A 5-minute breathing practice to increase happiness

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Exercise has long been recognized to produce wonders for the mind, from HIIT to shaking it out in a dancing class.However, experts have identified another approach to improve your mood – deep breathing exercises. And they may be even more effective than mindfulness, which has previously been shown to help us 'enjoy life more,' according to the NHS. Stanford University researchers discovered that those who spent five minutes a day on deep breathing exercises for a month had their anxious sensations relax and mood improve more than those who merely meditated.

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The investigation required 108 volunteers to perform one of three breathing exercises or mindfulness meditation for 5 minutes every day at home, at their leisure.

The first exercise - cyclic sighing — was done by 30 persons. It included their inhaling slowly, taking another shorter breath to completely fill their lungs, and then exhaling for as long as they could.

Instead, 21 people tried box breathing. This included breathing, holding the breath, exhaling, and repeating the process.

The last exercise, cyclic hyperventilation, required 33 participants to inhale deeply and exhale quickly 30 times before completely exhaling.

The remaining 24 individuals were engaged in normal mindfulness training. They didn't do any special breathing exercises, but they did examine their breathing to help concentrate their awareness on the present. Participants completed two surveys after a month to measure the effect of the workouts on their anxiety levels. The results were compared to two surveys they everyone completed before to the 28-day study. Researchers reported in the journal Cell Reports Medicine that the benefits were'significantly greater' in the breathwork groups. Mindfulness is defined as "paying greater attention to the present moment - to your own thoughts and emotions, and to the world around you" by the NHS. Deep-breathing exercises are one sort of practice that may be used. Anxiety is defined as continuous, intense, and overwhelming anxiety and dread about ordinary circumstances. It often causes a high heart rate, rapid breathing, perspiration, and exhaustion.

According to the mental health organization Mind, 6% of adults in the UK suffer with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). GAD is projected to affect 6.8 million individuals in the United States, or 3.1% of the population. 'Our understanding of the effects of breathing on the brain and body ought to allow specific science-supported breath practices to be designed in order to improve stress tolerance and sleep, enhance energy, focus, and creativity, and regulate emotional and cognitive states,' said Stanford researcher Dr Melis Yilmaz Balban in response to the study's findings.

Breathing methods that emphasize the exhale component of each breath over the inhale portion are'more helpful in lowering anxiety and promoting well-being,' she adds. Researchers also looked to see whether research participants' sleeping habits had changed. However, after examining the amount of hours they all slept, their sleep efficiency, and total sleep score, the Stanford University researchers found no significant differences in any of the groups.