How to use breathing exercises to lose weight and burn fat

Losing weight is as easy as… breathing? Yes, that’s true, although you need to commit to the type of breathing exercises that calm the sympathetic nervous system, lower the stress hormone cortisol, and help the body shed fat. Studies have shown that breathing exercises promote weight loss and help you feel calm and energized. So if you want to trade your morning workout for breathing, or better yet, breathe 10 minutes a day, there’s ample scientific evidence that breathing can be an effective weight loss tool.

Breathing lowers cortisol, which helps the body lose weight or burn fat

Breathing exercises lower cortisol, the stress hormone in the body, which in turn can help with weight loss. A “fight-or-flight” response to a stressor, cortisol tells the sympathetic nervous system to hold onto fat (for fight or travel). , allowing you to burn fuel to support your activity. studies have shown a link between cortisol levels in the body and obesity, metabolic syndrome and weight gain. Breathing exercises have been shown to help lower cortisol.

In one to learntitled “The Role of Deep Breathing in Stress,” 38 university students aged 18 to 28 were divided into two groups to see if breathing interventions help improve mood and reduce stress. One group practiced deep breathing exercises for a total of 10 treatments, while the others just sat in a quiet room without doing the breathing exercises. In those who learned and practiced the breathing exercises, their biological stress profile, as measured by heart rate and salivary cortisol levels, both decreased.

Breathing brings oxygen into the cells and releases CO2, the “exhaust gas” of burning fat

Deep breathing increases the flow of oxygen in your body, and that extra oxygen helps you burn extra fat, according to a study. Deep breathing also helps improve circulation and allows the body to exhale CO2, or what is emitted when you break down carbon for fuel, essentially burning fat. Think of it as your engine’s exhaust fumes.

Abdominal breathing can even help the process, according to experts who recommend trying different types of abdominal breathing breathing exercises to see which one works for you.

This is reported by researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia
“When weight is lost, most of it is exhaled as carbon dioxide,” which according to Andrew Brown and Ruben Meerman, the professors who wrote the report, was news to many people who believed fat was lost through energy or heat . published in BMJ.

There is a common misconception among doctors, nutritionists and personal trainers about how to lose weight, they wrote. “Most believed that fat is converted to energy or heat, which violates the law of conservation of mass,” they said wrote. In fact, “the majority of weight loss happens through breathing.”

“Nothing in this biochemistry is new,” the professors wrote, “but for reasons unknown, no one seems to have thought of performing these calculations. The amounts make perfect sense, but we were surprised by the numbers that came out.”

The lungs are the main excretory organ for weight loss, they explained. On average, a 154-pound person exhales approximately 200 mL of CO₂ at 12 breaths per minute. Each breath contains 33 mg of CO₂, where 8.9 mg consists of carbon. So if you take 17,280 breaths throughout the day, you’ll expel 200 grams or more of carbon, with about a third of that weight loss occurring during 8 hours of sleep Medical news today. By eating food, you replace that energy, so losing weight is simply an equation of “taking back less through eating than you exhaled through breathing,” according to the authors.

Try these 5 different breathing patterns for the best fat burning results

There are different ways to breathe to help your body bring oxygen into cells, calm your stress and effectively expel CO2 and promote weight loss.

box breathing. This is also called Square Breathing. It uses counting to continually distract the mind and relax the brain and allow your breath to fully inhale and exhale. Sit in a chair and breathe in slowly for 5 counts. You hold your breath for 5 counts and then exhale for 5 counts or a little more (5.5 or 6 counts) to get all the air out of your lungs. Then hold your breath for 5 counts and repeat.

deep breathing. Here you just slow your breath and don’t count. Allow the lungs to fill completely with air, even pushing out your stomach to create as large a cavity for air as possible, and then exhale fully to empty the lungs, drawing in the abdomen as you do do. By slowing your breathing, you will relax and feel calmer.

Alternating nostril breathing. Yoga teachers love this because it makes you realize that you often breathe with your mouth, and by using your nose you slow down and filter your breath. Pinch one nostril shut with your fingers, then inhale several times and switch sides. In this exercise, you’ll practice inhaling and exhaling through alternate nostrils, closing one side at a time with your fingers.

Abdominal breathing or diaphragmatic breathing. This requires you to fully contract your abdomen, abdominal muscles, and diaphragm as you breathe. Lie on the floor or a mat and place your hands on your chest or mid-torso and exhale as deeply as you can. Feel your hands drop, then inhale and watch the hands rise with your chest. If you want to tone your abs, you can, but the most important part of it is breathing, not toning.

Senobi breathing. To practice this Japanese style of breathing, stand in an open space and breathe in while leaning back and stretching your arms overhead. Then, hold your breath and lower your arms back down as you exhale. This helps the lungs feel fully stretched to bring the breath deep into the airways and is invigorating. Use it when you need to focus.

Yoga and Om Chanting help lung function and weight loss.

in one to learn One study that looked at whether the OM change in yoga could help people lose weight or have healthier lung function found that it worked.

The study Effect of Bhramari pranayama and OM chanting on pulmonary function in Healthy persons: A prospective randomized control trial found that when study participants were asked to practice 10 minutes a day (5 minutes, twice a day, six days) of OM- Practicing chanting a week for two weeks, it helped the lung function and they lost weight.

Use diaphragmatic breathing to burn more calories at rest

Another one to learn found that specific breathing exercises helped improve resting metabolism — or the total number of calories burned when your body is fully at rest — and peak oxygen uptake. So, using diaphragmatic breathing exercises can help improve VO2max, or the amount of oxygen your muscles can use during intense workouts or competitions.

Diaphragmatic breathing actively engages your abdominal muscles and abdominal cavity, and actively pulls the diaphragm down with each inhale to pull more oxygen into the lungs, and then forcibly exhales all of the air from the lungs, forcing out every last drop of volume. “Diaphragmatic breathing exercises and feedback breathing exercises can affect VO₂max,” the study found. “Diaphragmatic breathing exercises could affect resting metabolic rate, but feedback breathing exercises could not. It is believed that the results may be useful for clinical applications.’

Bottom Line: To burn more calories and lose fat, use specific breathing exercises

If weight loss is a goal, you should try to incorporate breathing exercises into your daily routine, especially ones that force air into your lungs and then exhale fully, such as: B. the so-called “diaphragmatic breathing”. the exhalation of CO2.

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