Sigh
Exasperated! What an expressive word. I'm no linguistics expert but I think it's a phonestheme, meaning a "particular sound or sound sequence that...suggests a certain meaning". Did reading "exasperated" in the opening sentence make you ever-so-slightly irked, peeved, or vexed? What if you say it out loud–feeling a wee bit teed off?
If you're wondering where this is heading, well, so am I! The plan (just now back on track) is to look at cyclic sighing, a breathing technique that improves mood and lowers respiratory rate. A 2023 study compared cyclic sighing with two other breathwork techniques and mindfulness meditation, at 5 minutes a day for a month.
What is cyclic sighing? It's deceptively quite simple: find a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down, and then follow these steps:
- Inhale through your nose and into your belly.
- Hold your breath for a second.
- Continue to inhale completely into the chest area.
- Slowly exhale all the air through your mouth.
- Repeat.
That's it!
Getting back to that study, the results showed that all of the techniques improved mood and reduced anxiety. Cyclic sighing performed better than the other breathwork techniques, however, including box breathing. It was also better, in terms of improving mood and lowering respiratory rate, than 5 minutes a day of mindfulness meditation 👀
This isn't an either/or situation, mind you, and meditation offers other benefits that weren't part of the study. Still, If you struggle with hyperarousal or challenging moods like exasperation 😏, cyclic sighing is worth exploring. You can always practice 5 minutes of meditation and 5 minutes of cyclic sighing 😉
PS. In a pinch, just 3 rounds of cyclic sighing can shift your mental and physical state.
Image by Mohammed Mohammed from Pixabay
