By Jared Packer

Relaxing your body helps to decrease pain, improve recovery, and increase quality of life. Breathing in specific ways can bring about this relaxation response. Focusing on your exhalations and breathing cadence is a great start. This blog will help you learn about the process of inhalation, by reviewing techniques that can be used to relax the body.

The Science

• Breathing is both voluntary and involuntary.

• The fight or flight (sympathetic) response will involuntarily increase breathing rate and volume.

• Having awareness and voluntarily decreasing breathing rate and volume can blunt the fight or flight response.

• This works by activating the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system - otherwise known as “rest and digest”. For more details on this branch of the nervous system, read this.

How to Know If It’s Working

• Look for indications of parasympathetic activity. Some of these are:

  • Salivation increases

  • Heart rate decreases

  • Muscular tension decreases

  • The feeling of calm/relaxation

Give yourself a few minutes before you conclude if it’s working or not. Keep in mind that shifting between a stressed/relaxed state is like a dimmer switch rather than a light switch, so results accumulate.

Inhalation Techniques

Breathe in through your nose

There are a number of reasons why nasal breathing is beneficial:

• Nitric Oxide in the paranasal sinuses improves gas exchange and is a vasodilator

• Humidifies and sterilizes the air we breathe

• Results in higher activity of the diaphragm

More details on the benefits of inhaling through your nose can be found here.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Deep breathing does not mean large breaths, it means using the lower lobes of the lungs. This area has the highest concentration of blood vessels, and thus the most efficient gas exchange. 

The lower lobes are more effectively inflated through diaphragmatic breathing. The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that flattens out and pushes your organs downward to make space for the lungs to expand.

Diaphragmatic breathing will result in the expansion of the rib cage and abdomen in all directions. How much of that expansion should occur in the chest vs the abdomen is up for debate. It will be dependent on position and what the body is trying to accomplish at any given moment. I can tell you that, if only your chest is moving at rest, you likely have a breathing pattern disorder.

Try this exercise to encourage diaphragmatic breathing:

• Hands around the lowest 2 ribs. Push in with slight pressure.

• As you inhale, feel your lower rib cage/abdomen expand outwards into your hands.

• Use a slower breathing rate, such as inhaling for 4 seconds, exhaling for 6 seconds.

• Let your breathing do the work. You are not trying to force anything.

• To further increase relaxation, try this while lying on your back with your feet propped up.

You can use a belt like this from The Buteyko Clinic to provide feedback for expansion of the lower rib cage.

This also works by wrapping TheraBand around your mid-section.

Quiet Inhalation

A loud inhalation indicates resisted, labored breathing. This can activate secondary breathing muscles, such as the scalenes, SCM, and pec minor. Overuse of these muscles is correlated with the stress response, in addition to breathing pattern disorders. This is appropriate at times of increased activity, or when done for a specific purpose. 

For example, yogis have long used Ujjayi breathing to boost energy. These techniques are noisy and create resistance to airflow. While this can improve focus and mental clarity, it is not what we are trying to accomplish with relaxation. Instead, we can do the opposite - breathe quietly and with less resistance.

• Pay attention to the airflow in your nostrils. Focus on the cool air flowing in, warm air flowing out.

• Once you are familiar with this sensation, mildly decrease the speed of air coming in.

• It might seem like you are not even breathing, but keep your attention on the subtle sensation of cool air passing through your nostrils.

• Eventually decrease volume to a level that would be inaudible to someone next to you.

Decrease Inhalation Size

A deep breath does not mean a big breath. This is particularly important for the person that is overinflated (too much air remaining in their lungs), or in a state of chronic hyperventilation (always breathing too fast/too much air).

Chronic hyperventilation results in hypersensitivity to CO2. An inhalation is triggered by CO2 levels in the body, which responds to this increased sensitivity with overbreathing. This manifests as faster breathing rates and/or larger breathing volumes. Subtle levels of this may be more prevalent than previously thought, and can potentially lead to anxiety and the sensation of breathlessness during activity.

You can test this using the Control Pause:

If your score is under 20 seconds, you may have a hypersensitivity to CO2.

Here are some tips for improving this sensitivity by gradually decreasing your breath size. Don’t try all of these at once, just pick one at a time.

• Slightly delay your inhale until the first signal from your body that it wants air.

  • (it’s not an exercise in breath-holding or willpower)

• Inhale just enough air to fill your nose.

• Inhale slightly less air than you think you need.

When using any of these techniques, do not allow your air hunger to exceed 2/10. They should not be uncomfortable.

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Try These Inhalation Techniques

Remember the whole point is to ease the fight or flight response. If paying attention to your breathing makes you feel anxious, move on to something else.

For another technique to reduce anxiety, read this blog about cold showers for anxiety.