December 17, 2016.
According to a study conducted by a team of researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago, the way we breathe has a direct impact on the behavior of our brain.
Our emotion depends on our breathing
If you are afraid and want to deal with this fear, be sure to breathe quickly and through your nose. This is what the authors of a study published in Journal of Neurosciences. According to this work, our breathing depends on the behavior of the area of our brain which controls our memory and also our emotions.
The different rhythms of our breathing will cause different electrical activities in our brain. Breathing, quickly or slowly, through the nose or through the mouth, can lead to an improvement or a deterioration of the emotional balance but also of the memory. Inhaling and exhaling also do not have the same impact in the brain.
Breathing quickly through the nose has a greater impact on the brain
It is a little by chance that the authors of this study came to such a conclusion. As they examined the brain activity of patients with epilepsy to understand what could be the trigger for seizures, they found that breathing triggers brain activity in the area of the brain that handles emotions, memory and smells.
Furthering their research, they established that the brain was stimulated more by breathing through the nose than by breathing through the mouth. Furthermore, ” by increasing the rate of breathing, we increase the time spent inhaling, compared to a calm state, which improves the functioning of the areas of the brain of emotions and fear and allows us to react better Said Christina Zelano, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern university.
You may also like: Learn to breathe well
