Just like you may eat too much throughout the day you may also be breathing too much. Similarly, this bad habit is usually caused by lifestyle factors and will affect your overall health and happiness.
Why it matters
For the average Joe or Jane over breathing can have an impact on your energy, health, mental focus, and fat loss. Over breathing can also lead to anxiety and lightheadedness.
An athlete will suffer from all the above, but in addition will simply never reach their endurance or power potential. The negative impact on energy will greatly affect their overall performance.
What is Over Breathing
Over breathing mainly has to do with breathing out too much Carbon Dioxide throughout the day and/or night. Mouth breathing, taking short upper chest breaths, and a high breaths per minute rate all cause this extreme loss of CO2.
Signs of Over Breathing
- Taking frequent sighs or extra large breaths throughout the day.
- Lightheadedness
- Breathing through your mouth
- Feeling out of breath frequently or after light tasks
- Waking up with a dry mouth
How to Breathe Better
If you have any of the signs above here are some steps to begin breathing and feeling better.
- After you catch yourself taking a sigh stop and hold your breath for a short period of time. This helps build back up some of the CO2 you just exhaled.
- Practice breathing into your belly by placing a hand on your chest and a hand on your stomach. Don’t allow the chest to move as you fill your belly with each inhale.
- Breathe through your nose only. Inhales and Exhales!
- Add in mini breath holds from time to time, especially when walking.
- Try placing a tiny strip of 3M tape vertically on your lips at night to be a gentle reminder to keep your mouth closed throughout the night.
The effects of over breathing are actively being researched and scientists are finding more and more reasons to avoid this condition. Everything from jaw development to ADHD is being linked back to this. So focus on your breathing today and make one small change to breath right and feel great.
