How We Breath Determines Everything
- 17 hours ago
- 7 min read
A wise young carpenter was hired to build a deck at our home when I was still in elementary school. It was during summer break, so he would sit with us at our kitchen table during his lunch break. He shared stories about travels to the East where he learned meditation and a yogic lifestyle. He talked about doing special breathing exercises to optimize his health and vitality. I might have looked like a dog does when they don't understand what we're saying, with my head tilted to one side. I was not grasping what he was trying to explain, nor did I understand why someone might want to do any of this.
Little did I know that a seed had been planted, and that I would one day travel to the East, learn yoga and meditation, and adopt a plant-based holistic lifestyle.
One of his comments has stuck with me to this day:
"How we breath determines everything."
This claim made sense to me, decades later.
At the Kushi Institute, when Michio was teaching us breathing, chanting and meditation, he also said something that struck me, and has stuck with me:
"How you breath determines your destiny."
Wow. Really? The more I've thought about it over the years, the more sense it makes.
Emotional Affects & Life Decisions
How we breathe affects our nervous system (NS). Our breathing controls whether we are in fight-flight-freeze mode (sympathetic NS) or rest-digest-heal mode (parasympathetic NS).
This is crucial! Because our nervous system controls every function of our body.
In a stressful situation, how we react is determined by which of these two modes we're operating in. How we breathe in that critical moment determines whether we respond from a place of stress and feeling threatened, or we respond from a place of calm and feeling in control of our emotions. If we lash out at someone in stress-mode, we might say something we regret later. If we respond calmly and keep our cool, there will be nothing to regret later.
We can train ourselves to respond instead of react in any situation. With presence of mind, we make better choices in the moment, and we'll feel better about ourselves when we reflect back on the event later. Rather than ruminating over miscommunication and missteps.
At some point in our lives, we will encounter forks in the road where we need to choose one career path or employer over another, the direction of a relationship, and/or where we put down roots. If we make these important life-altering decisions when we're in a state of fear and stress, we might not make the best choice, and the outcome will have a lower chance of taking us down the best path. Whereas decisions made from a place of joy and clarity will have a much greater chance of turning out in our best interests.
These choices and responses, sprinkled over a lifetime absolutely affect and alter our destiny.
Mental & Physical Health Affects
In modern life we are surrounded by both subtle and blatant stressors. In a state of stress, our breathing increases to prepare for fight or flight. This makes our blood pump faster, but its being diverted to the muscles, and away from vital organs. Blood is the carrier of oxygen, and in stressful times this means less oxygen is going to our vital organs, resulting in reduced optimal function. Stress increases cortisol and adrenaline surging through our blood, which also wreaks havoc on our organs and overall wellness.
Stress, even positive stress like exercise, increases adrenaline and cortisol levels in our blood. In small amounts and in short bursts this can be beneficial. But if stress becomes chronic it can have devastating affects. Blood pressure is elevated, cellular function is disrupted, gradually damaging vital organs.
Learning how to breathe to manage our NS and reduce stress in our life is paramount to our health.
In our yoga therapy training programs we learned various breathing techniques to address different health conditions. In osteopathy school we learned physiology and surgical-level medical anatomy.
How we breath:
can change our heart rhythm
affects our organ function
controls our nervous system (NS)
determines our moods and emotions
alters the chemistry of our brain and blood
Taking deep slow breaths immediate alters your blood chemistry!
When you take slow controlled breaths it:
Sends calming signals to the brain on a neurochemical level via the Vagus nerve, an important parasympathetic cranial nerve that controls our organs and digestion.
Regulates the emotions by balancing oxygen and CO2 levels in the blood. Shallow stress breathing causes a drop in CO2 which can trigger an elevated stress response.
Improves cognitive function by providing the oxygen to the prefrontal cortex that the brain needs for clarity, focus and decision making.
Increases self-awareness, grounding us in the present moment.
Helps rid the body of cortisol, the primary stress hormone.
Breathing Exercises aka Pranayama
There are a variety of breathing exercises for a variety of goals. Whether its to calm, cool, heat, energize, or balance, there is an exercise specifically for that.
Extended Exhalation Pranayama
As a general rule our inhale is more energizing, and our exhale is more calming. Our inhale encourages the sympathetic NS, and our exhale encourages the parasympathetic NS. A basic breathing technique called Extended Exhalation is designed to calm the NS. While focusing on our breath, we gradually aim to make our exhale slightly longer, and up to double the length, of our inhale. This is the easiest and quickest way to switch to parasympathetic NS mode.
Before exploring any breathing exercises, its important to determine if you are a "chest breather" or if you breath "normally." The way to test this:
Come into a comfy seated position with your posture upright, not inclined or against a chair.
Place your hands near your navel, and take a breath in. Do you feel your navel go in or out?
If when you inhale your navel goes in, you are a chest breather.
