How You Breathe Affects Your Health

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An old Chinese adage goes, “If you know the art of deep breathing, you have the strength, wisdom, and courage of ten tigers.” When a kung fu master takes a meditative moment before delivering the kiss of the dragon, these powers are summoned, and woe be the opponent! But is this practice of deep breathing also responsible for the seemingly long lives of these great masters?

Breathing is something we do naturally and without thought. But ask people with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or lung cancer. There’s no taking the lungs for granted, and a great deal of thought goes into the process.

Does it matter, how you breathe? Breathe in, breathe out, isn’t that enough? It turns out, you may want to make some adjustments in how you do it, and you can have a little fun at the same time.

Researchers conducted an interesting study. Over the course of one month, they compared the practice of mindful meditation with three different types of daily, 5-minute breathwork exercises. One group of study participants were instructed to breath using longer inhalations and shorter exhalations. Another group performed box breathing or tactical breathing, which is equal duration of inhalations, breath retentions, and exhalations. A third group probably had a laugh or two as they undertook something called cyclic sighing, which emphasizes prolonged exhalations.