The Benefits of Breathwork: 3 Powerful Ways to Boost Health

The breath’s rare universal quality is that it serves all beings without the need for attention or recognition. It simply breaths through all of us without a moment’s hesitation or doubt, and without carrying any expectation, prejudice, judgement, or dogma. It transcends every culture, tradition, gender, and race too, and it has done since the beginning of time. It quietly goes about its business in every country and through every living creature in every living moment simultaneously.

And because it never stops, we don’t have to think about it, plan it, organise it, prepare it, find it, buy it, grow it, convince it, persuade it, source it, or use any special equipment for it either. It will breathe through us all equally without a moment’s hesitation.

It’s the most inclusive, non-judgemental, non-dogmatic, and completely free tool that we have available to us everywhere we go. And because we breathe (on average) 15,000–20,000 times a day, it’s an extremely loyal and trustworthy companion that accompanies us through life.

So, let’s discover three powerful ways it boosts health, shall we?

1. The nervous system

The autonomic nervous system is made up of two parts: The sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Each side controls different parts of the human body but what’s interesting is that both get activated when we breathe: The sympathetic nervous system gets activated when we inhale. The parasympathetic nervous system gets activated when we exhale.

The sympathetic nervous system controls our stress response, better known as our fight or flight response. It also monitors the body’s temperature, controls saliva levels, inhibits digestion, accelerates heart rate, dilates pupils, constricts blood vessels, raises blood pressure & perspiration (heat and sweat), releases adrenaline and cortisol, and creates goose pimples. These combine to make the body highly alert, sharp, and focused.

It is also associated with cognitive and analytical thinking.

The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, is better known for helping us rest and digest. It does this by restoring balance, slowing and stabilising a resting heart rate, promoting digestion, improving recovery/healing time, producing saliva, boosting the immune, digestive, and cardiovascular systems, and releasing endorphins such as dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin.

It is also associated with creativity and intuition.

Now, the golden rule for activating parasympathetic nervous system activity is: Breathe out longer than you breathe in.

Turning to nature

Our ancestors often turned towards nature to better understand how to prolong their lives and live with more health and vitality. What they discovered was that certain animals take fewer breaths than others and those that do, live longer lives. Elephants, for example, live up to 70 years. Tortoises live between 80–150 years. Sperm whales 70+ years. And the naked mole rat lives up to 32 years (which remarkably, is 6x longer than its family of rodent relatives).

However, one of the most interesting observations in these animals is not the longevity of their lives that’s impressive but also the quality of them too. These slow-breathing animals seem to have a high resistance to disease, illness, and cancer, and the correlation between taking fewer breaths per minute and breathing them slowly seems to be a big factor in this. The Chinese even came up with a fabulous little proverb to explain the phenomenon:

“Breathe like a tortoise, live like a King” — Chinese Proverb

The Heart/Brain/Breath Connection

As we breathe in our diaphragm flattens, our lungs expand, and our heart contracts. This sends an incredibly speedy message up to the brain that then sends an incredibly speedy message back to the heart that says, “you must speed up”, so it does. Then as we breathe out the reverse is true. Our diaphragm lifts, our lungs compress, and our heart opens up. This sends an incredibly speedy message up to the brain that then sends an incredibly speedy message back to the heart that says, “you must slow down”, so it does. Whatever messages are sent thereafter create the thoughts that we think, the emotions that we feel, and the actions that we take.

The body has developed this incredibly fast response mechanism because it knows that the heart and brain must know what’s going on as quickly as possible. Therefore, every breath that we breathe carries a message but we are the ones who deliver it.

2. Balances pH level

Firstly, what is pH and how does it affect the body?

The term pH stands for potential of hydrogen and it measures the acidity and alkalinity of the body which ranges from 0 to 14. The lower the number, the more acidic the body. The higher the number, the more alkaline the body.

The ideal pH level is somewhere between 7.3 and 7.4. This naturally makes the body slightly alkaline and therefore balanced. And when the body remains balanced, everything feels like it’s in working order.

Maintaining a healthy pH balance has other benefits too:

• Mental clarity
• Emotional stability
• Higher energy levels
• Smoother digestion
• Well-functioning immune system
• Lower risk of inflammation, infection, sickness, and disease

When the body’s pH level becomes unbalanced, on the other hand, we are no longer in an optimal state. In the short term, this can lead to constipation, bloating, and tiredness but in the long-term it has more serious side effects such as inflammation, chronic fatigue, and even developing autoimmune diseases.

