How Breathing Incorrectly Can Affect Your Health
It’s clear what the object of the breathing is: it introduces oxygen into the blood, which is necessary to support our vital organs. The health of your tissues depends on the oxygenation process. And so, if we’re breathing incorrectly, then it will have negative consequences on our mental and physical health.
Despite being something apparently simple and automatic, there are many occasions when we don’t breathe well.
For instance, there are times when we breathe incorrectly because of a deviated septum. However, there are also many times when we breathe incorrectly due to bad habits, or because of a stressful way of life.
How do we breathe incorrectly?
There are three types of breathing: abdominal, intercostal and shallow breathing. The most appropriate form of breathing is the first, whereas the other two can lead to difficulties.
However, of the three types, shallow breathing is the most harmful. This is because our nose doesn’t filter the air and, consequently, harmful organisms enter our body.
What are the consequences of breathing incorrectly?
1. Sleeping badly
If we don’t breathe well when we sleep, our brain won’t be properly oxygenated, and we won’t be able to get into a deep sleep.
In fact, if you normally breathe incorrectly, you’ll likely wake up feeling tired.
In addition to this, you may also experience morning headaches or headaches that may last into the afternoon or evening. These will turn your day into a fight against the pain that, depending on its intensity, may even prevent you from carrying out your normal activities.
2. Fatigue
If we think that oxygen is our gasoline, then if it’s of poor quality we’ll use our body tissues and muscles excessively. At the end of the day, we’ll be so tired that we won’t be able to do anything.
3. Depression
Being in a constant state of exhaustion affects all areas of your life.
On the one hand, you’ll have concentration problems, which will be a problem at work. On the other hand, you’ll not want to spend time with friends and family as you’ll just want to rest.
Poor work performance and lack of social life will negatively affect your self-esteem. This could, then, cause you to have depressive moods. All this will be due to breathing incorrectly.
4. Deterioration of the immune system: you’ll be more vulnerable
In addition to the effects that impaired mental health has on the body’s defenses, breathing incorrectly directly affects the immune system. This is due to the deficit in both quality and quantity of oxygen.
In this sense, you’ll be more susceptible to contracting viruses, infections, or diseases. These will prevent you from carrying out your daily tasks as you would wish to.
5. Cardiovascular risks
If you breathe incorrectly, your heart will overexert itself as it won’t have enough energy. At the same time, it’ll work with blood that contains unwanted elements, which will negatively affect it.
For this reason, breathing incorrectly also adversely affects the circulatory system.
This is because the blood that circulates in our arteries and veins will thicken and form obstructions. This may lead to the onset of varicose veins and other phenomena.
Read this article: 5 Natural Ways to Fight Varicose Veins Successfully
Gastrointestinal Problems
Your digestive system is responsible for separating substances that are nutritionally valuable from those that are not.
This function won’t be carried out satisfactorily if you are breathing incorrectly, because the blood it uses will be in a poor condition.
This will increase your chances of suffering from hiatal hernias, aerophagia or chronic gastritis.
As you can see, if you breathe incorrectly, it’s time to take action on the matter.
Unlike other facets of our life, this complication is easy to solve. Nowadays, there are many meditation and alternative therapy courses based on oxygenating the body through clavicular breathing.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- F. Susanibar. (2013). Fisiología de la respiración. In Fisiología de la respiración e insuficiencia respiratoria aguda. https://doi.org/jbiol226 [pii]n10.1186/jbiol226.
- García Río, F. (2004). Control de la respiración. Archivos de Bronconeumología. https://doi.org/10.1157/13077883.
