How to breathe to achieve the desired effect?

An experiment on 50 people conducted by Northwestern University showed that taking a deep breath helped them make faster and more accurate decisions.

We’ve all had those moments when we need to take a deep breath to calm down and relieve stress. It’s probably the last thing you want to do, especially when you’re in the throes of a rage attack. But new scientific research has revealed exactly why and how deep breathing can have such a positive effect on the body.

According to research, taking a deep breath through your nose will strengthen your brain and make your memory sharper. The important thing that determines the effectiveness of breathing here is whether you inhale or exhale and through the nose or mouth.

Sixty participants were asked to identify a frightening face. If they saw the face while inhaling deeply, they recognized it more quickly than if they exhaled. Their ability to remember the object also increased in the same situation. This effect was no longer present if the participants inhaled but through their mouths.

“One of the key findings of this study was that there was a marked difference in brain activity in the amygdala and hippocampus when inhaling versus when exhaling,” said study leader Christina Zelano, an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “When you inhale, we found that you are stimulating neurons in the olfactory cortex, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, as well as the entire limbic system.”

In the study, 60 subjects were asked to make rapid judgments about facial expressions in a lab setting while their breathing was recorded. The participants had to decide as quickly as possible whether the images of faces they were shown were expressing fear or surprise. When exposed to the images while breathing in, participants recognized the faces as having fearful expressions more quickly than when breathing out. This was no longer true when the faces were expressing surprise.

Performing the same task but when participants were exposed to images of faces while inhaling through the mouth, the rapid recognition effect also disappeared. Thus, the above effect only works for scary face stimuli through inhalation through the nose.

In another experiment to assess memory function—which is closely linked to the hippocampus—the same 60 subjects were shown images of objects on a computer screen and asked to remember them. The researchers found that recall was better when participants were exposed to the images while inhaling.

According to Zelano, the study’s findings suggest that rapid breathing may be an advantage when someone is in a dangerous situation. “If you are in a panic or fearful situation, your breathing becomes rapid and rapid. As a result, you spend more time inhaling than when you are safe. Therefore, the body’s innate fear response, along with faster breathing, has a positive effect on brain function and leads to a faster response to dangerous stimuli in the environment.”

Another interesting thing to note from the study is the underlying mechanism of meditation—or, in other words, of conscious breathing. “When you breathe in, you’re in a state where your brain activity oscillations are synchronizing across the entire limbic system,” Zelano notes.

According to Giadinh.net