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How long can we live without Food, Water or Air? Most humans can survive for almost a month without food and about a week without water. But when it comes to air, or specifically oxygen, we can only survive for 3-5 minutes. While there are tomes on right diet, it is often right breathing techniques that get lesser attention than they deserve. So are there ways in which we can make each breath count for more?

How does breathing work?
Breathing has 2 main phases – inhalation and exhalation. Inhalation occurs when the diaphragm, a small muscle under the lungs, contracts helping the lungs to expand. As the lungs expand, the pressure inside the lungs reduces forcing air from outside to enter via the nose or mouth traveling through the air passage. Inside the lungs, oxygen rich air reaches tiny air sacs called alveoli where blood gets loaded with oxygen and sheds carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide is exhaled as the diaphragm returns to its normal size. The oxygen rich blood is pumped by the heart to the various cells within the body where it delivers oxygen for energy production while collecting the by-product carbon dioxide. And the process is repeated.

So when the body needs more energy like during exercise, the lungs work harder to pump more oxygen and energy rich blood to the muscles to fuel the movement. This is also true when we face any danger, because our fight or flight response kicks in. Unfortunately, in the modern world where our mobile phones constantly feed us with dopamine induced notifications, we are constantly in this state of shallow breathing. Against an average of 12-18 breaths per minute, most people these days breathe over 20 breaths per minute. This is called shallow breathing and can cause a variety of health issues ranging from headaches, anxiety and drowsiness due to inadequacy of carbon dioxide removal. Next time notice your breathing pattern when you receive that mean e-mail!

Just like we have trained our body to breathe shallow, we can train it to breathe deep and complete too. The benefits are myriad – more energy, better stamina, increased fitness, calmer mind, reduction of stress and deeper sleep. So here are 3 methods to get back to optimal breathing.

Meditation or Slow breathing
Mindfulness is the best way to regulate and enhance your breathing. Meditating while watching your breath will automatically regulate it. Start by sitting comfortably in a quiet spot, you may close your eyes and take a deep breath filling your lungs with air to the count of 3. Pause for a second and then expel the air to a count of 3, pausing again. Right breathing is the basis for yoga too. There are many Apps that help to meditate, I use Headspace.

Blowing Balloons
Balloons are not just for kids, they can help adults too. Blowing balloons requires strong lungs and can help correct posture too as a bonus. There is a simple technique where you lie on the floor with your legs bent 90 degrees at the hips and placed against a wall. With one hand raised over your head, hold a balloon and blow it. Here is a short video to learn this trick. It strengthens the diaphragm letting you inhale and exhale better.

Swimming
Apart from being a great full body exercise, the controlled breathing that swimming requires also strengthens the lungs. So swimming enhances your breathing which pays back via better swimming.

Try these 3 simple techniques and you will notice a visible difference in a few weeks. You will experience enhanced stamina, a sense of calm and increased energy. So go ahead, make every breath count.