Taking “Focus on Your Breath” to the Next Level – A Brief Overview of How Our Bodies Breathe!

By Christine Nelson

One common form of mindfulness practice is focusing our attention to our breath. This is a quick and always accessible mindfulness strategy used by many. When we focus on our breathing, we often count as we breathe in and as we breathe out. But have your ever thought about what is going on in your body when you breathe?

Breathing in is a process known as inhalation and breathing out is a process known as exhalation. Our breathing is controlled by a portion of our brain called the brainstem. Our brainstem is located in the back of our brain and is the structure that connects our brain and our spinal cord.

When we inhale, a muscle in our chest called the diaphragm contracts. Contraction of this muscle expands our lungs and leads to air from around us to rush into either our mouth or nose, down our airway, and into our lungs. We can feel our diaphragm contract when we inhale by placing a hand on our abdomen and feeling the movement that occurs while we breathe in. You also may feel your ribcage when doing this. Our ribcage is a bony structure that surrounds our lungs and heart to protect them. 

Within the cells of our lungs, there is an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. This exchange is known as respiration. Oxygen from the air we inhaled enters our circulatory system and travels in our blood to all the organs in our body. Oxygen is needed to make the energy our body requires to function. As oxygen is used to make energy, carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct. Carbon dioxide leaves our body during exhalation. 

When we exhale, our diaphragm relaxes and decreases the volume of our lungs causing air to rush out of our bodies, once again traveling through our airway and out our mouth and nose. Again, this decrease in volume can be felt by placing a hand on our abdomen while exhaling. 

Exhalation is also the process that allows us to produce speech! When we produce speech, we exhale slowly while coordinating and sequencing fine motor movements in our throat and mouth to produce distinct speech sounds.

The next time you engage in mindful breathing, I encourage you to take a brief moment to think of all that is occurring in your body and express gratitude for all our bodies do for us.

Christine Nelson

is a second-year graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh studying speech-language pathology. She is also a LEND trainee and a member of Open Up Pittsburgh’s Community Partners team.