Anders Olsson

Breathing well when you exercise ensures that your energy production is efficient, while keeping the consumption of available energy low, so you will consequently achieve more with less effort. This leads to increased endurance and faster recovery.

Breathing through the mouth creates changes in the jaws, which eventually affects the position of a child’s teeth, smile, facial development and upper airways. Dr. John Flutter states, ‘The single most important thing you can do to improve a child’s health is to establish nasal breathing.’

Applying Conscious Breathing puts your health and breathing first. In all its simplicity it means that you should a) strive to have your mouth closed as often as possible when you train, and try to breathe as rhythmically, abdominally, slowly and relaxed as possible, and b) listen to your body and view it as your best friend.

Apply the five basic principles of Conscious Breathing—breathing should be done in and out through your nose, so it feels as if the air reaches your stomach while at the same time your breathing is slow, rhythmic and quiet.

Compared to breathing out through your mouth, exhaling through your nose increases the pressure in your lungs, which provides better oxygenation.

Providing your body with oxygen is always a top priority. Since we only survive a few minutes without oxygen we need a constant inflow of this gas. An impaired breathing pattern increases our basic stress because it both decreases oxygenation, and places a greater strain on available resources to sustain optimum oxygen levels.

The quickest way to reduce your physical, mental, or emotional stress is to reduce your breathing volume and take more and more of your 20-25,000 daily breaths in a slow, deep, rhythmical and relaxed way.

Your quality of sleep is closely related to how you breathe, both when you sleep and when you are awake.

By taking control of our breathing we can influence our thoughts and feelings, our internal organs, such as the heart and brain, as well as our bodily functions, such as digestion and the immune system.