With meditation exercises, like yoga or tai chi, one can learn to exercise healthier breathing skills. According to Holistic Online, the average human uses about one tenth of his or her total lung capacity. The sedentary life does not prompt the body to exercise lung capacity beyond mere shallow breaths. Breathing that is quick and shallow negatively affects the psychological, emotional and physical health of the body. Umar Sharif, PVCC instructor of Tai Chi and Qi Gong explains that if people learn to control their breathing, they can learn to control their emotional and psychological states.
Passion has a breath.
Fear has a breath. Depression has a breath. According to Don H. Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury, authors of Psychology, the body's reaction to an emotion is called fight or flight response. When a person is confronted with a situation such as fear or anger, the sympathetic nervous system is the body's response mechanism. When a person becomes nervous, the breath and heart beat are accelerated, the mouth becomes dry, the body temperature increases and the bronchial tubes in the lungs expand.