Did you know you can improve your health and fitness simply by learning to breathe correctly? It’s true. Breathing correctly will optimize oxygenation to your muscles and internal organs, and help you:
- Lower your blood pressure
- Reduce stress and anxiety by lowering the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, and releasing mood-boosting hormones like serotonin
- Balance your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
- Improve athletic performance
- Improve mental focus and boost brain health
While you may think there’s nothing anyone can teach you about breathing—after all, you do it all day long, without giving it a second thought—chances are you may be breathing incorrectly without even realizing it.
Most people overbreathe—in other words, they chronically hyperventilate — and during exercise this can have a number of adverse consequences. Mouth breathing is another common mistake, especially during more vigorous exercise.
Mouth and nose breathing differ dramatically in terms of the depth of your breath, how the air is “prepared,” and the physical effects they produce.
For example, during exercise, breathing through your nose will help you optimize performance, endurance, post-exercise energy levels, and even your ability to metabolize fat.
So the first step to attaining optimal breathing is to breathe through your nose, not through your mouth, and this applies both in and outside of the gym.