Chest breathing is synonymous with the sympathetic NS or being in the fight-flight-freeze state. Diaphragmatic breathing is synonymous with the parasympathetic NS or being in the rest-digest-heal state
Even if you breath "normally" its ideal to have a foundational understanding of how to breath diaphragmatically, and how to breath fully into all 3 chambers of the torso.
Full 3-part breaths begin in the abdomen and flows upwards to fill the torso through the three sections: abdominal, thoracic, and clavicular. The breath direction reverses this order on the exhale.
If you're interested in the anatomy of how this all works, keep reading...
Your Breath, The Diaphragm & Related Organs
Your diaphragm muscle contracts down and flattens when you inhale, and domes up and relaxes when you exhale. The range of motion (called diaphragmatic excursion) is typically 1.5 to 2.5 cm when we are in a resting state, and as much as 7 to 11 cm with deep or forced breathing and physical exertion.
As the diaphragm moves up and down it massages the organs above (heart, lungs,) and below (liver, spleen, stomach, kidneys, intestines).
Your Breath & The Liver; Are You Tired or Toxic?
The right side of the diaphragm is higher due to the liver which mostly resides on the right side of the torso, tucked under the diaphragm. If your liver is expanded due to inflammation and congestion (from fatty and processed foods and/or excess alcohol), this can affect the diaphragm and its ability to fully contract down and allow for a full inhale. In this case, you might feel more tired than necessary. This is not only due to your liver obstructing the diaphragm which reduces your oxygen intake, but also from the liver's diminished ability to flush out toxins and cortisol from your blood.
The Diaphragm & Pelvic Floor
They should both move in the same direction with each inhale and exhale. If either the diaphragm or the pelvic floor are tight, restricted or injured, it will affect the other, and this will affect your ability to breathe fully. The cause of these restrictions can be from falling and landing on your pelvis, injuring your ribs, having abdominal surgery, or emotional stress, to name a few.
Your Breath Affects Vital Organs
Looking at the diaphragm from below (as if the camera is looking up from the floor) you can see how the diaphragm attaches to the sternum in front, and the vertebra behind. There are passageways for very vital structures: the aorta, vena cava, and esophagus. Each breath moves the diaphragm up and down massaging along these tubes, which directly affect how these organs function, and therefore affects our health. The aorta comes from the heart sending blood throughout the body. The vena cava is the venous return bringing deoxygenated blood back to the recirculated. The esophagus sends food to the stomach. Each of these tubes rely on the diaphragm for a combination of support and motion. If any or all of these structures are tense, constricted, or twisted from stress, injury, or structural imbalance it can affect blood flow, venous return and digestion.
Check out these videos showing how the diaphragm moves the breath:
(Video duration 1:14 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1nUv9P2eDA
(Video duration 5:03 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0W_sueD3Gc
If you are still reading, and if you're into Nerdy details, here's more about how your breathing affects your brain and nervous system...
Breathing & Your Cerebral Spinal Fluid
Diaphragmatic breathing directly influences cranial rhythm. In Cranial-Sacral Osteopathy we recognize that the cranial sutures move and breathe, and their movement is known as the Primary Respiratory Mechanism. The motion of the diaphragm modulates thoracic pressure which also modulates cerebral blood volume, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow.
The interaction between breathing and cranial rhythm depends on important mechanical processes.
Thoracic Pressure Variations: Deep diaphragmatic or belly breathing creates substantial changes in pressure within the thoracic cavity. When you inhale, the diaphragm contracts and descends, which drops the pressure in your chest, which encourages venous blood to flow out of the cranium and back to the heart.
Cerebrospinal Fluid Flow: As venous blood leaves the skull during inhalation, it causes a temporary drop in intracranial pressure. This pressure gradient draws CSF upward and redistributes it within the brain. On exhalation, thoracic pressure increases, forcing CSF back outward.
Brain Tissue Motion: These rhythmic, breath-induced fluctuations in blood and CSF volume cause the brain mass and the medulla oblongata to gently shift direction. Inhaling causes the brain to move cranially (upward), while exhaling causes a caudal (downward) movement.
Nerve Stimulation: The diaphragm is innervated by the phrenic nerve and is heavily connected to the vagus nerve. Activating these neural pathways helps regulate the autonomic nervous system, promoting a calm state that synchronizes heart rate, respiration, and neurological oscillations.
Clinical research documents that strong diaphragm function and coordinated deep breathing generate the most pronounced oscillations in CSF circulation: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6070065/
Short tutorials on CSF:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9Lo0OPON4 Video duration 2:02
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGIto0ymHoc Video duration 2:13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=444vP0Qzg_M Video duration 1:02
Join Karen for a special class, Oxygen Therapy and learn valuable techniques to improve your breathing including 3-part breath, extended exhalation, and more. Click for details >>
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