New book shares science and techniques to breathe better and promote calmness not anxiety

Scrolling social media, amid frantic election-related posts and news of escalating COVID-19 cases, you may have come across a friend reminding everyone to just breathe. But can just-breathing really make a difference? In his new book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, journalist James Nestor argues that modern humans have become pretty bad at this most basic act of living. We breathe through our mouths and into our chests, and we do it way too fast. There’s even a phenomenon called “email apnea,” where multitasking office workers breathe irregularly and shallowly, or even hold their breath, for half a minute or more while glued to their devices. Besides all the worrisome health problems this may cause—detailed pointedly in Nestor’s book—our ineptitude at breathing may have another big consequence: contributing to our anxiety and other mental health problems. “The rate and depth we breathe at is a huge determinant of our mental state,” says Elissa Epel, a professor at UC San Francisco. Researchers like Epel are exploring this by using breathing techniques—some new, some ancient—to help nervous people stave off anxiety. What they’re discovering is that breathing, something we do all the time anyway, could be an overlooked key to finding more calm and peace. How breathing can calm us We often try to tame anxiety by changing our thoughts—questioning the worst-case scenarios in our heads, interrupting rumination with some kind of distraction, or going t...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Education & Lifelong Learning anxiety book Breathing breathing techniques email apnea James Nestor meditation mental health mindfulness parasympathetic pranayama yogic breathing Source Type: blogs