The Science of Deep Breathing: Simplified

“Just breathe” is a phrase we hear all the time, especially when we seem visibly stressed. The certainty with which it is directed at us tells us that something about breathing is supposed to help us feel calm and relaxed. And help it does- we know that deep breathing can lead people to feel less anxiety, self-doubt, and nervousness, while also helping them to feel more focused (Paul, Elam, and Verhulst, 2007). People report feeling better, but does it really have any effect inside the body? To answer that, we need to revisit our high school biology class (where's Ms. Frizzle when you need her?).

The beneficial effects of "deep breathing" have to do with the relationship between our “rest and digest” system (aka the parasympathetic nervous system) and our “fight or flight” system (AKA our sympathetic nervous system). These two systems work in sweet harmony and will function without any conscious effort on our part. That said, both deep breathers and self-critical thinkers around the globe have realized that they can in fact activate one system over the other with a bit of extra work.

both deep breathers and self-critical thinkers around the globe have realized that they can in fact activate one system over the other with a bit of extra work.

Keep in mind that while a threat used to be a bear in the woods, modern day threats can include anything from being stuck in traffic, to a job interview, to self-criticism, to the fear of failure. Unfortunately, our stress response is not so good at differentiating between a real or a perceived threat, so it will activate regardless of the type of stressor. That’s why even things like intense and prolonged self-criticism can create a stress response in the body. When we are stressed, our “fight or flight” system activates. Our heart beats faster and our pulse quickens. Blood vessels leading to our heart and large muscles dilate, allowing more blood through so that you can essentially fight or escape whatever threat is causing that stress. If stress stays for a while, our body can become flooded with stress hormones like cortisol that can lead to cardiovascular health issues.

When we relax or rest, it’s finally time for our “rest and digest” system to shine. This system slows down that racing heart, it decreases blood pressure and fixes any dry mouths, and energy is redirected to digestion. Simplified, it has the opposite effect on our body than our fight or flight system, so it helps our bodies maintain balance. Within our rest and digest system is something called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve complex that is connected to many glands and organs (Berthoud and Neuhuber, 2000). Basically, the vagus nerve is a superstar of our rest and digest system because of its involvement in so many functions. Here’s the really neat thing about the vagus nerve: It’s actually modulated by respiration, which means that when we exhale it activates, and when we inhale it is suppressed (Gerritsen and Guido, 2018). Following that connection, we see that deep breathing works to calm us because it increases our vagal activity and decreases the activity of our fight or flight system. That’s why studies looking at the effectiveness of deep breathing also find that it can lower heart rate and cortisol stress levels (Perciavalle et al., 2016) and lower blood pressure levels (Mori et al., 2005). To jump start our vagus nerve, then, we want to make sure we are exhaling longer so that it has time to work its magic on our rest and digest system.

we see that deep breathing works to calm us because it increases our vagal activity and decreases the activity of our fight or flight system.

So, is there any difference when it comes to breathing exercises?

There are all sorts of breathing exercises that are taught; common exercises you might have heard of include 4-7-8 or finger breathing. It doesn’t really matter which technique you prefer. We know from the research that, regardless of the technique, what’s important is that:

• The exhale is longer than the inhale (that’s going to activate your vagus nerve. Remember that it is the celebrity of our rest and digest system and “comes to life” during exhale)
  

• The breath is a deep one, meaning it comes from the diaphragm and not the chest (you can practice by putting a hand on your stomach while you breathe; you should feel it extending outward. If you’re breathing deeply and exhaling longer, chances are you’re doing diaphragmatic/belly breathing anyway)

My favourite breathing exercise involves finding what breathing rhythm fits best for your body and lung capacity. I’ll count the seconds starting from 1 and ask the other person to flag me down when they feel just full enough of air but not too full. Then I’ll count the seconds of their exhale. The goal is to make sure that they can extend the exhale for at least two seconds past their inhale, ensuring it is longer. It’s quite common for young adults to have an inhale of 4 seconds and an exhale of 6-7 seconds. If they can’t make it to that exhale mark, then we change the inhale to 3 seconds and the exhale to 5 seconds. The takeaway: Deep breathing does change what’s going on inside of our bodies by activating our vagus nerve, which is part of the system that will turn off our stress response. The longer you breathe and the more frequently you practice, the more likely you are to notice a calming effect.

