Qigong and Energy Medicine Database™ 

Breathing

Qigong Breathing

How to Harness the Power of Your Breath

Breathwork for Chronic Stress and Mental Health: Does Choosing a Specific Technique Matter? This review offers a comprehensive overview and comparison of the most widely practiced breathing techniques. PMC12372116. 

Breathe better, live better: the science of slow breathing and heart rate variability. PMID: 40252198. 

Slow-Breathing Curriculum for Stress Reduction in High School Students: Lessons Learned From a Feasibility Pilot. PMC9397716. 

Veterans Administration. Live Whole Health #143: Breathing Practice.

Slow Breathing Is the Fastest Way To Calm Your Brain and Body

How Does Breathing Affect Your Brain? 

The Profound Power of Breathing. 

The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human. PMC5709795.

Breathe through the nose! Modern research confirms the wisdom of the yoga tradition

Ageing of the Diaphragm Muscle.  PMC7011578.

Respiratory Regulation & Interactions With Neuro-Cognitive Circuitry. PMID: 32027875.

Understanding Mind-Body Disciplines: A Pilot Study of Breathing and Dynamic Muscle Contraction on Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity.  PMID: 31347763.

Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulates Cognitive Function. PMC5148230.

Impact of diaphragm function parameters on balance maintenance. PMC6310257.

How breathing can help you make better decisions: Two studies on the effects of breathing patterns on heart rate variability and decision-making in business cases. PMID: 30826382.

The Influence of Breathing on the Central Nervous System. PMC6070065.

The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults. PMC5455070. 

Motivational Non-directive Resonance Breathing as a Treatment for Chronic Widespread Pain. PMC6579813.

Brain study shows how slow breathing induces tranquility. 

Researchers pinpoint origin of sighing reflex in the brain. An unconscious sigh is a life-sustaining reflex that helps preserve lung function.

The peptidergic control circuit for sighing. PMC4852886. 

Slow Paced Breathing and Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Do Longer Exhalations Increase HRV During Slow-Paced Breathing? PMID: 38507210. 

How to Strengthen the Mind-Body Connection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_3V58sPR9M

Slow paced breathing (e.g. during Qigong and Tai Chi) results in vagal nerve activation, which has a variety of beneficial effects including reducing inflammation, lowering stress, and increasing resilience. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a common metric and biomarker for autonomic nervous system and vagal verve activity.

Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability:A systematic review and a meta-analysis. This systematic review found that slow diaphragmatic breathing (the type of breathing used during Qigong) influences the parasympathetic nervous system, and this effect can be measured via HRV. Given the involvement of the parasympathetic nervous system in a large range of health-related outcomes and conditions, slow breathing exercises are a low-tech and low-cost technique to use in prevention and treatment programs, with few adverse effects expected. PMID: 35623448. 

Everything You Should Know About Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyuUoU7lAQ

The Secrets the Heart Keeps, and other Lessons of Heart Rate Variability with Dr. Richard Gervitz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKoD8XJfrEM

Heart rate variability: physiology, methodology and experimental possibilities - Dr. Daniel Quintana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIf01TRMUpw

The Science and Art of Breathing

Nasal Nitric Oxide- The Oxygen Advantage Patrick McKeown

In 1992, nitric oxide was proclaimed molecule of the year by the journal Science and was described as a startlingly simple molecule which unites neuroscience, physiology, and immunology, and revises scientists' understanding of how cells communicate and defend themselves. In 1998, Robert F Furchgott, Louis J Ignarro and Ferid Murad were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery that the gas nitric oxide is an important signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system.

Breathing is affected by and can counteract stress. Taking a deep breathe contributes to the belief that bigger breaths will deliver more oxygen to the cells. But the prescence of carbon dioxide is required for the transfer of oxygen from the blood to the tissues. Breathing too hard reduces CO2 concentration thus reducing oxygen delivery, which is called the oxygen dissociation curve. Light breathing through the nose creates a higher concentration of nitric oxide which enhances oxygen uptake in the blood. Breathing through the nose activates the diaphragm and massages the internal organs, facilitating the circulation of lymph. Diaphragmatic breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system. 

Buteyko Breathing Exercises by Patrick McKeown

How to breathe. Psyche Newsletter.

Coronoavirus Free Breathing Exercises by Patrick McKeown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiwrtgWQeDc

Practical 40 minute free breathing session with Patrick McKeown to improve respiratory health.

Patrick McKeown meets James Nestor, author of Breath The new science of a lost art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl4J2LMXcx8

Oxygen Advantage

Master Qi Gong Teacher Lee Holden and James Nestor Discuss the Art of Breathing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RO9Pb671Mk

Nestor concludes that breathwork is perhaps the most profound and effective natural self-healing technique known to humankind.

Breath

THE LINK BETWEEN QIGONG BREATH HOLDING AND NITRIC OXIDE.

Buteyko Breathing Exercises in 3 minutes by Patrick McKeown

Qigong's Diaphragmatic Breathing Modulates the Parasympathetic Nervous System via Vagus Nerve Stimulation

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Reduces Stress and Inflammation. 

If There Was Ever a Time to Activate Your Vagus Nerve, It Is Now. Four simple steps to return to a ‘rest and digest’ state.

Longer Exhalations Are an Easy Way to Hack Your Vagus Nerve.

How Does the Vagus Nerve Convey Gut Instincts to the Brain? 

Analogy between classical Yoga/Zen breathing and modern clinical respiratory therapy. PMC7429199. 

What Deep Breathing Does to Your Body. “A much more effective and quicker way of interrupting that stress response is to turn on the vagus nerve, which in turn powers up the parasympathetic nervous system... Deep-breathing turns on the vagus nerve enough that it acts as a brake on the stress response.”

Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and Your Vagus Nerve

The health benefits of nose breathing. Read article.

Immune Protective Effects of Nasal Breathing and Nitric Oxide in the time of COVID-19. 

Breath of Life: The Respiratory Vagal Stimulation Model of Contemplative Activity. The vagus nerve transports parasympathetic nervous system signals to and from the brain which helps explain the effects of contemplative practices on health, mental health and cognition.  PMCID: PMC6189422.

Deep Breathing Could Help You Recover From Covid-19.

Why slowing your breathing helps you relax. 

Anatomy and Physiology of Breathing

There are many very good instructional videos primarily aimed at nursing students by Professor Fink and Dr. Campbell on YouTube. Below are a couple of good ones to start with.

RESPIRATORY PHYSIOLOGY; REGULATION OF BREATHING by Professor Fink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97QZF5pnmqU

The principle function of the Respiratory Reflex Center in the Medulla Oblongata is to maintain the pH of the cerebrospinal fluid around the brain.

RESPIRATORY PHYSIOLOGY; TRANSPORT OF O2 IN THE BLOODSTREAM by Professor Fink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvh0CUE2G5s

P,Q,R,S,T waves in the EKG. Dr. John Campbell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izX9woINRbM

The Breathing Motion of the Spine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsE2yoPxYvY

How to Breathe

by Martin Petrus

PSYCHE

Proper Breathing Brings Better Health

Breathing is like solar energy for powering relaxation: it’s a way to regulate emotions that is free, always accessible, inexhaustible and easy to use. Stress reduction, insomnia prevention, emotion control, improved attention—certain breathing techniques can make life better. Breathing practices are fundamental to Qigong. Scientific American. January 15, 2019. Read article.