At The Heart of Breathing - How It Actually Works
Here is something surprising:
Taking 5 breaths or 30 breaths per minute doesn’t change how much oxygen your body takes in. What it changes is how well your body can use it.
(As noted by Anders Olson, Conscious Breathing)On average, we take about 20,000 breaths per day — nearly twice as many as people did 70–80 years ago. If you track your metrics with devices like WHOOP or Oura, your respiratory rate likely falls somewhere between 13-16 breaths per minute. This used to be 8, not even one century ago.
So why do we breathe more, yet still feel under-oxygenated, short of breath, and low on energy?
The Problem: Overbreathing
We are overbreathing — and paradoxically, that can mean too much oxygen.
When we breathe too fast or too much, we disrupt the body’s finely tuned chemistry. Over time, this can contribute to oxidative stress, one of the major drivers of aging and chronic disease.
Yes — there can be too much oxygen.
This isn’t about avoiding oxygen or breathing less at all costs — it’s about restoring balance and efficiency. And one critical factor is carbon dioxide (CO₂).
Why CO₂ Matters
A mechanism known as the Bohr effect explains this clearly:
Without enough CO₂, oxygen stays tightly bound to hemoglobin (its carrier) and never reaches the tissues — including the brain — that need it most.
When this balance is disturbed, unused oxygen can form reactive oxygen species (ROS) — unstable molecules that damage cells and DNA.
This is oxidative stress: the invisible strain behind fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, and long-term metabolic, cardiovascular, and performance issues.
So it’s not about how much oxygen you inhale — it’s about how efficiently your body uses it.
From Quantity to Quality
Breathing is not a numbers game. It’s a quality system.
Every inhale and exhale triggers a precise chain of chemical reactions that:
Produce energy (ATP)
Release CO₂
Regulate blood flow and nervous system balance
CO₂ may be a waste product — but it’s also essential. Without it, oxygen delivery simply doesn’t work.
How Air Becomes Energy
When you inhale, air travels through the trachea, splits into the lungs, and moves through branching bronchioles until it reaches about 500 million alveoli — tiny air sacs where oxygen enters the bloodstream.
In theory, each of your ~25 trillion red blood cells carries millions of hemoglobin molecules, each capable of binding oxygen. Once loaded, oxygen is delivered to tissues and cells, where it fuels the mitochondria to produce ATP — the energy that powers everything you do.
In reality, stress, fast breathing, chronic mouth breathing, and low CO₂ tolerance prevent much of this oxygen from ever reaching the cells that need it.
This is why breathing efficiency matters more than breathing volume — and why slower, nasal, diaphragm-led breathing often delivers better energy, recovery, and focus than deeper or faster breathing.
The Quiet Respiratory System
Every system in the body has a rhythm:
The heart beats
The lymphatic system moves
The respiratory system relies on the thoracic pump
As you inhale, negative pressure draws blood into the heart. As you exhale, pressure helps push blood back out — like a tidal rhythm.
This entire process is driven by the diaphragm, the dome-shaped muscle beneath the lungs. When breathing is deep and relaxed, the diaphragm moves freely.
Shallow breathing restricts this motion — limiting circulation, oxygen delivery, and recovery.
By Marla Hansen, Founder of WellBreathing, with the mission to transform how the world breathes