The takeaway: Deep breathing does change what’s going on inside of our bodies by activating our vagus nerve, which is part of the system that will turn off our stress response. The longer you breathe and the more frequently you practice, the more likely you are to notice a calming effect.

Gaming on the Brain (literally)

Tech: Self-care, self-improvement, or both? It’s tough to imagine a world without smartphones, electronics, and gaming consoles. Sure, we can retreat into the backwaters of our mind and pull out a few funny stories about the infamous dial-up tone, the three-day song download, and having to re-watch the guide channel because we got distracted four times at the wrong moment. Even these memories involve some kind of technology, and our familiarity with the resources at our fingertips have only increased. In 2015, 86% percent of young adults owned a smartphone, 78% owned a computer, and over half owned a gaming console (Anderson, 2015).

Technology is so familiar to us that many of us have incorporated its usage into our definition of self-care. Watching Netflix, playing video games, and zoning out on an app are things we identify as being relaxing, calming, or entertaining. So, if these activities can be part of our self-care, do they also have researched benefits for our brains? What about the claims that video games help our memory and coordination? I took these questions and delved deep into the research to try and get some answers.

Gaming and “The Transfer Effect”

Whether a video game can help us with real life skills will depend on something called the Transfer Effect. Transfer refers to how much a gaming skill can transfer to your real life. For example, Israeli Air Force flight school cadets who played the game Space Fortress which requires players to focus attention to multiple demanding tasks (Boot et al., 2009) performed significantly better on actual flight performance than the control group (Gopher, Weil, & Baraket, 1994). In fact, Space Fortress was added to the training program of the Israeli Air Force because of the demonstrated transfer effect between in-game play and real-world performance (Boot et al., 2009) .

Some games improve our abilities just for the short-term; in this case, they are said to have “near-transfer.” Here’s an example. After at least 30 rounds of Bejeweled Blitz, people performed better at a searching task, but only immediately after playing their rounds of Bejeweled Blitz; the brain boost didn’t seem to last (Stroud and Whitborne, 2015). What does this mean for us? Well, if you’re about to be in a word-search championship, then 30 rounds of Bejeweled might help you warm up. Do with that information what you will.

So at this point we’ve discovered that “near-transfer” doesn’t last for long, and to have any lasting benefits, we need a game to have “far-transfer.” Consider the abilities needed to excel in chess: strong visualization of the game board and perceptual understanding of where pieces could move and when. Despite demonstrating strong perceptual skills in chess, research found that chess players’ perceptual skills did not extend to other areas like visual memory for shapes (Waters et al, 2002). To summarize, beating all of your friends at chess doesn’t mean they won’t beat you later when it comes to a memory task. It does, however, mean you're really good at chess, which is pretty cool on its own.

Super Mario’s Super Memory?

Primary memory refers to attending to information that currently holds our focus of attention. Working memory refers to the ability to temporarily store information in primary memory while performing other tasks that divide attention. For example, a student is reading a math problem aloud and is asked to solve it. She keeps the problem in her primary memory as she works through it. Her primary memory knows the question is asking her how many apples are left, so while she’s doing the subtraction in her working memory, she doesn’t forget why she is subtracting in the first place.

Kuhn et al. (2014) conducted a study on whether playing in the 3D world of Super Mario 64 could have measurable benefits to the brain. They found that participants who played Super Mario 64 thirty minutes each day for a period of 2 months showed an increase in grey matter volume in the brain. Participants’ weekly ratings of their motivation to play the game correlated positively with the grey matter increase. The more motivated they were to play, the more grey matter increased. Grey matter volume increased in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an important area in executive control and working memory. The takeaway? You could make the argument that playing Super Mario 64 is your way of boosting your brain’s “muscle” power. Be wary though: these same brain changes were not found in response to playing Tetris (Haier, Karama, Leyba, & Jung, 2009). Different genres of games place different demands on cognitive processes and result in different brain activity.

They found that participants who played Super Mario 64 thirty minutes each day for a period of 2 months showed an increase in grey matter volume in the brain.

What About the Genre of Games like Apex and Call of Duty?

A study by Colzato et al. (2013) investigated the effect of First-Person Shooter (FPS) games on working memory in 52 healthy young adults. I’ll spare you the details and leave you with the takeaways. Overall, results showed video game players were more skilled in updating their working memory. They were better able to remove old non-relevant information from working memory and in so doing free capacity for new items. In other words, the study found that video game players have improved cognitive flexibility (Colzato et al., 2013).

Overall, results showed video game players were more skilled in updating their working memory.

