Friday, November 20, 2020

Breathing efficiency

If we look at the frequency of the inputs we provide to our body, food intake is typically 3 times a day, water is more frequent, 8-10 times a day or even more. But breathing is round the clock, that continues even when we are sleeping. So, it would be interesting to understand the efficiency of breathing.


We inhale through nose, it travels through the passage, reaches lungs and there oxygen is absorbed into the body to join the bloodstream and further it travels to various parts of the body. Note that oxygen it is absorbed at lungs and not in the passage (nasal or throat region). If we are inhaling for 3 seconds on an average, the air we inhaled at the third second will be stopped before it reaches lungs and it will be forced to return halfway as exhalation begins. Similarly, when we exhale, the air which is carbon di-oxide primarily, does not completely get out of our body as some of it in the passage at the third second of exhalation will be forced to return due to inhalation. This suggests what we can make use of, whether inhalation or exhalation, is 2 out 3 seconds only. Thus we arrive at 66% of efficiency number. It does not look great for the thing we do throughout our life. What can be done about this?

 

Before we go to bed, when we are slowing down, we have few minutes to ourselves. Whether you are sitting or lying down, completely free up your body, avoid any smaller movements and ignore all those itches. When your body is at still, energy demand from body drops and breathing rate slows a little, inhale and exhale expands by a second (to 4 seconds from what we considered 3 seconds before). Now if we do the same math, 3 seconds of breathing out of 4 will be useful and efficiency is at 75%. As you know breathing also consumes some energy and when breathing becomes slow and efficiency increases, body’s energy demand drops little further. If you can close your eyes it will greatly help. Not just the energy consumption from eyes is saved, but the information flow from eyes to brain is cut-off and that means the part of the brain which processes information from eye can take rest as well. This would lead to longer breaths of 5-6 seconds of inhalation and exhalation. And efficiency would rise to above 90%. This is a good number and what is suggested by experts. You can further improve it if you can pause and hold breath after every inhalation. But that would require a longer practice before you can comfortably do it.

 

If you can repeat this exercise several times a day, even for small intervals, you will see your breaths begin to become deeper naturally. Deeper breathing has a bunch of benefits. Due to increased energy efficiency, there is a lesser load on your heart which results in lower blood pressure. Deeper breathing also calms and soothes nervous system. After couple of weeks of practice, you would notice a slightly calmer version of yourself. Your emotions would be in control and your brain will have lots of free capacity to do useful stuff. Pick a subject which was difficult for you to digest or get into the conversation which always troubled you in the past, you will be surprised to learn that you are doing a lot better this time. It happened to me and it would do the same thing for you or any other human being.


With few months of practice, energy levels further improve and need to sleep for longer hours will be gone. You will be much calmer. As you gain control over your breath, you will gain control over your mind. You would become aware of all your emotions, thinking patterns and deepest fears. Awareness levels of how you think, what you say or do will rise. You will get to know yourself better.


Along with deep breaths if you can put efforts to improve your emotional maturity (not to react immediately, see things from multiple perspectives etc.), it would transform your personality. Your ability to read other people and situations improves because you are in complete control of yourself, that lets you to see things as they are rather than your own emotions becoming a hindrance leading to misinterpretations. You would not overreact even when faced with difficult situations. You would not only live longer but also healthier and happier.

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