This is What Happens to Your Anxiety, Lungs and Brain When You Breathe Through One Nostril

According a research, breathing through one nostril has positive effects on any aspect of life, especially to your anxiety, lungs and brain. There are proper breathing techniques that help in improving your brain and body health, but one of the most effective is called Alternate Nostril Breathing (ANB).

What is Alternate Nostril Breathing?

Alternate nostril breathing is the most common used breathing technique in Ayverdic medicine and yoga, where it is considered as the most therapeutic calming rituals, since it helps balance the physical, mental and emotional well-being. It also calms and nourished mind and nervous system. Try it for only 2 minutes and you can notice some improvements.

Perform these 6 steps of ANB:

Step 1: Close your right nostril with your right thumb

Step 2: Inhale slowly through left nostril.

Step 3: Pause for a second.

Step 4: Now close your left nostril with your ring finger and release your thumb from your right nostril.

Step 5: Exhale through your right nostril.

Step 6: Now, start from step 1 and breathe through your right nostril.

This is for one round only. Start with 1 or 2 rounds and gradually increase. Sit in peace for a while after you are done.

Warning: Do not hold your breath if you suffer from high blood pressure, but perform slower deep breathing.

Follow Your Nose to Better Health

1. Get Revitalized

Alternative nostril breathing helps you when you are feeling fatigued by increasing your energy levels.

2. Improve Brain Function

Drinking a glass of water on empty stomach combined with ANB practice improves your brain function since it provides both sides of the brain with equal parts of oxygen content.

3. Cleanse Your Lungs

Performing a ANB practice for 5 minutes in the morning and in the evening is the best way to cleanse your lungs, remove stale air and impurities from your lungs.

4. Calm a Worried Mind

Ancient yogis support one strong belief: Regulating your breathing, it regulates your mind. Focusing a few minutes on ANB can be very beneficial for your worried mind.

5. Merge your thinking

ANB has significant and positive impact on both sides of your brain. Breathe through your left nostril to feed the right- or the creative- brain. Breathe through your right nostril to feed the left-or the logical- brain.

6. Calm your emotions

Alternate nostril breathing can put your brain in a calmer emotional state by relieving your stress and thus making you less impulsive.

7. Soothes your nervous system

By focusing on your deepened breath you help your nervous system to switch from a stressed response into a relaxed response. Close your right nostril and breathe through the right nostril to provide your right hemisphere of your brain with oxygen content and energy. This enables your parasympathetic nervous system to be switched on.

8. Regulate your temperature

Left nostril is feminine, nurturing, calm, receiving and cooling, while the right is masculine, heat, competitive, performing, active and strength. Favoring one nostril more than other, it helps regulate the cooling and warming body cycles.

9. Clear and boost energy

Alternate nostril breathing promotes a good supply of oxygenated blood and regulates your blood flow. It clears your mind of negative thoughts and thus clears and boosts your energy.