Health

How Our Breathing Influences Our Brain

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How Our Breathing Influences Our Brain

For millennia, disciplines such as yoga and meditation have understood the value of breathing as a way to regulate our mind. A new study by Professor Micah Allen from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University, Denmark, has taken a step further in the technical understanding of this phenomenon.

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Indeed, how does the act of breathing shape our brain? After compiling a dozen brain imaging studies of animals and humans he concludes: brain rhythms are closely related to the rhythm of our breathing ».

We would, in fact, be more sensitive to the outside world when we inhale, whereas the brain would disconnect slightly when we exhale. This corresponds in particular to the way in which certain sportsmen, such as professional shooters, use the breath to pull the trigger only at the end of the exhalation.

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Breathing might impact our mental health

For Professor Micah Allen, the data he has collected suggests that the brain and breathing are closely linked, to the point of having a real impact on our emotions and the way we perceive the outside world. So the way we breathe might just plainly affect our mental health.

For example, difficulty breathing is associated with a very large increased risk of mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. « We also know that respiratory diseases and psychiatric disorders are closely linked “recalls the professor. So why not consider developing new ways to align body and brain rhythms through the breath?

Future research aimed at better understanding the links between breathing and mood disorders should tell us more. Professor Micah Allen’s team is currently collaborating in particular with the pulmonology team at Aarhus University Hospital, to understand whether patients with long Covid might suffer from disturbances in their breath-brain alignment.

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