You can see it all over the Internet “Gut healing: the new fad diet “and similar trending topics. We choose to believe all these findings are more steps in the eternal path of knowing more about the human body and what makes it tick.
Enter the new “fad diet” except it’s not a diet: it’s air. You’d think we’re going to talk about air filters and purifiers, right? But the matter of fact is this is not about the quality of the air but how we inhale and exhale it.
For a few decades, we’ve become more aware of how breathing techniques can improve our lives. Through yoga, meditation and even giving birth and parenting styles, we can learn how different types of breathing help improve different moments of our lives.
There are a few of these books that claim you can retrain your body to breathe differently always. Yes, not only for exact periods of time or during specific activities, but all the time, even when we’re sleeping.
This book called “Breathe: The New Science of a lost art” by James Nestor wants to take your oxygen intake to the next level.
In his book, Nestor claims each breath we draw in should take about three seconds, and each breath out should take four. We’ll then continue the same short inhales while lengthening the exhales to five, six, and seven counts as the run progresses. This is actually not far from the breathing count suggested by hypnobirthing for laboring moms.
On the contrary, some experts say it’s impossible to program the body to breathe in another rhythm by default. Yet, there is science proving that breathing through one nostril has the opposite effect on the body than breathing through the other nostril.
Regardless of the scientific base for changing the default way we breathe, something else has become clear after reading Nestor’s book.
Americans not only have an overeating problem, but also an over breathing one. Turns out we’re breathing more than the average person should. This is why introducing slow breathing can make positive changes in our health.
Like Nestor says “A last word on slow breathing. It goes by another name: prayer. When Buddhist monks chant their most popular mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, each spoken phrase lasts six seconds, with six seconds to inhale before the chant starts again.
The traditional chant of Om, the “sacred sound of the universe” used in Jainism and other traditions, takes six seconds to sing, with a pause of about six seconds to inhale.”
So this week take some slow inhales and count your breaths so you stop wasting time.
