3 Breathing Exercises to Strengthen Your Heart

Love, panic, anxiety… lots of things can make your heart “skip a beat.” That’s because your breathing pattern influences your heart rate. Oh, and another fact about heart health – heart disease is the leading killer of both men and women. 

Between feelings that make your heart drop and factors that increase your risk for heart disease, it’s crucial to keep heart health in mind. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Simple breathing exercises to strengthen your heart can make a huge difference! 

How Breathing Affects Your Body

The heart communicates with the brain by firing neurons and releasing hormones, pressure, electromagnetic waves, and other neurotransmitters. And each communication sent to your brain can be influenced by your breath. 

When you’re not thinking about it, you breathe with your chest. This is called shallow breathing. This type of breathing is linked to increases in stress hormones, fatigue, breathlessness, high blood pressure, and heart disease. 

Research shows that when you breathe deeply – also known as diaphragmatic breathing – you can positively impact stress and anxiety levels, blood pressure, lung capacity, muscle tension, and – yep! – heart disease. 

To breathe diaphragmatically, inhale slowly through your nose so that your stomach moves out. Then exhale through pursed lips (sighing is a bonus!). 

These exercises employ diaphragmatic breathing to strengthen the heart’s parasympathetic response (i.e., how our heart rate decreases). Give them a try to show your heart some love!

3 Breathing Exercises to Strengthen Your Heart

A few simple changes could be all it takes to reduce the risk of developing heart disease. Not to mention lower stress levels while increasing energy!

Exercise #1 – Focus on Slowing Your Breath

Simply breathing diaphragmatically is an excellent start to improving your heart health! Try breathing deeply at the same time every day (like before meals) to make it a habit. Soon enough, you’ll notice when you are breathing shallowly for long periods and be able to take deep breaths to regulate your stress level. 

No matter when you breathe diaphragmatically, try to take at least five deep breaths in a row.

Exercise #2 – Time Your Breath

Once you’re breathing at a steady rhythm, try inhaling for a count of 3 and exhaling for a count of 6. Challenge yourself to get up to 4 & 8, then 5 & 10, and so on.

Exercise #3 – Close Off Your Nostrils

Breathing diaphragmatically, close off your right nostril for about 1 or 2 minutes. Switch to your left nostril and repeat. Do this several times a day to strengthen your heart and decrease stress.

Bonus Tip: Add a Workout

Make it a goal to implement the heart-healthy breathing techniques above and incorporate exercise (even if it isn’t aerobic!).

While aerobic exercise improves the efficiency of the body’s cardiovascular system, your workouts can increase heart health even if they aren’t aerobic. Resistance training (strength work), stretching, flexibility, and balance training all contribute to heart health.

If you aren’t up for a run, try bodyweight exercises or yoga to stay active!

 

Whether you implement breathing exercises to strengthen your heart or make exercise a routine, heart health can become part of your lifestyle. 

How has deep breathing impacted you? Tell us in the comments!