Sigh.. Is it the secret to relaxing

Ritesh Bawri

02 Sep 2024 — 2 min read

Sigh!

Have you got annoyed if someone signed when you were interacting? A sign of exasperation or even annoyance at you, perhaps?

Brace yourself for something surprising.Sighing is wonderful for you.

It's a deep respiratory practice used by your body for a specific purpose.

So much so that an average person sighs at least once every five minutes. The frequency can rise with excitement or stress.

When you sigh, you can take it twice the volume of breath, followed by an exhalation. An area of the brain called the pre-Botzinger complex controls this entire process.

So what is the magic underlying sighing and how does it benefit the body?

Think of sighing as a mood regulator. A thermostat to reset things and make sure that everything is fine. It does so by regulating a very powerful metric in your body called the heart rate variability.

Heart rate variability is pardon my pun, at the heart of regulating your nervous system.

Your heart is the engine driving your body. The heart beat is the pulsing of this engine.

The heart beat is regulated by two competing forces, the accelerator (sympathetic) and brake (parasympathetic). As these forces act on your heart, it creates a gap between each heartbeat.

The variability of this gap is what is known as heart rate variability.

But we were here to discuss sighing. So what on earth does sighing have to do with the heart and heart rate variability?

Sighing increases heart rate variability, which is a signal to your body to reset, calm down, and give your body the break it needs.

So the next time someone sighs when speaking to you, don’t fret. They are just resetting their body. You should too.

In fact, remove the stigma. Learn to sigh deliberately to reset your body.

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain

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