Top Health Benefits of Breathwork

You’ve probably read about the benefits of deep breathing — even a few deep breaths can lower blood pressure and cortisol levels and increase parasympathetic tone, but breathwork is a little different. Formal breathwork practices exert some even more impressive positive effects on the body and work in a different and almost opposite way. Here’s the science behind the magic.
Alkalizes your blood PH.

The physiologic changes we see during sustained, rhythmic breathing are caused by a shift of the blood pH that follows hyperventilation –
a state called “respiratory alkalosis.” Thanks to the field of anesthesiology we know a lot about what the body does during respiratory alkalosis.

You probably remember that we take in oxygen during the inhale breath and get rid of CO2 with every exhale. When we take faster breaths we get rid of more CO2. CO2 is an acidic molecule, so you can think of hyperventilating as getting rid of acid in the blood and shifting to a higher, or more alkaline pH (thus the term respiratory alkalosis).

Increases muscle tone.
When the blood becomes more alkaline a few things happen. First, calcium ions floating around in the blood go into hiding, binding onto large proteins in the blood called albumin. The body now experiences a short-term low-calcium state which causes increased firing in sensory and motor neurons. The artificially low blood calcium now manifests in the neurological system as tingling sensations, smooth muscle contractions and increased muscle tone. If you’ve ever not been able to move your mouth after a breathwork class you know this feeling too well.

Has an anti-inflammatory effect.
Neurons in the autonomic nervous system also fire more during hyperventilation, releasing epinephrine (what many people call “adrenaline”). A 2014 study out of Yale School of Medicine found that the epinephrine surge causes the innate immune system to increase its anti-inflammatory activity and dampen its proinflammatory activity. Subjects who were taught a breathwork routine had less severe inflammatory responses after exposure to IV bacterial toxins than those who didn’t. The paper was the first in scientific literature to describe voluntary activation of the innate immune system.

Elevates your mood.
The “high” feeling some people experience during breathwork can also be explained by hyperventilation and respiratory alkalosis. Increased blood pH decreases oxygen delivery to tissues (a phenomenon called the Bohr Effect). Within one minute of hyperventilation, the vessels in the brain constrict, reducing blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain by 40%. The effect is probably responsible for the feelings of wellbeing that breathwork practitioners experience. That’s right — you are actually getting a little high in your Kundalini yoga class.

Via Parsley Health Blog