Breathing is the one thing we all do all day without thinking. Taking a few minutes to breathe slowly and on purpose is a small, free way to pause, and many people find it a pleasant, calming habit.
Below you'll find a simple practice to try, a look at what physiologists have found about slow breathing, and how the breath fits into the Metal element in Chinese medicine.
A five-minute practice
This is a simple, standard breathing exercise you can do almost anywhere.
- Get comfortable. Sit in a chair that supports your back, stand, or lie down. Loosen any tight clothing.
- Breathe low. Let the breath flow as deep into your belly as is comfortable, without forcing it.
- In through the nose. Breathe in gently and steadily. Some people like to count slowly from 1 to 5.
- Out through the mouth. Let the breath flow out gently, counting from 1 to 5 again if that helps.
- Keep going. Repeat for at least five minutes.
Don't worry if you can't reach a count of five at first. Go at your own pace and never strain, and if you feel light-headed, simply go back to breathing normally. As with most habits, a few minutes regularly, perhaps at the same time each day, is easier to keep up than a long session now and then.
What happens when you breathe slowly?
Counting to five in and five out means you're breathing about six times a minute, which is noticeably slower than most people breathe at rest. Physiologists have studied this kind of slow breathing quite a lot.
Much of that research looks at heart rate variability, or HRV, the natural rise and fall in heart rate from moment to moment. Some of that variation comes from breathing itself. Heart rate rises as you breathe in and falls as you breathe out, a pattern known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia.
In a 2014 paper in Frontiers in Psychology, Paul Lehrer and Richard Gevirtz set out how breathing at around six breaths a minute (roughly 0.1 Hz) tends to produce the largest heart rate oscillations. At this pace the swings in heart rate can grow to many times their size at rest. They link this to the baroreflex, the system that helps keep blood pressure steady, and point out that each person's ideal rate varies a little.
A 2018 systematic review by Andrea Zaccaro and colleagues in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience looked at studies of breathing slower than ten breaths a minute. The studies it included generally found increases in HRV and respiratory sinus arrhythmia during slow breathing, which the authors read as signs of greater parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) activity. The review was open about its limits. Only 15 studies met its criteria, their methods varied widely, and none were randomised controlled trials.
So the physiology is interesting and fairly consistent, but it's about what happens in the body while you breathe slowly. It isn't a promise that slow breathing will fix any particular problem.
The breath and the Metal element
In Chinese medicine, the breath belongs to the Metal element. Chapter 5 of the Suwen, part of the Huangdi Neijing, links the West with dryness and Metal, and Metal with the lungs, the skin and the nose. In the same chapter, the qi of heaven communicates with the lungs, a lovely image for the air we take in with every breath.
Metal is also the element of autumn, when the leaves fall and the year starts to wind down. Its emotion in Five Element acupuncture is grief, the feeling that is natural in the face of separation or loss.
You might like to borrow that autumn image while you practise, taking in fresh air and letting each out-breath go completely, without holding on.
Making it part of your day
- Try five minutes before you get up, or before you start work.
- Use a routine moment, like the kettle boiling, as a cue for a few slow breaths.
- Step outside for fresh air if you can. It suits the Metal spirit of the practice.
If you'd like to read more about the element of breath and autumn, visit my guide to the Metal element.