Your heart will beat about 2.5 billion times in your lifetime, and you will take roughly 700 million breaths. That’s a lot of beating and breathing, most of which happens automatically. Even when you sleep, your heart keeps drumming, and your lungs inhale and exhale. You might find those statistics somewhat interesting but not worth spending much time mulling over. After all, other than trying to increase your numbers by striving to be healthy, there’s nothing else you can do.
I agree regarding the quantities themselves. But after ten years of chronic dysfunction, I started to learn that the quality of breathing is something that’s not only within our power to impact dramatically but also worth paying attention to. It’s a unique function with numerous implications for the rest of our anatomy, including our hearts. As a result, I began focusing more on my airflow outside of the times it was lacking, like during a hard workout or while I was underwater.
Breathing is different from almost anything you do. Your nervous system will ensure it happens because it keeps you alive. However, you can control the process, unlike the rest of your autonomic vital bodily functions. You have the ability to slow it down, speed it up, or stop it for a bit. The same cannot be said for the workings of any other internal organ. There’s no simple way to affect your heartbeat or your digestion directly.
The method for consciously altering these things is indirect, via your nervous system, by using your breath. If you want to bring your heart rate or blood pressure down, you calm your respiration. Therefore your lungs can be for your body what a keyboard is to a computer—a tool used to manipulate the inner workings of the machine. The more skilled you are as a programmer, the greater your ability to change how it operates.
I was first introduced to breath work during a neural retraining course called the Gupta Program. I had begun looking into a path of healing that involved a mental approach to what was presumably a physical illness. I learned through this method, and others, that most chronic conditions are partly, if not wholly, due to nervous system dysfunction. Our natural baseline gets reset at a heightened state. Our body still thinks it’s in danger even when we feel calm.
To return that level to normal, you must overwrite the software. Doing so involves various techniques, and Gupta’s curriculum included performing five minutes of alternate nostril breathing before two meditation sessions daily. It was the first time in my life that I’d ever done this kind of thing, and I found it effective. So I dug deeper into what’s out there in the world of breathing.
You can go way down the rabbit hole of respiration. There are methods taught by Wim Hof that kind of supercharge you, others espoused by Andrew Huberman for specific health benefits, and some that even give you near-psychedelic experiences. I’ve tried many of these and can testify to their efficacy, but I won’t get into the details of every permutation here. If you want a broad brush overview, I suggest the book Breath by James Nestor as a starting point. He also has a series of instructional videos on his webpage that I encourage anyone to check out.
For my purposes, I simply want to assert that some measure of breath work is critical to a healthy mind fitness routine for all the aforementioned reasons. And just like any other kind of training, mental or physical, these practices should improve the rest of your waking experience. As always, figuring out your ideal bespoke exercises is something only you can do. But there are two things I always focus on that I believe have universal benefits:
Breathing through my nose. Mouth-breathing is a bad idea unless it’s part of a specific protocol. I’ve even tried to keep my trap shut while working out, which gets challenging as your heart rate increases. I don’t do it all the time, but I can now comfortably row 5,000 meters on an erg at a sub-two minute 500-meter split and only breathe through my nose. If you want to mess around with that, please do it safely. Don’t get to the point where you are going to pass out.
Breathing calmly and smoothly. That may sound like a giant duh, but if you start to pay attention to your respiration, you might be amazed at how stilted it can sometimes be. For example, I noticed that I often held my breath while typing emails. A lot of breath work involves big, forced inhales, exhales, and specific counts, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach. But as someone constantly trying to down-regulate my central nervous system, I usually try to do the opposite. I actively mimic how I breathe when I’m calmest—slow and smooth—and focus on quality instead of quantity.
As I’ve discussed numerous times, mind fitness is like physical fitness, and the more we focus on the former, the more we end up with the latter as a by-product. Ultimately it’s one interconnected construct of holistic fitness or human performance. This means that fundamental physical health factors, like diet, exercise, and recovery, are part of the equation. In my estimation, we should add breath to this list. It can profoundly impact your physiology, especially when faced with a dysregulated nervous system, as I was.
In many ways, we’ve taken breathing for granted and forgotten it’s a skill that can and should be practiced. It may be autonomic, but doing it well is not automatic. That’s within your power to change and worth your time.
Level up your mental health:
Subscribe to the RARE SENSE Substack.
Subscribe to the RARE SENSE podcast on any major streaming platform and leave a five-star review if you love it.
Subscribe to the RARE SENSE YouTube channel.
Take the RARE SENSE Challenge.
Connect with me on all major social media platforms @thischrisirwin.
Invite me to speak about mind fitness to your organization by filling out the RARE SENSE contact form.
You can also support my work by purchasing RARE SENSE gear or sharing my content with others.
DISCLAIMER: RARE SENSE content is not medical advice. Nor does it represent the official position or opinions of any other organization or person. If you require diagnosis or treatment for a mental or physical issue or illness, please seek it from a licensed professional.