Breathing isn’t only essential to keep us alive, it also impacts our emotions, attention, and how our brains process the world around us.

The calming effect of breathing in stressful situations, is a concept most of us have met before. Now Professor Micah Allen has come a step closer to understanding how the very act of breathing shapes our brain.

“What we found is that brain rhythms are closely tied to the rhythm of our breath. We are more sensitive to the outside world when we are breathing in, whereas the brain tunes out more when we breathe out.

“It suggests that the brain and breathing are closely intertwined in a way that goes far beyond survival, to actually impact our emotions, our attention, and how we process the outside world. Our model suggests there is a common mechanism in the brain which links the rhythm of breathing to these events.”

Understanding how breathing shapes our brain, and by extension, our mood, thoughts, and behaviors, is an important goal in order to better prevent and treat illness.

Stabilizing our mind through breathing is a well-known and used tactic in many traditions such as yoga and meditation.

The new study sheds light on how the brain makes it possible. It suggests that there are three pathways in the brain that control this interaction between breathing and brain activity.

It also suggests that our pattern of breathing makes the brain more “excitable”, meaning neurons are more likely to fire during certain times of breathing.