How to Be Healthier Without Really Trying
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You’ll take roughly 670 million breaths in your lifetime. But we don’t think about breathing much. It’s only when something goes wrong — like when you’re choking on a chicken nugget — that you suddenly realize breathing isn’t as optional as it appears. At least with eating, you can skip a few meals. But with breathing, you slack off for even two minutes, and suddenly everyone’s calling an ambulance.
Here’s the thing: most of us have been breathing wrong. Seriously. Breathing’s one of those things you assume you’re doing correctly because you’re not dead yet. You’re probably thinking, “Breathing is just something my body does on its own, like sweating or quietly resenting my neighbors.” But just because something is natural, doesn’t mean you can’t screw it up. Humanity, the pinnacle of evolutionary design that brought you fire, the wheel, and an endless parade of Marvel movies, somehow collectively missed the memo on how to suck air in through our faces correctly.
Ancient traditions knew how to breathe properly so we’re going to get some tips from them. Now, don’t roll your eyes at me, okay? I’m not about to tell you to go live in a yurt and wear crystals around your neck like you’re auditioning to be a backup dancer for Stevie Nicks. We’ve learned a lot of great things from ancient cultures on this blog, like how to be happier, how to parent and even how to stay calm like a samurai.
And all these breathing techniques have been validated by science. Research shows breathing properly doesn’t just make you healthier – it can also chill you out, pep you up, focus your brain and improve your mood more than meditation.
Our guide will be James Nestor’s excellent book, “Breath.”
Let’s get to it…
The Perfect Breath
The optimum breathing rate is roughly 5.5 breaths per minute. A 5.5 second inhale followed by a 5.5 second exhale. Research has validated this — but, surprisingly, religion was actually way ahead of science on this one.
A 2001 study had people do the Latin version of the Catholic rosary, recite Buddhist mantras, and say Taoist, Hindu and Native American prayers. Guess what? Performing each one produced the same result: 5.5 breaths per minute. The breathing cycle that most enhances well-being was induced by all the prayers.
Professors Patricia Gerbarg and Richard Brown had people with depression and anxiety do this same pace of breathing without the prayer and found it produced profound psychological improvements. Seems like our ancestors stumbled on the breathing rhythm that makes people feel better long before we had the tools to understand why it worked.
Most of us don’t hit that perfect 5.5 second inhale or exhale because we breathe too quickly. Most of us are also often stressed. Those things are related. Slow breathing “increased comfort, relaxation, pleasantness, vigor and alertness, and reduced symptoms of arousal, anxiety, depression, anger, and confusion.”
The ancients all agreed on something else as well: breathe through your nose. The Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text dating back to 1500 BCE said it. And a Chinese Taoist text from the eighth century AD said the same thing. Guess what? Science now agrees.
Your nose is literally built for breathing. It’s like that top-of-the-line air purifier but you’re over here using your mouth like it’s some open sewer grate. Your nasal concha and mucus membranes filter and humidify air, reducing the risk of respiratory infections. Nasal breathing also increases nitric oxide by six-fold, allowing your lungs to absorb 18% more oxygen.
And you do not want your breaths to be as shallow as my thoughts and life choices. Nasal breathing addresses this as well. It encourages diaphragmatic breathing, which is linked to better lung capacity and even reduced stress.
As an experiment, James Nestor blocked his nose for 20 days and breathed only through his mouth. The result? His blood pressure shot up, stress hormones spiked, level of infectious bacteria surged, snoring increased nine-fold and he developed sleep apnea. After he unblocked his nose everything returned to normal. So breathe through your nose.
Want extra credit? Some experts actually recommend taping your mouth shut when you sleep. As in, no one’s kidnapping you and leaving you in the trunk of a car — this is something you’re willingly doing to yourself. Like I said, not essential. Nestor says a postage-stamp-size piece of tape at the center of the lips will do it. Basically, a Charlie Chaplin mustache moved down an inch.
Yes, people will think you’re crazy. That said, I’ve always felt the world could use more people with their mouths taped shut.
(To learn how to keep your brain sharp as you age, click here.)
Okay, you’re slowly breathing through your nose like a pregnant lady in a Lamaze class. Perfect. Now you might think that the scientific community would have better things to do than study whether blowing air through one side of your face is more beneficial than blowing air through the other side of your face, but you’d be wrong.