As the informed consumers of research that we are, we can likely guess that it’s possible to find evidence out there with not so great results for video games. That said, it doesn’t hurt to know some of the interesting positive findings. If after a long day your favorite thing to do is unwind with a video game, who are we to judge your preferred brain boosting activities! At the end of the day, self-care is the important piece. Spend time doing whatever it is you’re motivated to do and look for the good in it.

References

Anderson, M. (2015). Technology device ownership: 2015. Pew Research Center.

Boot, W., Kramer, A., Simons, D., Fabiani, M., & Gratton G. (2009). The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control. Acta Psychologica, 129(3), 387-398.

Colzato, L. S., van den Wildenberg, W. P. M., Zmigrod, S., & Hommel, B. (2012). Action video gaming and cognitive control: Playing first person shooter games is associated with improvement in working memory but not action inhibition. Psychological Research, 77, 234–239. doi:10.1007/s00426-012-0415-2

Gobet, F., Johnston, S. J., Ferrufino, G., Johnston, M., Jones, M. B., Molyneux, A., & Weeden, L. (2014). "No level up!": no effects of video game specialization and expertise on cognitive performance. Frontiers In Psychology, 51337. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01337

Gopher, D., Weil, M., Siegel, D. (1989). Practice under changing priorities: An approach to the training of complex skills Acta Psychologica, 71(1-3), 147-177.

Haier, R. J., Karama, S., Leyba, L., & Jung, R. E. (2009). MRI assessment of cortical thickness and functional activity changes in adolescent girls following three months of practice on a visual-spatial task. BMC Research Notes, 2174. doi:10.1186/1756-0500-2-174

Jausovec, N. & Jausovec, K. (2012). Working memory training: Improving intelligence ― Changing brain activity. Brain And Cognition, 79(2), 96-106.

Kuhn, S., Gleich, T., Lorenz, R., Linderberger, U., & Gallinet, J. (2014). Playing Super Mario induces structural brain plasticity: gray matter changes resulting from training with a commercial video game. Molecular Psychiatry, 19(2), 265-271.

Lorant, S., & Lieury, A. (2014). Efficiency of brain training vs. recreational video games for cognitive/academic performance: A synthesis of 3 experiments. Journal Of Communications Research, 6(2), 107-151.

McDougall, S., & House, B. (2012). Brain training in older adults: Evidence of transfer to memory span performance and pseudo-Matthew effects. Aging Neuropsychology And Cognition, 19(1-2), 195-221.

Miller, D. J. & Robertson, D. P. (2009). Using a games-console in the primary classroom: Effects of 'Brain Training' programme on computation and self-esteem. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41, 2, 242-255.

Miller, D. J., & Robertson, D. P. (2011). Educational benefits of using game consoles in a primary classroom: A randomised controlled trial. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 42(5), 850-864. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01114.x

Nouchi, R., Taki, Y., Takeuchi, H., Hashizume, H., Nozawa, T., Kambara, T., & Kawashima, R. (2013). Brain training game boosts executive functions, working memory and processing speed in the young adults: A randomized controlled trial. Plos ONE, 8(2), 1-13. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055518

Olson, C. (2010). Children's motivations for video game play in the context of normal development. Review Of General Psychology, 14(2), 180-187.

Plerhoples T., Zak Y., Hernandez-Boussard, T,, & Lau J. (2011). Another use of the mobile device: warm-up for laparoscopic surgery. J Surg Res 170(2):185–188

Pereira, G., Ninaus, M., Prada, R., Wood, G., Neuper, C., & Paiva, A. (2015). Free your brain a working memory training game. Lecture Notes In Computer Science, 9221132-141.

Stroud, M., & Whitbourne, S. (2015). Casual video games as training tools for attentional processes in everyday life. Cyberpsychology Behavior And Social Networking, 18(11), 654-660.

The Science of Coloring for Stress

Adult coloring really found its stride in 2016 when coloring books with birds, unicorns, swear words, you name it, were suddenly available everywhere. Second graders everywhere felt vindicated; they’d been telling us coloring was awesome all along. One day, I came across a poster with a “Dream it, Believe it, Achieve it” quote. I naively thought it would be fun and relaxing to color my own office decor. What I didn’t anticipate was being craned over my dinner table late into the night, powering through a hand cramp, lamenting the last six hours I had devoted to shades of purple and yet not being able to call it quits until the job was finished.

