Breathing for Focus & Relaxation

In order to stay calm & focused remember:

Keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose!
Also during sports and while sleeping! Tape your mouth if it opens at night!

Nose breathing helps you to breathe healthy, meaning…
…slow, light & deep…
while ”deep” means moving the diaphragm - NOT breathing lots of air!

When you breathe through the nose, or slower than usual,

the feeling of not getting enough air is…

NOT due to a lack of oxygen,
but due to an elevated level of CO2.

CO2 is beneficial to our body! It increases the blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, organs and muscles. A habit of fast and hard breathing makes us sensitive to elevated CO2-Levels. Slowing down and soften your breathing will help you to, over time, get more tolerant to CO2. Thus, your body and mind are able to perform better and to relax and restore more easily. A measurement for CO2-Tolerance is the BOLT-Score. If you want to know how to measure and interpret it, you find information in my Blog Article How fit are you really? Or: do you know your BOLT-Score?

exercices

based on the Oxygen Advantage and Buteyko Method

*Important: Do not create strong air hunger if you have high blood pressure, are pregnant, have heart failure or a tendency to panic attacks. These exercises are supposed to calm and not stress you. If an exercise is challenging to the point that you feel anxious, reduce the intensity as described.

1. Nose Free Exercise

Basic for nose breathing is a clear nose. Whenever your nose is stuffed, use this exercise to free your nose:

• take a normal breath in through the nose and exhale as normal

• after your exhale, pinch your nose and hold your breath

• while holding your breath, softly move your head up and down, left and right also move your body a little

• hold your breath until you feel a medium to strong air hunger*

• recover your breathing through the NOSE and let is get calm again

• repeat about 5 times

***

2. Reduced Breathing

This exercise will increase blood flow to the brain and activate parasympathetic nervous system. Over time it will help your body adapt to higher levels of CO2 and making it easier to breathe slow, light and deep. It is also a great exercise to fall asleep:

• find a comfortable position and put one hand on your belly

• observe the cool air entering your nose and the slightly warmer air leaving your nose

• observe the soft movement of your belly caused by the diaphragm moving down and up

• with every breath, slightly reduce the volume of air entering your lungs

• with every breath, slightly increase the length of your exhale

• feel the sensation of air hunger increasing to a point, where you can still stay calm

• if the air hunger stresses you, increase the volume of air or decrease the length of your exhale

• if you do not feel air hunger, you are breathing to much air or too fast… decrease volume or/and speed

• continue for 5 - 10 min

***

3. Humming

Another exercise to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, relax and increase blood flow. This exercise also increases nitric monoxide in the nasal cavity, which has an antibacterial and antiviral effect:

• take a normal breath through the nose

• make a humming sound with your exhale

• with every exhale, slightly increase the duration of the humming

• find a slow and relaxed rhythm and continue for 3 to 5 min or longer…

***

4. Many small breath holds

This exercise is helpful, when you feel you are just about to have a panic or asthma attack:

• bring your attention to your breathing, if possible close your mouth and breathe trough your nose

• after every exhale pinch your nose and count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (if 5 is too stressful, count from 4 or 3)

• recover your breathing through the nose for about 10 to 15 secs

• repeat until you feel in control again

***

5. Box Breathing

This exercises is of great help in “emergency” situations, when you feel like you are loosing control over yourself or/and a situation and you feel it is important to focus. Box breathing may also support you, when you have trouble falling asleep, as the counting and and slowing down of your breathing will relax you and getting you out of your head:

• bring your attention to your breathing, if possible close your mouth and breathe trough your nose

• inhale for a count of 4

• hold your breath for a count of 4

• exhale for a count of 4

• hold your breath for a count of 4

• if 4 is too slow, do it with a count of 3

• if 4 is easy, increase to 5 or 6…

• repeat until you feel in control again

***

Literature and Links