At some point in time, we all had experienced moments where we need to take a deep breath and calm down. A new scientific study conducted by Northwestern University, has recently explained why taking a deep breath essential for one's body. The study suggests that a strong and deep inhale through the nose boosts your brain activity and makes your memories sharper.
Deep Breathing And Its Health Benefits
According to Daily Mail, in the study, it was found that individuals were able to identify a fearful face more quickly if they encountered the face when breathing in compared to breathing out. The study has shown that people were more likely to remember an object if they encountered it on the inhaled breath than the exhaled one. The effect disappeared if breathing was through the mouth.
Furthermore, study lead author Christina Zelano, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has claimed that one of the major findings they have obtained from the study is that there is a dramatic difference in brain activity in the amygdala and hippocampus during inhalation compared with exhalation. When you breathe in deeply, she adds, the researchers believe that you are allegedly stimulating neurons in the olfactory cortex, amygdala and hippocampus, all across the limbic system.
Meanwhile, City Watch reports that there is also some evidence that deep breathing can help with pain. However, experts have highly emphasized that it's not clear if the relief is due to a drop in anxiety, which in turn helps the patient to focus less on the pain, or if there is an actual decrease in the pain response. Either way, having health care providers teach their patients about deep breathing and how to do it can have benefits extending beyond the pain response.
Ultimately, Zelano has further revealed that another potential insight of the research is on the basic mechanisms of meditation or focused breathing. She said that when a person inhales, he is in a sense synchronizing brain oscillations across the limbic network which, in turn, could possibly pave way for a new discovery.
