The breath is one of the most powerful tools we have. The way we breathe is the way we live. The breath directly influences our inner state, but it goes both ways – how we feel impacts our breathing, and through our breathing, we can influence how we feel. Every emotion comes with a particular way of breathing. Even the tiniest mood change is reflected in your breathing. When we are stressed or agitated we tend to breathe faster and more shallowly, which activates the Sympathetic Nervous System (SN) (in charge of increasing our state of alertness or activating the “fight or flight response”), when we are relaxed, calm and feel safe, we tend to breathe deeper and slower, which activates the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PSN) (in charge of “rest and digest”). SN and PSN are part of the Autonomic Nervous System. As stated before, the relationship between breathing and our emotional state goes both ways – one influences the other and vice-versa. It has been shown that breathing changes in response to changes in emotions, such as sadness, fear, happiness, and anger. Even more, by consciously changing the way we breathe we can influence the way we feel. But why? There is a simple explanation and it has to do with a nerve which spreads in our body – stretching from the head to the stomach, connecting most of the major organs between the brain and colon, like a system of roots or cable – the vagus nerve, which is also the longest nerve in the body.

The vagus nerve has been described as “largely responsible for the mind-body connection,” for its role as a mediator between thinking and feeling. Around 80% of its fibres are afferent, meaning that they go from the body to the brain. This allows us to regulate our nervous system by the way we breathe, chant or move. This knowledge has been used for centuries in the Chinese and Hindu cultures, which have developed multiple practices to benefit from this body-mind connection. For example, the Hindu tradition has a wide variety of breathing practices called pranayama, and even more, they use chanting as a healing practice.

The vagus nerve is connected to the diaphragm, it stretches from the neck to the abdomen. When we inhale deeply, into the belly, using the diaphragm, we activate the vagus nerve, in charge of turning off the “fight or flight” response, thus reducing the state of alertness or stress in the body. We could say that the vagus nerve listens and responds to the way we breathe, sending these messages to the brain and the heart. When we breathe slowly, the oxygen demands of the heart muscle are reduced, and our heart rate drops. If we breathe fast it must mean that we are in danger or we need more oxygen and energy, thus the heart rate increases, and we feel excited, or anxious. The vagus nerve is activating the parasympathetic nervous system – the rest and digest response. If we breathe in a deep way, we can stimulate this nerve which will banish the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. Important to remember that what triggers the relaxation response is the exhalation.

Our emotions, body and mind can’t be separated, as shown by research in psychoneuroimmunology (the science studying the interaction between the mind and the body). Gabor Mate says in his book “When the Body Says No”: that “there is no body that is not mind, no mind that is not body”, highlighting the importance of addressing human beings from a holistic perspective, and studying the mind-body interaction to understand health and well-being.

To be human, alive, and confident with a positive self-definition means to reclaim our bodies and our sense of self. This process is possible but it requires awareness. For example, as neuroscientists have shown – the only way to access our emotional brain is through self-awareness (“by activating the medial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that notices what is going on inside us and thus allows us to feel what we’re feeling” LeDoux, J. (Kolk, b. van der, 2015)). This helps us learn how to cope with our emotions, how to become aware of our inner landscape, and how to create new possibilities for ourselves, thus developing the ability to master the complexity of our inner experience, in order to take charge and full responsibility for ourselves and our lives.

Reclaiming the reality of our bodies gives us a sense of empowerment and security, an awareness that we can feel safe only in our bodies, but even more, our sense of self is rooted in our bodies. It turns out that when you pay attention to yourself: the default state activates the brain areas that work together to create your sense of “self” (Bessel, van der K. 2015).

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ANPCDEFP. Neither the European Union nor the ANPCDEFP can be held responsible for them.