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When we find a method that boosts overall stamina we jump on it. 

When we find a food that improves overall gut health we eat it.

When we find a technique that increases our overall edge in the bedroom we make it our ritual.

But what about a method that boosts the overall quality of all those aspects of health, performance, sex, and so many others?

We mentioned it before and are discovering more benefits each time we research it. One of the most alluring things is how systemic it’s benefits have on other seemingly unrelated aspects of life. 

Science is gradually coming into more of an understanding at how holistic our health is. Not just about the obvious relations like gut health and physical energy; or quality of sleep and cognitive function. But more interdisciplinary like how our physical health affects our mental health which cascades into emotional health and can then trickle into our financial decision-making.

It may seem like a stretch to some but deep down we all intuitively know everything connects to everything else, no matter how many magnitudes of consequences away things may seem.

So it’s within that interconnected context that we re-introduce a practice that when done daily, will have an effect on your physical, mental, emotional, and sexual health. And can even have benefits in the more marginal areas of our life like your golf handicap, or an extra couple reps at the gym.

It’s simply breathwork. “Conscious, controlled breathing done especially for relaxation, meditation, or therapeutic purposes.”

Consider the trillions of cells in our bodies. Cells that make up our brains, our muscles, our organs, and everything else.

What is the most fundamental source of energy we can provide our cells? That without this energy we pass out around 30-180 seconds. And after 1 minute, brain cells begin dying. And anything beyond that, brain damage and death become very likely. 

It’s oxygen.

With it the body and mind function. Without it the body and mind dies.

Oxygen is what’s needed for cellular respiration, which is at the seat of all biological and subsequently mental processes.

Now we all operate on different degrees of breathing efficiency. And it’s that degree of your breathing efficiency that determines the overall quality of your health.

James Nestor, author of the New York Times Best Seller, "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art," succinctly conveys the message when he said, "No matter what we eat, how much we exercise, how skinny or young or wise we are, none of it will matter unless we're breathing correctly. That's what these researchers discovered. The missing pillar in health is breath. It all starts there."

Let’s take a look at how breathwork practices like diaphragmatic breathing and oxygen levels in the blood affects all aspects of health.

We put a lot of emphasis on digestion these days because we’re realizing how the efficiency of transforming food into energy affects the overall energy we have. 

It’s no surprise then when we find the connection between our respiratory system and our digestive system. According to the Lung Health Institute, the digestive system relies on the proper functioning of the respiratory system to adequately break down food into energy - for cellular respiration to take place. 

Diaphragmatic breathing (DB), which involves fully engaging the stomach, abdominal muscles, and diaphragm when breathing, found in many breathwork practices, improves respiratory health. And has even been clinically found to improve ventilatory efficiency in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Sleep, another pillar in our health due to it’s vital role in regeneration, is transformed with beathwork due to saturating the body with oxygen.

Brandon R. Peters, MD is a sleep physician at Virginia Medical Center and Clinical Affiliate at Stanford University. He summarizes it well when he says, “So much healthy, transformative change happens [when we sleep]. ..transformations like cell renewal, tissue repair, and memory consolidation. [They] can be attributed to the saturation level of our bodies. A consistent oxygen supply is essential to these processes” 

He promotes deep breathing exercises for their increasing effect in blood oxygen levels. 

We believe stress is the biggest contributor to poor health, and it’s cortisol-inducing effects wreak havoc on our physiology as well as our mental capacity.

Well not surprisingly, diaphragmatic breathing has shown to lower cortisol levels and improve focus.

Eliminate the negative effects of stress and health naturally improves on all fronts.

When it comes to athletic performance, beathwork is being recognized as essential.

With proficiency in diaphragmatic breathing there’s an increase in the amount of breath in each inhale. Thus increasing the amount of oxygen available for the body to utilize for its energy needs. In athletic performance that need is greatly increased. And so by incorporating DB you will increase the available energy with each breath, increasing endurance and stamina. 

There’s even evidence to support that diaphragmatic breathing improves balance. Which makes sense if you think about the output of the body’s energy needs against the energy input of our breathing. More energy(breath) per input, the more available output for the finer fast-twitching muscles to help stabilize and balance.

DB has also been shown to reduce exercise-induced oxidative stress aiding in shorterting recovery time. 

Now when it comes to sex, the two basic key elements for men, physically speaking, are stamina and the ability to get and maintain an erection.

We’ve just covered how DB increases stamina and endurance. The more stamina you have the more energy you have to enjoy and to please. When it comes to erections, evidence supports the less oxygen we have in our bodies over time the higher the chances of Erectile Dysfunction. Need we say more?

There are many different kinds of breathwork methods. But they all boil down to using our most innate and basic physiological activity to augment our lives: breathing. 

Some methods use air restriction devices to increase the respiratory muscles, but there isn’t adequate research yet to prove if they are more effective than simply using your own diaphragmatic muscles.

The research on breathwork is still new, but every month more studies surface supporting its efficacy in improving so many different aspects of life. And if you take a zoomed out perspective on the data, it’s not hard to see how encompassing, systemic, and powerfully effective just a simple thing like breathing better can do to the quality of your life.

And this article hasn’t even touched on the emotional breakthroughs that are so common in beathwork. Breakthroughs that have an even greater impact on your life because they improve what every human is currently seeking: peace, relief, contentment, connection, joy, and happiness. 

That will be in next week’s article. Until then, breathe well.

“By learning to control your breathing, by understanding how the respiratory system is integrated with your body, by using conscious breathing in all your pursuits, you will improve nearly every aspect of your life,” 

-Al Lee, co-author of Perfect Breathing (Sterling Publishing, 2009)