Slow… down…
Breathing is more than just a survival reflex — it shapes how well, and even how long we live. Across the animal kingdom, slower breathers generally tend to live longer.
Sounds counter-intuitive, but: Less Breath = More Life
For perspective:
A field mouse breathes 150 times per minute and lives about 1.5 years.
A tortoise breathes 3 times per minute and can live over 100 years.
Where Do You Fit In?
The average adult human breathes 18 times per minute, or 25,000 times per day. Truthfully, this is excessive!
For optimal living, a healthy range to target would be 6–10 breaths per minute. Doesn’t seem like much, but over a day, that really adds up.
18 breaths/min = 25,000 breaths/day
10 breaths/min = 14,000 breaths/day
· 6 breaths/min = 8,640 breaths/day
That’s between 11,000-17,000 extra breaths every single day!
Why is over-breathing a problem?
1) It’s exhasuting your body. Though seemingly insignificant, excessive breathing places a huge energetic demand on the body. Overworking the heart, and diverts resources from other important biological processes. Speeding up aging, and damaging health.
2) It fuels stress, IFast breathing isn’t just a symptom of stress—it also creates stress. This traps the body in a vicious cycle of tension and fatigue.
Pretty vicious cycle right?
Why does this happen?
Millenia ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors regularly found themselves in life-threatening situations, in the fight for surivival. To deal with these threats, their bodies needed to be able to instaneously switch to a hyper-alert, high energy state.
Thank you, Sympathetic Nervous System. To help facilitate this response, several changes happen within the body, including faster breathing.
We evolved to spend only short bursts of time in this highly-stressed state, but today most people spend all day in this state (to some extent) and their bodies are paying the price.
What can we do about it?
Luckily, the solution couldn’t be simpler:
Slow… down…
Breathe less. Live more.
Slowing your breath slows aging, reduces oxidative stress, and restores balance in all aspects of your life. Two of my favourite techniqes to instantly press pause on life: Cyclic Sighing, and Bhramari Pranayama
Just take a deep breath.. take it easy 🤙🏾