Fortunately, there are several ways to avoid an imbalanced pH. And believe it or not, the breath is one of the most effective ways to do that. Other important factors include digestion, diet, sleep, hydration, exercise, and stress management. (You can learn more about these by clicking here)

The Breath

How the breath affects pH levels is all about how it communicates with the nervous system.

Breathing smoothly through the nose is one of the most effective ways to alkalise the body because it promotes parasympathetic nervous system activity which aids digestion and promotes relaxation.

Breathing too much or too often, especially through the mouth, on the other hand, activates sympathetic nervous system activity that releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol and creates an acid build-up (among many other things).

The good news is that maintaining a healthy pH level is rather quite simple. Again, the golden rule here is: Breathe out longer than you breathe in. This keeps the needle tipped ever so slightly toward the alkaline side, somewhere in the 7.3–7.4 sweet spot.

So, by creating a healthy lifestyle that leans towards an alkaline body, you can very positively influence the pH of your blood and promote health.

And because we breathe 15,000–20,000 times a day, we get to choose an acidic or alkaline environment 15,000–20,000 times a day. That’s far more than the few times a week we exercise, the few times a day we eat and the once or twice we sleep.

The power of the breath is its relentless consistency.

Cool fact: cancer cannot flourish in an alkaline (or high pH) environment.

3. Boosts cerebrospinal fluid

Cerebrospinal fluid is a clear, colourless body fluid that’s found within the tissues surrounding the brain and spinal cord of all vertebrates.

Here are its main functions:

1. Buoyancy: The actual mass of the human brain is about 1400–1500 grams; however, the net weight of the brain suspended in CSF is equivalent to a mass of 25–50 grams. The brain, therefore, exists in neutral buoyancy which allows the brain to maintain its density without being impaired by its own weight, which would cut off blood supply and kill neurons in the lower sections if CSF was not present.
2. Protection: CSF protects the brain tissue from injury when jolted or hit as it acts as a shock absorber from light to medium impacts.
3. Homeostasis: CSF regulates temperature, blood pressure, and pH levels by carrying important messages up the spine and between brain cells.
4. Clearing waste: CSF allows for the removal of waste products from the brain and is critical in the brain’s lymphatic system (or glymphatic system). Metabolic waste products diffuse rapidly into CSF and are removed into the bloodstream as CSF is absorbed. (When this goes awry, CSF can be toxic. And when it does, motor neuron diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis can occur.)

Cool fact: The body releases 70% of its toxins through breathing alone!

Why I’m excited to share this with you here is because CSF pulsates and moves in tune with the rhythm of our heart and as you now know our heart moves in tune with the rhythm of our breath. So, although we can’t access CSF directly, we can use our breath to direct CSF up and down the spine and in and around the brain all day long which promotes balance and health.

Now, if that’s not a superpower worth cultivating I don’t know what is…

Healthy CSF helps tissue cells regenerate, it can reactivate dormant areas within the body, it can raise energy levels, stimulate the brain, create focus and clarity, and send messages of healing to the body via the nervous system, all of which promote health, vitality, and longevity.

Breath control techniques such as the Wim Hof Method & Soma Breath have a strong focus on these areas for these exact reasons. So, if you are wanting to play with CSF safely, I can highly recommend these two fantastic techniques.

Closing thoughts

To close, I’d like to leave you with a little bit of math:

On average we breathe between 15–20 breaths per minute. And there are 1,440 minutes in a day.

15 x 1,440 = 21,600 breaths.

21,600 is the average number of breaths we breathe every single day.

Now, one study estimates that the average life expectancy across all of humanity is around 73 years old. So, we can continue:

21,600 (breaths) x 365 (days in a year) x 73 (years) = 575,532,000.

Now, in case you’re wondering just how big that number is it’s close to 600 million.

600 million!

That’s far more than the 79,935 meals we might expect to eat (3 meals a day x 365 days x 73 years = 79,935), and a helluva lot more than the 26,645 sleeps we might sleep (1 sleep a night x 365 days x 73 years = 26, 645).

So, for us to do anything close to 600 million times in one lifetime is hard to believe, let alone comprehend. However, to not even try seems almost inconceivable. That’s because it relinquishes the opportunity to experience the incredibly rich benefits that come from when we do.

Quite simply: The power of the breath is its consistent ease and ever-changing flow. However, how we direct it and the health benefits we gain as a result is a personal choice.

But the good news is that we get to make that choice about 20,000 times a day.

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If you’ve been inspired by the breath’s power and want to learn more, discover my favourite breathwork technique here

Or alternatively, sign up for a free online masterclass here