Research: Why Breathing Is So Effective at Reducing Stress

Breathing exercises are an ancient and time-tested technique to reduce stress, manage negative emotions and help with many other ailments.

New studies show that breathing exercises are extremely effective in both long-term and short-term stress reduction. Changing your breath from an irregular one to a calm, deep one has a calming effect on our emotions, slows our heart rate, and signals relaxation.

When we are in a highly stressed state, no amount of ‘talking’ can calm us down as our brain's prefrontal cortex region is impaired at those moments.

Breathing regulates our emotions like stress, anxiety and anger, and helps us regain control of our mind.

• The most common and effective breathing exercise is to breathe in (inhale) for four seconds and then breathe out(exhale) for about eight seconds, for a few minutes. Lengthening our exhales reduces agitations, calming us down.
• There are several deep breathing programs like SKY Breath Meditation, mindfulness-based stress reduction (being aware of each moment without judgement) and others which are highly impactful and need to be studied in detail to get the full benefits.