The Power of Breathing: Simple Techniques for Better Health

When life feels overwhelming, meditation can be a powerful tool—but let’s be honest, not everyone has 20 spare minutes to find their zen. And if you’re new to it, meditation can sometimes feel more frustrating than relaxing.

Here’s a simpler solution: just breathe. Seriously. Slow breathing has been scientifically proven to improve your health in numerous ways, including lowering blood pressure. By practicing specific breathing techniques, you can enhance both your immediate mood and long-term well-being. Benefits include reduced anxiety, better sleep, improved mood, and even support for managing cravings and boosting weight loss.

Ready to give it a try? Start with these four easy breathing exercises. Each one takes 10 minutes or less and leaves you feeling refreshed while delivering lasting benefits to your mind and body.

1. Improve Mood and Reduce Anxiety in 5 Minutes: “Cyclic Sighing”

What is Cyclic Sighing?

In science, “sighing” means more than just the sound you make when you’re disappointed. It’s a type of deep breathing with slightly extended, longer exhalations.

How it Helps

In a study comparing multiple breathing techniques, as well as mindfulness meditation, “cyclic sighing” improved people’s “positive affect”—their overall mood—more than the other methods in the study, increasing mood by 89 percent. The cyclic sighers also had a larger decrease in daily anxiety than those who did the other methods.

The more days in a row they did this exercise, the more benefits to their mood the study subjects saw. The best part? It only take five minutes.

How to Do Cyclic Sighing

• Step 1 – Get set up: You can do this exercise sitting a chair or lying down. Set a timer for five minutes.
• Step 2 – Breathe in: Inhale slowly until your lungs are expanded.
• Step 3 – Breathe in again: Inhale a second time to fill your lungs to the max. This second inhale may be shorter than the first one.
• Step 4 – Breathe it all out: Slowly exhale all the breath from your lungs.

Repeat steps 2-4 for five total minutes.

2. Reduce Food Cravings in 10 Minutes: Five In, Five Out

What is Five In, Five Out?

This technique evens out your inhales and exhales while simultaneously slowing your overall breathing pace to six breaths per minute.

How it Helps

This type of breathing may help when you’re fixated on food. In a small study, students who practiced this type of breathing for 10 minutes while presented with a picture of a favorite food they were craving wound up being less hungry after doing the exercise.

How to do Five In, Five Out

• Step 1 – Get set: You can perform this while seated or lying down. Set a timer for 10 minutes.
• Step 2 – Breathe in for 5 seconds.
• Step 2 – Breathe out for 5 seconds.

Repeat for 10 minutes.

3. Wind Down for Sleep: Belly Breathing

What is Belly Breathing?

Many types of deep breathing have been shown to help with sleep. However, belly breathing (also called diaphragmatic breathing) has been shown to reduce a stress hormone called cortisol in your system. By relaxing the diaphragm, this breathing lets you use your lower abdomen—your belly—as you inhale and exhale.

How it Helps

In addition to the reduction in cortisol, belly breathing has specially been shown to help with sleep. In one study of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic, those who practiced this type of breathing slept longer with fewer disturbances during the night. They also felt better about their sleep quality.

How to Do Belly Breathing

• Step 1 – Get set up: Sit or lie down in a comfortable position, and place your hands on your belly. The tips of your fingers should be touching.
• Step 2 – Inhale so your hands separate: As you inhale slowly, focus on creating space between your fingertips by expanding your belly.
• Step 3 – Exhale your fingers back together: Slowly breathe out, bringing your belly back to the start, where your fingers touch.

Repeat 10 times or more.

4. Aid Weight Loss Success in 1 Minute: Senobi Breathing

What is Senobi Breathing?

This breathing pattern, done with arms stretched overhead, forces you to breathe through your abdomen instead of your chest.

How it Helps

In a small study of pre-menopausal women, all 40 participants performed Senobi breathing for one minute before they ate each meal of the day. After doing so just once, obese participants saw an increase of sympathetic nervous system activity. This side of our nervous system is associated with reducing body weight, and when people are overweight, its effects are blunted.

With the pre-meal Senobi breathing, the obese participants in the study increased their sympathetic nervous system activity up to the level of other women in the study who were at a “normal” weight. The breathing technique also increased the amount of noradrenaline secreted in the overweight participants. This hormone is associated with fat loss. The scientists theorize that this is one reason the obese participants lost significant body fat—an average of 3.2 percent—in a month.

How to Do Senobi Breathing

• Step 1 – Stand up: Before a meal, stand with feet around shoulder-width apart, feet toed out slightly, with a slight bend in your knees.
• Step 2 – Put your arms overhead: Interlace your fingers and stretch your arms overhead so your palms face the ceiling.
• Step 3 – Look at your hands and reach back: Bend your neck to look up at the ceiling, and draw your hands back to open your chest towards the ceiling.
• Step 4 – Breathe in for 5 seconds.
• Step 5 – Breathe out for 5 seconds.

Repeat for one minute.

Ready to breathe easier and live better? Explore more lifestyle tips and strategies on The Leaf to help you feel your best every day. And if you’re looking for a stress-free way to achieve your weight loss goals, check out Nutrisystem plans designed to support your journey with balanced, convenient meals. Start living healthier today!