Benefits of holding your breath
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You may have not known this but there are a lot of health benefits of holding your breath, besides increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in your cells. To give you a better understanding of this phenomenon, here are some of the benefits of practicing holding your breath and generally improving your breathing functions:
Improve longevity
Improved breathing and lung functions may preserve the health of stem cells, improving your longevity.
Promote brain tissue regeneration
Studies with newts suggest that practicing breathing techniques and improving breathing functions may promote the regeneration of new tissue in the brain, thus preserving the brain function.
Induce an anti-inflammatory effect
Research showed that practicing breathing techniques can influence the sympathetic nervous system and the immune system, increasing the production of anti-inflammatory mediators. Therefore, it may be added to the treatment of health conditions associated with excessive or persistent inflammation.
The practice of holding your breath as a part of a breathing exercise is one of the most effective ways to increase your lung capacity. This in turn can significantly improve your physical performance and is an essential part of the training for swimmers, surfers, runners, even singers and wind instrument musicians.
Strengthen your diaphragm
The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle, located just below your lungs that plays one of the most important roles in the process of breathing. When you breathe in, your diaphragm contracts, creating more space in your chest cavity, and allowing your lungs to expand. When you breathe out, it does the opposite – relaxes and moves upward. Strengthening your diaphragm may help to improve your core muscle stability and your body’s ability to tolerate intense exercise. This is also one of the benefits of holding your breath while working out.
Protect brain cells
An experimental study on baby rats showed that an increased percentage of carbon dioxide in the cells of the body, which can occur as a result of holding one’s breath, may protect the brain cells.
Reduce stress and anxiety
Practicing deep breathing techniques, which often involves holding your breath, may add to stress management, promote relaxation and help you fight anxiety and panic attacks.
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How to hold your breath properly
Depending on your needs, there are different breathing techniques that involve holding your breath which you should try. If your main goal is to reduce stress and relax, you should consider performing one or more of the meditation breathing techniques, as following:
4-7-8 breathing
This breathing technique is believed to reduce anxiety, control stress, and anger, help you get to sleep, and manage cravings. Regular performance of this exercise brings better results. To perform this breathing technique, place the tip of your tongue on the gum pad just behind your top front teeth. Slowly inhale through your nose for four seconds, and then hold your breath for seven seconds. After that breathe out through your mouth for eight seconds. Repeat this rhythm for up to 4 times. If holding your breath for seven seconds seems too difficult at first you can adjust the time, but make sure to preserve the pattern.
Involve diaphragm breathing
Diaphragm breathing tends to be deeper than your common breathing pattern, that is why in order to fully exploit the capacity of your lungs, you should learn just how to breathe deeply. Diaphragm breathing involves your belly rather than the chest, so when you take a breath make sure that you breathe in such a manner that your stomach rises.
