Shortness of breath

Have you ever watched the landscape from the window of a fast-moving car?

Everything blurs. Your eyes can’t focus. Your brain struggles to make sense of what it’s seeing: it’s almost stressful to look at.

Now picture the same road, the same view, but the car slows down.

Suddenly the trees have shapes. The colors settle. Your mind relaxes into what it sees, because it finally has time to process it.

I filmed this contrast during a recent trip, and the more I watched it back, the more it reminded me of something I see constantly in my work: stressed breathing patterns.

Most of us are breathing like a fast car: short, shallow breaths (15, 20, sometimes 25 times a minute). Our nervous system never gets the chance to “see the landscape”. It stays in a low-grade state of alert, processing everything a little too fast, a little too tense, all day long.

But when we slow the breath down (to around 6 breaths a minute, with long, full inhales and exhales), something shifts.

The nervous system stops scanning for threats and starts to actually take in the moment. Heart rate variability improves. The vagus nerve signals “safety” to the brain. Clarity replaces static.

This is the foundation of cardiac coherence breathing, and it’s one of the many breathing techniques I teach at Sbreeeze.

The video is on my social channels: you’ll find the links at the bottom of this page. The first part shows the “nervous”, shallow breath; the second reflects the calm and regulation our brain experiences with guided, conscious breathing.