by Lisa Carlson, MS, RDN, LDN, Northwestern Registered Dietitian Nutritionist
We all have a pretty good idea of what we should do to stay healthy (and happy): wear masks and socially distance, laugh more, connect with friends and family (often virtually), eat healthy foods (more veggies, less sugar), stay active and get a good night's sleep.
But, what about breathing?
Most people take about 25,000 breaths a day and don’t give it a second thought.
“Proper breathing from the belly is a great way to promote good health. Unfortunately, we are too often operating in fight-or-flight mode that leads to fast, upper chest breathing, and that can be detrimental to our health,” said Cindy Conlon, an attorney and adjunct instructor at Northwestern University, who teaches classes on mindfulness and yoga, and has just added deep (or diaphragmatic) breathing to her vast mind-body repertoire of classes.
Virtual Breath Class starts Feb 2
Her new 4-week Virtual Breath Class (hosted by Northwestern University Athletics and Recreation Center) begins Feb 2 and teaches students, staff and faculty how to breathe better. Sign-up starts now until Jan 30 and is offered for a nominal fee. To register, click here
4-week class in February - Tuesdays starting Feb 2
- 11:30am to 12:30pm (+15 min optional Q & A 12:30 to 12:45pm) - Feb 2, 9, 16, 23, 2021
Conlon thinks most of us ought to pause and literally take a breather from our multi-tasking lifestyles, and learn how to breathe properly to improve our health.
As most instructors during the early days of the pandemic, Conlon reconfigured her mind-body classes to offer them in a virtual format. She also explored research on ways to strengthen the respiratory system and came across James Nestor’s fascinating 2020 bestselling book on breathing, titled: Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art. She found the book to be a compelling read, filled with new scientific findings about how to breathe properly.
This information is rarely discussed in doctor’s offices.
“Doctors share very little if anything about the benefits of proper breathing,” Conlon said in a recent phone interview. “During a yearly physical, your doctor may ask you about your diet, exercise and how you are sleeping. They also ask you to take a deep breath to hear your lungs, but they rarely ask you how you breathe.”
The answer to that question could benefit your health.
“Breathing is fundamental to well-being. Once we are aware of our breathing and learn to breathe correctly we have the power to increase our energy or calm
our minds. Conscious breathing is life changing,” said Conlon. “This is what I want to share with students.”
According to James Nestor, proper breathing can help you sleep better, may make you less stressed, less depressed, and even help sharpen your memory. Proper breathing can also help lower your blood pressure and may even help you manage your weight. Nestor, who is a renowned science journalist, makes the case that learning to breathe correctly may have as big of an influence on your health as proper diet and exercise.
Rhythm of your breathing affects memory
Building on previous research in animals and humans, Artin Arshamian and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm Sweden, compared the effects of nose breathing and mouth breathing during a one-hour consolidation period after participants were exposed to various odors. Nose breathers, whose mouths were taped over during the consolidation period, showed increased odor recognition compared to mouth breathers, whose noses were clipped during consolidation.
Although this study did not measure brain activity, the researchers suggest that nose breathing may facilitate communication between sensory and memory networks as memories are replayed and strengthened during consolidation. The study provides evidence that, in addition to its effects on memory encoding and retrieval, nasal respiration also supports memory consolidation.
Other breathing studies have shown that slow, deliberate nasal breathing is a helpful relaxation technique and can reduce cortisol levels (the stress hormone linked to the fight-or-flight response) and may help improve sustained attention (connected to the memory center of the hippocampus).
Front Psychol. 2017; 8: 874
These are the messages Cindy Conlon will be sharing in her virtual class: technique is important and proper breathing may help reduce stress and improve overall health.
Breathing awareness in the time of COVID-19
In many ways, we have become more attuned to breathing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Every day, we experience the necessary and very minor inconvenience of breathing in and out while wearing a face mask.
We’ve also seen the devastating images of people on respirators in hospital COVID wards. We know the life-and-death importance of breathing, but when did we stop deep breathing?
Children usually breathe naturally
According to Conlon, most of us started our young lives breathing correctly or naturally.
When we were children, we learned to belly breathe: breathing in and out through our noses expanding our belly on the inhale, and contracting our belly on the exhale.
“At some point, early on in life, possibly when we started school and were confined to desks, we lost our connection to our breath,” said Conlon.
It may be like a lot of things. When we are young, we eat when we are hungry, stop when we are full, nap when we need to and go to bed when we are tired. As adults, we often need to relearn some of these basics, such as breathing.
Proper breathing is as easy as N-A-S-L
Cindy Conlon created a clever acronym to help you remember the key steps to proper breathing: NASL (which sounds like nasal)
N: nose (breathe in and out through your nose)
A: abdominal (inhale and expand your belly or abdomen)
S: slow (make your breathing deep and slow)
L: light/less (lighten your breathing)
Breathing Exercise:
Try this 3-minute technique to help you immediately reconnect your mind to your body. It also helps you calm your body. It is adapted from Eating Mindfully: How to end mindless eating and enjoy a balanced relationship with food, by Psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD.
· Find a comfortable posture. Bring awareness to your body. Pay attention to how all parts feel.
· Relax. Feel your body getting lighter.
· Focus on breathing: Breathe from deep inside your belly (or abdomen). Put one hand on your belly and one had on your chest. Make sure your belly pushes out when you inhale and pulls in when you exhale. This is called “belly or diaphragmatic breathing.”
· Observe the rhythm of your breathing. Coming and going. Pay close attention to the feeling of air moving through your nose. Stay aware, observe.
· Follow your breathing and don’t try to alter it. If your mind starts to wander, try counting each time you breathe out. Relax your body while doing this exercise.
· Also, pay attention to how you breathe in different situations: walking, running, feeling happy, sad, tired or stressed.
Virtual Breath Class
Learn how to reduce stress and improve your overall well-being through breath.
"If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe better." - Dr. Andrew Weil
This class is designed to do just that. Breathing impacts all aspects of your well-being (from digestion to bone density!); the vast majority of people do not breathe properly. In this class you will learn how to spot dysfunctional breath patterns and learn how you can correct them. You will explore the biomechanics and biochemistry of breathing and engage in gentle movement to establish new healthy breathing habits. Participants are encouraged to wear loose clothing and have a mat near your computer (you will be practicing in a chair, as well as on the floor). The book by James Nestor, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is highly recommended, either before or along with the class sessions. In addition, Max Strom's TED talk is also a nice supplement to this class https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lb5L-VEm34. Class recordings will be available to participants for a limited amount of time following each class. Questions about the class please contact Cindy Conlon, cindykconlon@gmail.com
4-week class Tuesdays, 11:30am-12:30pm (+15 min optional Q & A 12:30-12:45pm) Feb 2, 9, 16, 23
Cost: Students: $25 Non-students: $30 To register now, click here Registration ends: January 30