A human being can go without food for up to 40 days (although I wouldn’t try this at home), without water 3 to 7 days, but without air, just a few minutes.

Breathing is the most natural thing in the world, you don’t even have to think about it, your body just does it automatically. Yet it is also something that you can control, if you choose to, in other words, the process of respiration is unique in that it is under both our conscious and unconscious control. Because it is generally an automatic process, most people never pay attention to it.

As babies and children, we naturally inhaled deeply all the way to the stomach. So when exactly did we forget how to breathe properly? It’s such a simple (and at the same time, very complex) thing, and just breathing better can make you look and feel healthier. It’s no coincidence that meditation is linked to breathing. In fact, studies show that meditation can change the structure of our brains and improve neuroplasticity. This could be due to the fact that the brain is so oxygen dependent, using 20% of the body’s oxygen supply.

Shallow breathing, caused by stress, can deprive your body of oxygen and affect your mental outlook as well as your performance levels. Cardiovascular exercise helps lungs open up, increasing oxygenation and pulmonary circulation. And for an athlete, paying close attention to when, how and why we breathe has many benefits.

Why do we breathe? To get oxygen into our cells so they can make energy. When you inhale, you take in oxygen, which your body needs in order to produce energy. Our cells break down glucose and turn it into carbon dioxide which we breathe out. So this is where the fat goes when we lose weight. Amazing!

Breathing properly not only helps you burn fat, but improves everything from your stress levels to your heart health and digestion. Plus, you will feel more energised and productive, it helps your skin will glow and slows down ageing.

A recent study also suggests that it is possible to reverse engineer your mood simply by changing your breathing. There are 175 brain cells which monitor the breath and alter your state of mind accordingly. These neurons which link breathing to to relaxation, attention, excitement and anxiety are located deep in the brainstem. They can pick up on the differences in sighing, yawning, gasping, sleeping, laughing and sobbing.

When scientists genetically engineered mice so that the neurons which pick up excited breathing were absent, the animals were far calmer. The investigators concluded that rather than regulating breathing, the neurons were spying on it instead and reporting their finding to another structure in the brainstem.

A recent study also suggests that it is possible to reverse engineer your mood simply by changing your breathing. There are 175 brain cells which monitor the breath and alter your state of mind accordingly. These neurons which link breathing to to relaxation, attention, excitement and anxiety are located deep in the brainstem. They can pick up on the differences in sighing, yawning, gasping, sleeping, laughing and sobbing.

The investigators concluded that rather than regulating breathing, the neurons were spying on it instead and reporting their finding to another structure in the brainstem.