Dr. Joseph Mercola – The way you breathe — whether fast or slow, shallow or deep — is intricately tied to your body as a whole, sending messages that affect your mood, your stress levels and even your immune system. Yet, breathing is unique in that it’s both easily ignored (becoming a basic background of your life) and revered at the same time. In the latter case, it’s almost instinctual to advise someone to “take a deep breath” if they’re feeling anxious, stressed or fearful.

While it’s long been known that breathing is connected to your brain (and vice versa), it wasn’t until early 2017 that researchers discovered breathing may directly affect your brain activity, including your state of arousal and higher-order brain function.¹ Breathing is initiated by a cluster of neurons in your brainstem. In an animal study, researchers were attempting to identify different types of neurons (out of a group of nearly 3,000) and identify their role in breathing function.

They were focused on the pre-Bötzinger complex (or preBötC), which is known as the breathing pacemaker (and has been identified in humans as well as mice).² The researchers further honed in on 175 neurons in the breathing pacemaker, which they then “silenced” or essentially eliminated in the mice, with the expectation that this would alter their breathing patterns. Continue reading →