06 Nov New research – breathe your way to happiness
Achieving happiness is not always complex; sometimes it might just involve a few deep breaths and some relaxing thoughts…
A study investigated whether a 15 minute focused breathing exercise would decrease the intensity and negativity of emotional responses to pictures and increase willingness to remain in contact with aversive pictures. The effects of the focused breathing induction were contrasted with the effects of 15 minutes of unfocused attention and worrying.
The focused breathing group reported more positive responses to the neutral slides whereas the unfocused attention and worry groups responded significantly more negatively to the neutral slides.
The focused breathing group also reported lower negative mood and emotional volatility in response to the negative slides than the worry group, and greater willingness to view highly negative slides than the unfocused attention group.
The lower-reported negative and overall affect in response to the final slide blocks, and greater willingness to view optional negative slides by the focused breathing group are consistent with emotional regulatory properties of mindfulness.
Behaviour Research and Therapy 44 (2006) 1849_ã_1858
So if you want to find out more about breathing your way to happiness – check this out