Nikhil Kabadi

In The Karate Kid II, there’s this memorable scene where Mr. Miyagi steadies the protagonist’s mind with a simple cue: “Breathe in… breathe out.”

For sure, at some point in your life, you too have received the same advice either by a well-meaning friend, a frustrated spouse, or in that one-off moment from your boss!

But why is breath always the anchor that shifts our mental state?

Why not any other body function like: cooling down body temp, eating, or even going to the bathroom!

Mindful breathing is our remote control; a surest and quickest way to reset our mental state. And it’s not just metaphor… it’s biology. Here’s why…

Why Breathing Works?

Breathing is the only automatic body function that you can voluntarily take charge of. You can pause breathing, you can take rapid breaths, or you can choose to simply take it slow and easy.

To understand this design, we need to look beyond breathing.

The brain and body rely on a communication highway called the nervous system to listen to each other.

The nervous system is a collection of nerves originating in the brain and spinal cord that connect to every other muscle, organ, and skin throughout the body.

One such highway is the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Popularly known as the “rest-and-digest” system. And one nerve bundle of interest within the PNS is the vagus nerve.

“Vagus” is borrowed from Latin, which means wandering. It wanders downwards through neck and torso, branching extensively to reach the heart, lungs, digestive tract, and a lot many organs.

The vagus nerve begins its journey from a station called medulla oblongata, located at the lower base of the brain.

Now, let’s get back to breathing…

Breathing happens automatically and rhythmically, roughly 600 million times over a lifetime, all thanks to a cluster of neurons called the preBötzinger complex (preBötC) located in the brainstem.

However, unlike the vagus nerve with Latin roots, the preBötC is named after… ahem… wine (Bötzinger winery). And no, drinking more wine isn’t going to help with your breathing.

Like the vagus nerve, even the preBötC is located at the same station in the brainstem: the medulla oblongata.

This close anatomical proximity is what enables “cross-talk” between breathing rhythms and the nervous system’s calming response.

Evolution optimized breath to regulate the body state by placing the preBötC and vagus nerve close to each other. This proximity makes conscious breathing a built-in remote control for the nervous system.

The timing and pattern of breathing (especially slow, extended exhalation) stimulates vagal tone, lowering heart rate and activating the parasympathetic system.

Want to see this biology in action? Here’s a simple experiment using a pulse oximeter that demonstrates how your breath affects your heart rate…

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🍪 Fortune Cookie:

“Breathing is really the only way we know of, biologically speaking, to deliberately get a handle on your nervous system.” – Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Ph.D, Neurologist, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University.

The following steps will make it clear how, when you breathe slowly and deeply, you are not just oxygenating the body, but you’re coaxing the brainstem into a parasympathetic state via a direct route.

1. Place the Oximeter on your index finger.
2. Start by breathing in at your normal pace for half a minute.
3. Ensure you are breathing from your nose and abdomen (diaphragmatic breathing).
4. Take a long slow inhale lasting at least 5 seconds.
5. Observe your heart rate in the oximeter while inhaling.
6. Pause and exhale slowly and longer. The exhale should ideally last 6+ seconds.
7. Again, observe your heart rate during exhale.
8. Do this for a few breaths, and it will become obvious what’s happening.

During an inhale, the vagus nerve’s calming influence is momentarily reduced, allowing the heart rate to speed up slightly; during an exhale, vagal activity increases, causing the heart rate to slow down.

In practical terms, longer exhales activate the vagus nerve more strongly, which triggers a parasympathetic response that slows your pulse and calms you down.

This variability, known as heart rate variability (HRV) is a good indicator of vagal tone: how well it is trained to regulate bodily functions, including emotional regulation and cardiovascular health.

In the STOP framework, breathing is an essential skill. In the very first step: sensing our feeling, slow breathing is an anchor used to measure our valence and arousal (Valence = how pleasant/unpleasant; Arousal = how activated or calm you feel). This is accentuated with the Mindful Productivity skill called Meta-Breathing.

Slow Breathing is about the basics: diaphragmatic breathing, longer exhales, at a steady pace to calm the nervous system.

Meta-Breathing builds on that foundation: the same slow rhythm, but with mindful attention on the breath itself and short guiding phrases.

Think of Slow Breathing as learning an instrument, and Meta-Breathing as playing music with it.

If you are interested to learn Mindful Productivity skills (like Meta-Breathing), follow me on LinkedIn where I regularly post such insights and practices.