breathe out for 4 seconds, you definitely need to practice diaphragm breathing (belly breathing). I think the breathing itself was relaxing for me, but as I transitioned from inhaling to exhaling, I found my mind wandering to the jobs I was working on and what else I needed to get done that day.

So I wasn’t that successful at it, but I did find parallels between this deep breathing exercise and how I breathe when I run. I breathe in for 2 steps, out for 3 steps. I’ve read that when running, you should exhale for a longer period than you inhale. Over the course of a 45-minute run, I focus on my breathing a lot. I find it relaxing and mind-clearing. I don’t get the same effect with the deep breathing exercise at work, but I may need to try it for a longer period.

– JH

Too scattered to have a routine,
Instead, 
    finding moments to inhale. Exhale.
Too undisciplined to “breath exercise,”  
So just take those seconds 
     when they spark.
Taking it as it comes and letting the good feels take over. 
Let the pains blow away. Even if
                      for just a glimmer of okayness.

– LY

I found that deep breathing (one slow 2-3 second inhale with a 3-4 second exhale; repeated), through my nose, at random times during the day, keeps me on balance most of the time.

Rather than using the breathing technique as a stress reducer, I’m trying to make it a regular part of the course of my day, and don’t get to a point of being stressed. In other words, master myself, rather than let the external environment distract me.

I guess my ultimate goal is to be in perpetual deep breathing mode.

– EA

My breathing experience goes back to athletics. And it’s not just hardcore stuff…but stretching and Yoga (although I don’t do yoga) very much utilize breathing techniques. Breathing very much centers and balances me. That’s why it helps at work…makes the mind work more clearly and efficiently. Helps with focus. Relieves a degree of stress.

– JH

The breathing exercise for me was just a good reminder to take a few calming deep breaths regularly. The day can really escape from you and you don’t realize how long you’ve been sitting at your desk.

I like to use my Time-Out app which forces me to get away from my desk and stretch and now also take some deep breaths. It’s just a good way to avoid getting all cramped up during the day and rest your eyes from the monitor.

Also, since breathing is pretty automatic, you don’t really think about its benefits when you do it slowly and intentionally….I guess that’s why they offer Lamaze classes…which I never actually took.

– LI

I connected well with the breathing exercise because I think it’s something I somewhat already incorporate into my life. Growing up playing sports, proper breathing plays a critical role not only in the physical aspect of any game but it affects the mental aspect as well.

On the physical side, after endless running, the natural reaction is to sit down, gasp for air, and basically huff and puff until you catch your breath. However, we were taught that the proper technique to catch your breath is to stand up, lean your head back and take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.

On the mental side, we were taught that visualization played an important role in a game and one technique to help calm the mind and help with visualization is to focus on your breathing. So we’d close our eyes, visualize the game, and focus on breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth.

And that’s something I try to incorporate into my daily life too. For example, during the exercise there was a day where I found myself stressed out by deadlines and other things. And I found that by taking those slow deep breaths, in and out, in and out, it helped to calm my mind and it made me feel rejuvenated as well.

I’ve found that slow deep breaths can be a good way to get rid of any negative energy being bottled up inside. It helps to visualize inhaling as taking in positive energy and exhaling as releasing the negative energy.

– JD

Please share your deep breathing experiences!