Your left and right nostrils each come with their own unique superpowers. Let’s learn how to use them…
Left Nostril Breathing
Sometimes it feels like our brains have become the writers’ room for a particularly dark and twisted sitcom, feverishly churning out new and ever more improbable scenarios for our own misfortune. Welcome to the Anxiety Club – we meet on Thursdays, but you’ll probably start worrying about it on Monday.
How can you chill out? Believe it or not, your left nostril is deeply connected to your parasympathetic nervous system. Research shows breathing through it exclusively for a little while can help you calm down, manage stress and get a better night’s sleep.
This isn’t difficult to do:
- Close your right nostril with your right thumb.
- Slowly inhale and exhale through the left nostril for a few minutes.
- Focus on deep, controlled breaths to maximize the calming effect.
Finish a few rounds of this and your brain goes from “I need to set everything on fire” to “Ah yes, life is but a gentle river.” The technique is called “Chandra Nadi” — probably because Sanskrit sounds fancier than saying, “Just plug your right nostril.”
The only side effect is looking like a weirdo. Pushing on one nostril and making Darth Vader noises won’t make you a lot of friends but it will help you relax.
(To learn how to eat healthy, click here.)
And just when you thought you were done playing wind instrument with your face, now we need to address right nostril breathing…
Right Nostril Breathing
Energy. Remember that? If left nostril breathing is the equivalent of a weighted blanket for your soul, then right nostril breathing (“Surya Nadi”) is like injecting a double shot of espresso straight into your brain.
Right nostril breathing activates the sympathetic nervous system — your body’s fight-or-flight mechanism. But it does it in a fun, quirky, “Oh my God, I’m about to meet Beyoncé” kind of way, not the “There’s a bear chasing me” variety. Research has shown this increases alertness, energy levels, and metabolic rate.
Again, the steps are not exactly rocket science:
- Close your left nostril with your left thumb.
- Inhale and exhale through the right nostril for a few minutes.
- Feel the air rush into your lungs and light up whatever’s left of your desiccated soul.
Again, the only side effect is looking strange. This means people will leave you alone. Energy boost or not, that will definitely increase your productivity.
(To learn how to exercise to best improve your health, click here.)
Okay, time to round it all up — and we’ll also learn the breathing technique Navy SEALs use to increase focus…
Sum Up
Here’s how to breathe better…
- The Perfect Breath: 5.5 breaths per minute. 5.5-second inhales and 5.5-second exhales. And breathe through your nose, the Brita filter of your body. Save your mouth for the important things in life, like eating and complaining. If you want to go all-in, tape your mouth closed when you sleep. (The line between “serial killer abduction kit” and “self-care regimen” is just so thin these days.)
- Left Nostril Breathing: Breathing through your left nostril activates your “cool, calm, and collected” side. Because, apparently, your nostrils have personalities now.
- Right Nostril Breathing: This boosts energy and gives you the productivity of an intern desperate for a full-time job.
So how do we increase focus? Most of us only find it through caffeine, sheer panic, and the threat of imminent failure. But the Navy SEALs have another way…
It’s called Box Breathing. SEALs use it to stay calm, drive attention and enhance mental clarity in tense situations. If it’s good enough for someone under heavy enemy fire, it’s probably good enough for you, as you try not to cry during your boss’s weekly “touch base” meeting.
The process is simple:
- Breathe in for 4 seconds
- Hold it for 4 seconds
- Breathe out for 4 seconds
- Hold for another 4 seconds.
Repeat at least six times. It’s like normal breathing but with more math.
All of the above methods are powerful if you practice them regularly. You’ll be the Zen master who has unlocked the secrets of inner peace and unlimited energy just by using your face holes strategically. You’ll find yourself responding to difficult problems by saying, “No worries, I’ve got a breathing pattern for that.”
And here’s the best part: this stuff is free. You don’t need to buy any special equipment, you don’t have to sign up for a subscription, and there are no side effects unless you count people giving you weird looks on the subway. But that’s a small price to pay for nasal enlightenment.
Breathe better, live better. Because apparently, the secret to happiness and health wasn’t a morning routine involving five productivity apps. It was right there, under your nose.
Literally.
