Your brain needs you to breathe.
No oxygen, no brain.
Following “The Rule of Threes”, our brains can only survive without oxygen for 3 minutes. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, though, as there are some members of our species who can and do survive longer without the Big O. For the rest of us, we need to keep those lungs pumping. Lucky for us, our brains will breathe without our thinking about it, and, we can also control our breathing with our brains!
Win win!
How to Breathe for Your Brain
Here are some general guidelines on how to breathe for improved and optimal cognition:
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Breathe through your nose, not your mouth.
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Breathe through both nostrils.
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Breathe slowly.
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Breathe clean, fresh air.
Breathe Through Your Nose, Not Through Your Mouth
In addition to being unattractive, mouth breathing is bad for your health. Mouth breathing causes stress hormones to spike, blood pressure to rise, and heart rate to drop. It can cause loss of moisture due to exhalation of water vapor, a host of dental problems, and perhaps the most unattractive aspect, it makes you snore.
And what about mouth breathing and cognition? In Breath, James Nestor cites two recent Japanese studies on mouth breathing and its effect on the brain. The first, using rats as test subjects, showed that those with their nasal passageways blocked developed fewer brain cells and took twice as long to navigate mazes as the control group. The second study found that mouth breathing increases oxygenation in the prefrontal cortex, a phenomenon related to ADHD.
Breathe Through Both Nostrils
Just like our hands, our nostrils are associated with our brain hemispheres. To maintain equilibrium, we want to breathe through both nostrils.
In The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, Pierce J. Howard discusses the practice of “forced unilateral nostril breathing”. If you want to increase right hemispheric activity, which is responsible for creativity and abstraction, but also negative emotions, block the right nostril and breathe through the left. If you want to increase left hemispheric activity, which is responsible for language processing and logical reasoning, as well as alertness, block the left nostril and breathe through the right.
According to James Nestor in Breath, the right nostril is “a gas pedal”. Breathing through your right nostril activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is commonly associated with our “fight or flight” response. If the right nostril is a gas pedal, the left is a brake. Breathing through the left nostril activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is associated with “rest and digest” states.
While you can consciously take advantage of this knowledge, the key is to maintain balance between our brain hemispheres. Nestor recounts a patient who was experiencing hallucinations. The doctors working with her discovered she was breathing primarily through her left nostril, thus pushing her brain off kilter.
Breathe Slowly
Is there an ideal way to breathe?
Slow and steady.
According to Nestor:
The perfect breath is this: Breathe in for about 5.5 seconds, then exhale for 5.5 seconds. That’s 5.5 breaths a minute for a total of about 5.5 liters of air.
When subjects “followed this slow breathing pattern, blood flow to the brain increased and the systems in the body entered a state of coherence, when the functions of heart, circulation, and nervous system are coordinated to peak efficiency.”
This is known as resonant or Coherent Breathing.
And of course, there’s an app for this: https://g.co/kgs/TdprnT
Breathe Clean, Fresh Air
In The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, Pierce J. Howard outlines the correlation between brain function and air quality, specifically high concentrations of negative ions, which are associated with high energy and positive mood. Negative ions suppress serotonin, which is associated with drowsiness and relaxation. According to Howard:
The proportion of negative ions is highest around moving water (storms, oceans, rivers, waterfalls)—it’s no wonder that we feel so energized at the beach. The best ratios of negative to positive ions are associated with waterfalls and the time before, during, and after storms. The worst are found in windowless rooms and closed, moving vehicles.
Few of us have immediate access to a waterfall, but we can always go for a walk around the block or, at the very least, open a window, to get some fresh air for our brains. And you can always simulate a waterfall with the shower, which might explain why some of our best ideas happen there. If you’re tempted to hack this, just know that negative air ionization therapy is considered a pseudoscience, and many of the related products release cancer-causing ozone.
How to Breathe for Your Brain
You don’t need to take cold showers every day or practice pranayama to make improvements in your breathing. Here are the general guidelines on how to breathe for your brain:
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Breathe through your nose, not your mouth.
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Breathe through both nostrils.
-
Breathe slowly.
-
Breathe clean, fresh air.
Breathe Deeply
But wait! There’s more. I hope you weren’t holding your breath…
Wim Hof built a career on breathing. That, and taking cold showers.
Here’s the Wim Hof Method in a nutshell:
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Sit in a meditative posture or lie on your back and close your eyes.
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Take 30 deep breaths, inhaling to your full capacity. Exhale naturally.
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On the 30th breath, exhale fully and hold your breath as long as possible.
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When you need to breathe, take a deep inhale and hold it for 15 seconds.
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Exhale and repeat two more times.
According to Hof, this method changes our biochemistry from acidic to alkaline, which reduces inflammation and detoxifies our bodies. According to Nestor, this method will “release the stress hormones of adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine on command,” effectively pushing yourself into a fight-or-flight situation where your body’s resources mobilize for survival. This technique is not for everyone and Hof recommends you not practice this in water or when driving as you may induce light-headedness.