It is well known that breathing is the foundation of good health and healthy breathing is needed for a good night’s sleep. Now you might be reading this and thinking, “I’m breathing fine because I’m alive. I haven’t suffocated and I don’t feel like I’m suffocating.” Those are reasonable thoughts however with poor breathing you can still live, however, your quality of life is compromised.
What does healthy breathing look like?
Breathing should feel easy to do and good breathing is quiet, calm, and invisible. The best breathing is silent. As you breathe in, your diaphragm moves downward, and your abdomen area will expand. As it expands you may also feel your ribs expand to the front, sides, and back with each inhalation. As you exhale, your abdomen area will contract.
Healthy breathing means you are using your diaphragm, abdominal muscles, and your ribcage muscles.
BOLT score exercise
Try this… for a minute. It’s called the Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT score) and it provides incredible insight into your body’s energy levels and overall health status.
Ready?
Here’s how to do it…
- Take a normal breath in through your nose and allow a normal breath out through your nose.
- Pinch your nostrils shut and hold your breath.
- Count the number of seconds until you feel the FIRST definite desire to breathe, or the first stresses of your body urging you to breathe. (Don’t push your body to your absolute breath hold LIMIT – just until the first desire to breathe).
- Release and resume normal breathing. Your breathing should be normal and calm. (If you’re breathing hard, you held too long).
How many seconds did you get?
Here’s the bottom line:
A healthy, vital, energetic body should be able to hold for at least 40 seconds.
If you got less than 25 seconds, it indicates dysfunctional breathing and a body in poor health no matter how slim or healthy you might look.
You may not know it, but your breathing habits are a major influencer on how well you sleep.
What happens when we breathe?
Breathing is an automatic function that our body carries out automatically. Healthy breathing is the combination of optimal levels of biochemical, biomechanical and psychological factors.
- Biochemical
Biochemical relates to the optimal level of oxygen and carbon dioxide travelling around your body. This happens when you breathe light, slow and through your nose.
- Biomechanical
This relates to the coordination of activities between the diaphragm, abdominal muscles and the muscles of the rib cage. You may have noticed a lack of coordination when you tried the BOLT score exercise or if you experience back problems due to poor posture. Effective diaphragmatic breathing supports the posture of the spine, so poor posture indicates a compromised diaphragm.
- Psychological
There are many factors that can impact your psychological well-being that may impact your breathing pattern. Resilience and emotional intelligence provide ways for you to counteract the negative impacts of emotions on your breathing pattern. Perception of stress or anxiousness can disrupt a healthy breathing pattern.
How does our breathing become unhealthy or dysfunctional?
The underlying reason for unhealthy breathing can vary; environmental factors, lifestyle habits and genetic conditions can all contribute to unhealthy breathing.
Biochemical
When you take a big breath, it is often through your mouth, and it involves upper chest movement. When you do this, it disrupts your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
So, if you are breathing through your mouth with big breaths during the day, you may start to feel tired in the afternoon and you’re possibly sighing a lot in an effort to rebalance the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in your body. This imbalance may also wake you up at night and make it challenging to get back to sleep.
Biomechanical
If you have poor posture and are regularly slumped forward at your desk or in other activities, there is insufficient space for your diaphragm to move freely. The impact is that oxygen and carbon dioxide cannot move optimally around your body and when you look to rest your body, it will look to address the imbalance.
Your body can look to address the imbalance before you go to sleep which can make it challenging to fall asleep or you may wake feeling like you’re gasping for air because your oxygen levels drop while you sleep and may drop to below ideal sleep levels.
Psychological
Research shows disordered patterns of breathing are strongly influenced by anxiety and other emotional states and vice versa. Stress is a common problem for adults due to our sedentary lifestyle. When you perceive stress, you activate your flight or flight response which leads to a build-up of adrenaline in your body. And it takes approximately 20 minutes after the stressful event to stop producing adrenaline. It’s thought that adults today experience chronic stress rather than episodic stressors because of how we live. Your body needs time to process the adrenaline before you are able to fall asleep easily. Too much adrenaline in the body prevents falling asleep.
2 Breathing exercises for you to try
To help you prepare your nervous system for sleep, you can try these two breathing exercises. They are designed to help reduce your heart rate and prepare for sleep.
1. Elongate your exhalation
Breathe in and out normally and count how long your in-breath is. When you have an idea of that add the count of ‘3’ to it for your exhalation. For example, if you breathe in for the count of 5, breathe out for the count of 8. Repeat the exercise for a couple of minutes.
2. Single-nostril breath
Breathe in and out normally and then close one of your nostrils and breathe in and out normally for two breaths. Then close your other nostril and breathe in and out for two breaths. Continue this for a couple of minutes. The breaths are normal breaths.
Find all the benefits of nasal breathing here.
If, while reading this article you think that you could benefit from the services of a professional to help you identify if your breathing is the cause of your poor sleep, then book in a confidential call. During our call, we can explore your breathing patterns, and sleep experience and provide a path for you to start breathing and sleeping better.
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