The question: What are the most common breathing mistakes and how do I fix them?
The short answer: James Stewart names three: breathing through your mouth instead of your nose, breathing high into your chest, and simply breathing too much. The fix is a quick check he calls where, how and how much: nose, low into the belly and lower ribs, and quiet breaths sized to what you are doing.
What James explains
You take somewhere around 20,000 breaths a day, and very few of them are conscious. That means small habits get repeated thousands of times. The first habit is where the air enters. Your mouth can breathe, and during hard exercise or when your nose is blocked you will need it. At rest, though, your nose is designed for the job: it humidifies, pressurizes and filters the air, and because it is a smaller opening it adds gentle resistance that helps slow and relax your breathing.
The second habit is how you breathe. Breathing high into the chest and lifting the shoulders works harder than it needs to. For resting breathing, James wants the breath to drop low, using the diaphragm and lower ribs, with the belly moving rather than the upper chest.
The third habit is less intuitive: breathing too much. When you take in more air than your body needs, you remove too much carbon dioxide, which is an important part of your respiratory chemistry and your breathing regulation. That shift can create air hunger even when you are getting plenty of air, and as the brain reads those signals, the feeling of needing more air can grow. Bigger, faster breaths can reinforce the very feeling they are meant to fix.
Try it: a where, how, how much reset
- Relax your body and let your shoulders stay down.
- Close your mouth and breathe in low and slow through your nose for a count of four.
- Let the breath drop down toward your belly rather than up into your chest.
- Breathe out steady and relaxed for a count of six, letting go.
- Repeat for three breaths, keeping each one quiet and sized to what you are doing.
What to watch for
When you feel short of breath, the instinct is to take bigger or faster breaths. James suggests doing the opposite: make your breathing quieter, slower and gentler. When switching to nasal breathing, don't compensate with bigger or deeper breaths; just put your lips together. And remember that mouth breathing still has its place during hard exercise or when your nose is blocked.
Key points
- At rest, breathe through your nose, which humidifies, filters and gently slows the air.
- Let your breath drop low into the belly and lower ribs instead of lifting your chest and shoulders.
- More air is not always better: quiet breathing sized to your needs keeps your breathing chemistry steady.
Common questions
Is it bad to breathe through my mouth?
Not always. James says you will need your mouth when exercising hard or when your nose is obstructed. At rest, your nose is better suited to breathing because it humidifies, pressurizes and filters the air and naturally slows your breathing.
Can you really breathe too much?
Yes. When your breathing exceeds what your body needs, you remove too much carbon dioxide. That can create air hunger even when you are getting enough air, and the urge to take bigger breaths can keep the feeling going.
Do I have to control every breath all day?
No. James says you don't need to consciously control thousands of breaths a day. Check in now and then with where, how and how much. Conscious breathing practice helps better habits become unconscious.
Research mentioned
Boulding R, Stacey R, Niven R, Fowler SJ. Dysfunctional breathing: a review of the literature and proposal for classification. European Respiratory Review, 2016;25(141):287-294. Proposes five categories of dysfunctional breathing, including hyperventilation syndrome and thoracic-dominant breathing. https://doi.org/10.1183/16000617.0088-2015
Elad D, Wolf M, Keck T. Air-conditioning in the human nasal cavity. Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology, 2008;163(1-3):121-127. A review of how the nose conditions incoming air toward the temperature and humidity the lungs need. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resp.2008.05.002
Read the full transcript
Auto-generated from the video captions, so expect small errors.
You're probably going to take somewhere around 20,000 breaths today and I can imagine not many of them you're actually going to take consciously. But what if you're making three common breathing mistakes thousands of times as you go through your day? You're breathing through your mouth instead of your nose. You're breathing high and up into your chest and chasing that inhale. Thirdly, you're simply breathing too much. So today I want to talk to you about these three common mistakes that people make when they're breathing. What they do, how to change them and most importantly how to use simple fixes to make your breathing much more efficient.
The first one is incredibly simple. Where is the air entering your body? Am I using this one or am I using this one? Your mouth is obviously capable of breathing. And if you're exercising hard or your nose is obstructed, there are times where you are going to need it. But when you're resting, your nose is perfectly designed for breathing. Your nose humidifies, it pressurizes, and more importantly, it filters the air for optimal reception into your lungs. It also naturally creates resistance because it's a smaller hole, which helps relax and slow down your breathing. So, if you're at rest, you're sitting at your desk, you're on
the couch watching TV or you're doing something where your metabolic needs are not great, simply cue your awareness to your breath and see if you're breathing through your nose or if you're breathing through your mouth. The fix here is relatively simple. When you're at rest and your nose is comfortably open, simply close your mouth and breathe through your nose. That's it. Don't take bigger breaths. Don't take deeper breaths. Just put your lips together. Quietly breathe low, slow through your nose. The third mistake is actually less intuitive. You can actually breathe too much. We tend to think when I'm feeling short of breath, I need to
take bigger breaths and or faster breaths. Faster breaths, more air. But breathing more doesn't automatically mean breathing better. If we're breathing more or taking in more air than our body actually needs, we're increasing our ventilation. And when our ventilation exceeds our metabolic needs, we tend to remove too much carbon dioxide from our system. And carbon dioxide isn't just a waste gas. It is an important part of our respiratory chemistry. And with reduced carbon dioxide, it interrupts our breathing regulation, our need to breathe. Over-breathing can contribute to sensations like dizziness, light-headedness. It can create air hunger even though we feel like we are getting or breathing
enough air. Sometimes that feeling of needing more air is actually reinforced by breathing too much. So, the fix is don't automatically respond by taking bigger or faster breaths. Try doing quite the opposite. Make your breathing quieter. Make it slower and more gentle and make it appropriately sized for what you are doing. So, let's put that all together. I want you to remember three things. Where, how, and how much. I want you to close your mouth and breathe through your nose. Breathing low, slow, through your nose. I want you to think about breathing down into your belly, not bringing that breath up into your chest. And
I want you to think about the volume that you're breathing. Relax your body. Don't elevate those shoulders and allow that air to fall down into your lungs, meeting your metabolic need with the volume of air that you're breathing. So, it may look something like this. We're going to take some breaths together here. We're going to breathe in for a count of four and out for a count of six. And I want you to think about where, how, and how much. So, let's take a breath together here, breathing in, relaxing out. In two three four out two three four five six. In low, slow through the
nose. Out steady letting go. One more breath, in two three four out two three four five six. So, the real benefit here isn't the three breaths we took together. It is becoming aware of the thousands of breaths that you take each and every day. Every once in a while check in. Where am I breathing? How am I breathing? And am I breathing more than I actually need to? You don't need to consciously control 20-something thousand breaths a day. We use conscious breathing to help it become unconscious. And that's really what breath work for beginners is all about, learning to understand our breath and how to
use it to become better breathers.