This may be a silly “how to” section to have, I mean, breathing is quite literally the very first thing and the very last thing we do as living human beings. However, because it’s something we fail to focus on often enough, it’s important to provide some clear tips on how to go about breathing in a healthy way.

Why Focus on Breath?

If breathing is something we do automatically, why on earth should we put any focus on it? After all, we’ve got enough to worry about already, right? There are a few reasons

As with most other things, when we choose not to focus on something we gravitate toward the path of least resistance. When we don’t focus on breathing, the path of least resistance becomes shallow inhales at a rapid pace, which fails to fully oxygenate the blood. In turn, toxins are not released as efficiently on the exhale. Side effects will include heightened anxiety, fatigue, and lack of mental clarity.

When we shift our focus to our breathing, on the other hand, a few things happen. First, we bring ourselves into the present moment, which is the purpose of practicing mindfulness. Second, we find that we breathe more slowly, more deeply, and with a mind toward relaxing our points of tension (neck, shoulders, jaw, and hands). This helps to reduce the effects of anxiety and stress. Finally, it fully oxygenates the blood, and supports the cleansing of waste from the body on the exhale. More energy and greater clarity are the result.

Try it now. Take three deep breaths, fully in and fully out slowly. How do you feel? I’ll bet dollars to donuts that you feel much better.

Tips to Focus on Breathing

1. Set an Alarm – That’s right, set an alarm to remind yourself to breathe. I recommend three times during the day so that when it goes off you can take 10 deep breaths (like the exercise below).
2. Visualize the Breath – Picture the oxygen coming into your lungs, going into the capillaries, and through the blood stream. As you exhale, visualize the waste leaving your body. Clean air in, trash out.
3. Breathe from the abdomen up – You want your diaphragm to pull oxygen in, not the lungs. To do this, as you start to draw breath, extend your belly outward feeling the air go deep into the abdomen. Then feel the air fill your lungs from the bottom up, finishing with a full expansion of the chest. When you start breathing from the top of the lungs, you don’t get a full breath of air. Try it for yourself and discover the difference.
4. Allow all your muscles to relax on the exhale – Remember, one of the side effects of shallow and quick breathing is tense muscles. Make sure to release all that tension from the neck, shoulders, jaw, and hands on each exhale.

There are many forms of breathing exercises you can choose to use on a daily basis, but almost all of them involve fully oxygenating your lungs, and consciously focusing on the breathing rhythm. Any breathing exercise that does this will be effective in providing multiple benefits.

If you find yourself feeling anxious, tired, frustrated, or down, the first question you should ask yourself is “how am I breathing?”. Chances are changing the way you are breathing will bring you more calm, make you more centered, and give you more energy. 

Here is one simple breathing exercise you can use to fill your tank with clean, life giving oxygen, and remove waste from your bloodstream, thus giving you greater energy and calm. Do this as many times per day as you need, but at least twice throughout the day. Use it to change your breathing habits and become a conscious breather.

I advise that if you practice ANY breathing exercise, do it in a safe environment. Do NOT perform these exercises near or in water, while driving, or in any other situation where you may put yourself in danger. Preferably you will be in a comfortable chair, bed, or on the floor.

10 Deep Breaths

1. Begin by sitting comfortably and relaxing your jaw, neck, and shoulders. 
2. Close your eyes if you’re comfortable doing so. 
3. Take 10 breaths by breathing in deeply for about 2-3 seconds so that your belly expands and you fill your lungs.
4. Hold each breath after the inhale for about 5 seconds. During this time, feel the oxygen enter your bloodstream and flow to all the areas of your body.
5. After each hold, breathe out for 5-8 seconds, feeling the waste transfer from the bloodstream to the exhale. Instead of forcing out the air, just let go of the breath, as a balloon letting its air out.

For more exercises, see the video below.

While your exercising, breathing needs to be a primary focus. Oxygen is vital to the process of aerobic exercise (aerobic actually means “with oxygen”). So that your energy systems are working as effectively as possible, a proper breathing rhythm must be maintained. 

That’s an important concept to consider: “breathing rhythm”. Your body is good at telling you when you need to take a breath, so much so that we barely even need to think about it. But we can improve the process by aligning our breathing with body mechanics, so that we do not begin to breathe too shallow, too erratic, and we learn to control and monitor our effort.

An easy way to measure your breathing rhythm is through your running or cycling cadence (revolutions or steps per minute). A good cadence to shoot for is about 170-180 steps per minute (90 revolutions per minute). I understand that some of you may have a lower cadence than that, but it is something to improve upon. At any cadence, however, you can align your breathing rhythm and become more efficient.

For example, an easy pace would be one where you could maintain a 4:1 cadence to breath ratio. This would mean taking one breath in for every 4 steps you take, one breath out for every 4 steps you take (If your cadence is a little lower, such as 150-160, you could increase this ratio to 3:1, but for the purposes of this example, we are using 180 cadence). As you increase the effort, the ratio gets narrower. For example:

• Easy Pace – 4:1 Cadence to breath ratio
• Moderate to Comfortably Hard – 3:1
• Hard to Very Hard – 2:1 

It is important that the breathing be as comfortable as possible at each effort level. In other words, you should not be gasping for breath to keep the appropriate breathing rhythm. 

See the video below for a demonstration.