5.5 Second Breath

There is research out there that seems to show that most of us are taking much too shallow and short breaths when we breathe. That if we extend our breathing it could result in a whole host of benefits from healthier bodies to better athletic performance.

But just what is the ideal length of breath? In his New York Times best selling book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor writes,

“It turned out that the most efficient breathing rhythm occurred when both the length of the respirations and total breaths per minute were locked in to a spooky symmetry: 5.5 second inhales followed by 5.5 second exhales, which works out almost exactly to 5.5 breaths per minute.”

One way to try out this extended breathing pattern is to simply search “breathing exercise” in Google. Near the top will be an animation of a one-minute breathing exercise you can follow along with. In this exercise the breathes are about 5 second for the inhale and 5 seconds for the exhale.