By Alex Van Tol

Our last article discussed softening the belly to encourage deep, diaphragmatic breathing, helping counter shallow, stress-driven breaths. Now, we’ll explore five key benefits of mindful breathwork—calming the nervous system, improving emotional awareness, easing tension, and more—showing how proper breathing can enhance both physical and mental well-being.

Proper breathing for mindfulness
Getty Images

1. Being here now. 

Proper breathing returns you to the present. “Breath is used throughout the ages in yogic practices in order to ground your awareness,” says Katyanna Ryan, cofounder of MĀ Wellness and Yoga. “It brings awareness to what’s happening now so we can properly respond, whether that be on a physical level or a mental/emotional level. With that awareness, we can relax certain muscle groups that we tend to hold when we are in a state of fight or flight.”

2. Discerning body signals and emotions. 

Breathing softly tunes you into what’s happening in your emotional world — which is what runs the show, for better or worse. “When we’re not breathing properly, we’re cutting off our body intelligence,” says Michele Yasuda, director of programs for the Hendricks Institute. “We’re all familiar with butterflies in the stomach as a concept of fear, but that’s only one of the ways that our body communicates through our sensations.”

3. Calming your nervous system. 

In the Taoist tradition, correcting anxiety is as easy as bringing awareness into your feet and “breathing out” through your soles, says acupuncturist and tai chi teacher Lin Chen, of Lumina Wellbeing. You’re literally sending your energy down, physically and metaphorically. (Bonus points if you can get outside and put your feet on the actual ground; the energy exchange is very healing.) 

4. Unhooking from pain and tension. 

Ryan regularly works with injury, which is often directly connected to the way a person breathes. She sees a lot of people who hold tension in their abdomen, sphincter or pelvic floor. “Some people have actually, just from exercise alone, created a body that doesn’t breathe properly because they can’t soften their abdomen,” she says. “Many people are surprised that their injury is caused by the way they’re breathing.”

5. Interrupting anxiety or rumination. 

You can get a handle on a thought spiral if you divert attention to your breath. “If I’m consciously breathing, I’m using some of my attention for my inner world,” says Yasuda. “I’ve interrupted that habitual thought even just a little bit by putting some of my attention on my breathing.”