It's Not A Coincidence

Photo by Sarah Mak on Unsplash

Not to sound like a broken record, but slow breathing is important.

It’s important for emotional regulation, steady blood pressure, hormone balancing, healthy digestion, clear decision making, and how long we live.

Nature has a way of showing us this in subtle ways.

Crocodiles and alligators, for example, breathe two breaths a minute and live up to 50 years old.

Elephants breathe 3–5 breaths a minute and live up to 70 years old.

Tortoises breathe 4 breaths a minute and live between 80-300 years old.

These slow-breathing animals seem to have a higher resistance to disease, illness, and cancer too, and the correlation between taking fewer breaths per minute and breathing them slowly seems to be a big factor in this.

In ancient China, they came up with a fabulous proverb to explain the phenomenon:

“Breathe like a tortoise, live like a King.”

Paramhansa Yogananda  (author of Autobiography of a Yogi) went one step further by adding: “Many illustrations could be given of the mathematical relationship between man’s respiratory rate and the variations in his states of consciousness. A person whose attention is wholly engrossed, as in following some closely knit intellectual argument, or in attempting some delicate or difficult physical feat, automatically breathes very slowly. Fixity of attention depends on slow breathing; quick or uneven breaths are an inevitable accompaniment of harmful emotional states: fear, lust, anger. The restless monkey breathes at the rate of 32 times a minute, in contrast to man’s average of 18 times. The elephant, tortoise, snake and other animals noted for their longevity have a respiratory rate which is less than man’s.”

If humans breathed fewer breaths per minute could we also experience such health, vitality, and resilience that these other animals do?

From the large array of case studies that have been conducted over the years, the results seem to suggest that we could.

It’s not a coincidence

One of the easiest ways to breathe less is to breathe through your nose. Air enters the nostrils much slower than it does through the mouth while the air is filtered and warmed too, preventing dust, bacteria, and other airborne particles from entering the lungs.

Again, nature reminds us of this in subtle ways and it starts as soon as we’re born. For the first 3-4 months of our lives, our tiny newborn mouths latch to our mother’s breasts for milk while our tiny noses breathe. We then develop the reflex to breathe through our mouths so we can eat solid foods and eventually talk and laugh.

But this shows that the nose has always been the primary tool for breathing. And for good reason.

To honour this, below is a simple breathing exercise that you can practice now and in the week ahead.

It uses both the nose and slow breathing to maximise its impact.

I find it particularly helpful when I need to pause for a break in the middle of the day or as I lie in bed before sleep.

Breathing Exercise

• Inhale gently through your nose for 4-6 seconds

• Exhale through your nose or through pursed lips for 8 seconds

• Continue up to 20 breaths

The number 1 rule here is to breathe without force. If your breathing is causing pressure or strain, breathe in and out for less time (in for 3 seconds out for 3 seconds, for example) until you start to relax. Then deepen your breath and lengthen the time you inhale and exhale.

This might take a couple of minutes (even 10 perhaps), especially if your mind is busy, but after a while, your body will naturally start to relax and your breath will begin to soften.

---

Thanks for reading!

See you next week :)