Was my less than relaxing experience with coloring a common one? Maybe not, so I consulted some relevant studies to find out more.

Was my less than relaxing experience with coloring a common one? Maybe not, so I consulted some relevant studies to find out more. Muthard and Gilbertson (2016) tried to get to the bottom of what leads to the stress-reducing effects of coloring. First, they made all of their research participants give a two minute speech, and then they measured blood pressure and self-reported levels of anxiety. Half the participants were then given a mandala to color while they also practiced focused breathing. Those in the coloring group reported less anxiety even though their blood pressure and heart rate were not significantly different than the other groups’. Why did participants report lower anxiety, but things like their heart rate, pulse, and blood pressure didn’t reflect this? It’s possible they believed it was helping with stress, and that belief was reflected in their reports. So, in other words, maybe if while I was coloring that poster I repeatedly thought to myself “wow, this isn’t cramping my hand at all and I am so at peace right now,” I might have tricked myself into believing it.

Speaking of pain, a study by Stinley, Norris, and Hinds (2015) investigated whether coloring could actually help manage acute pain (rather than cause it, like in my experience). All participants were required to provide a blood sample which involved receiving a needle. Throughout the study, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and reported level of anxiety were monitored. Participants in the treatment group were asked to color a mandala (using an I-pad) while providing a blood sample. Those in the control received treatment as usual. For the people that reported very high anxiety prior to receiving a needle, those that were able to color had significantly less change in heart rate during the procedure. Those who couldn’t color showed a dramatic increase in heart rate during the needle, which is common symptom of stress (Stinley et al., 2015). So, coloring helped prevent their heart rate from escalating while they were getting a needle. Coloring seems to have been a helpful distraction. Maybe if I had been coloring my poster during an onslaught of needles, it wouldn’t have felt so stressful in comparison.

To see if there was something I was missing, I turned to a study by Van der Vennet and Serice (2012) that tested whether mandala coloring would reduce anxiety. Fifty adults were assigned to one of three groups: coloring mandalas, coloring a plaid design, or free coloring on a blank piece of paper. They found that coloring mandalas for twenty minutes brought anxiety levels below baseline. Similar results were not found for the plaid coloring or free coloring conditions. The people in the free coloring group struggled with the lack of direction and often paused. Of note, mandalas and plaid both have a structured design, yet those in the mandala-coloring group had less anxiety. The researchers suggest that the mandala-coloring group experienced a greater reduction in anxiety because the circular form is inherently meditative (Van der Vennet & Serice, 2012). Was my heightened anxiety from the poster coloring due to the poster's rectangular form and the fact that, in comparison to a traditional mandala, it had way too much going on? I delved further.

Babouchkina and Robbins (2015) found that people who colored within a circle (mandala) reported significantly improved mood-state compared to those who had colored within a square. Unfortunately, researchers were unable to pinpoint why that was a thing.

After consulting the research, here’s my main takeaways that probably are not a surprise to anyone: coloring seems to be stress-reducing if you enjoy it and see it as stress-reducing. If you’re stressed and need a distraction, research shows coloring is a good hobby to turn to. It sounds like coloring is especially beneficial if you find it enjoyable. That may mean keeping it structured and keeping the overall coloring picture of manageable size. Color big posters full of tiny details at your own risk. The important thing is that, if you're looking for an excuse to break out the markers, there seems to be many good reasons out there.

The important thing is that, if you're looking for an excuse to break out the markers, there seems to be many good reasons out there.

References

Babouchkina, A., & Robbins, S. J. (2015). Reducing negative mood through mandala creation: A randomized controlled trial. Art Therapy: Journal Of The American Art Therapy Association, 32(1), 34-39 6p. doi:10.1080/07421656.2015.994428

Muthard, C., & Gilbertson, R. (2016). Stress management in young adults: Implications of mandala coloring on self-reported negative affect and psychophysiological response. Psi Chi Journal Of Psychological Research,21(1), 16-28.

Stinley, N. E., Norris, D. O., & Hinds, P. S. (2015). Creating mandalas for the management of acute pain symptoms in pediatric patients. Art Therapy: Journal Of The American Art Therapy Association, 32(2), 46-53 8p. doi:10.1080/07421656.2015.1028871

Van der Vennet, R., & Serice, S. (2012). Can coloring mandalas reduce anxiety? A replication Study. Art Therapy: Journal Of The American Art Therapy Association, 29(2), 87-92 6p. doi:10.1080/07421656.2012.680047