We are born, and the first thing we do is a huge effort to breathe for the first time. When we die, we breathe out one last breath. Our entire life passes between these two breaths.
You breathe, on average, 1,261,440,000 times throughout your life. Notice how you do it: do you breathe through your mouth or through your nose? Is it a deep or shallow breath? If you put your hand on your stomach, does it swell when you breathe?
You may be using less than a quarter of your lung capacity.
Throughout history, and in many cultures, breathing has been considered a powerful internal medicine. In the West it is somewhat strange to consciously notice and practice breathing, but we have discovered, for sure, that deep and slow breathing reduces the heartbeat and activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the one that calms us down).
We also know that it is important to breathe through the nose
Why? Because smell activates the brain regions that have to do with emotions, memory and behavior. This is why a smell can evoke such vivid memories. Has it ever happened to you? I remember very forcefully a day, not long ago, in a city that I was visiting for work. I went into a bookstore. The place itself did not remind me of anything special. But only entering a very characteristic smell, of old stationery, invaded me. And it transported me decades ago, to the bookstore where I spent many hours as a child, when I spent the summer in my grandparents' town!
It was that same smell, that I had forgotten, that I could not describe and that I had not smelled for so many years ... I felt as if I was again with my grandparents, so close to them. I filled my eyes with tears! I stayed as long as I could there, remembering the street where I spent hours playing, the ice cream parlor, the stationery that I liked so much, the voice of my grandparents and that smell of my childhood. He knew that when he left the bookstore those memories that were so strong now would fade away again. But that moment was really intense, and I keep it with me forever.
Why is this happening to us? Because when we breathe deeply, through the nose, we activate emotions and memory. Our inhalation is like a remote control that turns on our emotions and our memory. In addition, inhaling deeply invigorates, activates. And exhaling, instead, calms, reduces the frequency of the heartbeat and feelings of anxiety and stress.