The simplest trick to energize and release stress!

Hannes Bend
3 min readMar 27, 2022

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Always works for some Covid-19 symptoms.

Simply sigh!

Sighing opens up twice as much oxygen flowing into our lungs, immediately energizing our entire blood system.

Sighing is an effortless exhale

Try it out now…take a deep inhale — ideally expanding your belly, then your chest — through your nose.

Now an effortless exhale — maybe with an audible sigh — naturally through the mouth.

No pushing out of air or force, just a brief letting go exhale. Repeating this for a few times — long deep inhales and brief letting go exhales — will probably make you feel a little lightheaded, dizzy or yawning. These are signs you are changing your oxygen levels. Keep it going and you feel even more energized! Yawning also wakes the brain up.

We do not see our lungs, so the physiology behind this is not as easy to visualize. Just imagine a tree producing oxygen from sunlight via its leaves. A mature tree has around 200,000 leaves.

In the human body, there are 274–790 million alveoli — tiny air sacs of the lungs which allow for rapid oxygen exchange — in the bronchial trees of the lungs. That’s more than 1,000 times more alveoli than trees have leaves!

They cover a total surface area of up to 750 sq ft (70 m2). The large surface area makes gas exchange with the bloodstream more efficient.

Over the course of each day, the alveoli become stuck together. Sighing pops up the sphere-like alveoli and opens up the large surface area in our lungs for oxygen intake.

Here a brief demonstration of sighing — how it helped my sister to reduce them and to recover from severe COVID-19 symptoms (shortness of breath, dizziness, weakness) by repeatedly practicing deep inhales and sighing.

A simple sigh can be the simplest breathing exercise to bring in “twice the volume of a normal breath. If you don’t sigh, your lungs will fail over time” according to professor Jack Feldman.

Without a sigh we would die. It’s a life-sustaining unconscious reflex. Now you know how to make it a conscious action to energize yourself in any moment!

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Hannes Bend

Our startup breathing.ai makes your screen experiences relaxing by personalizing them to your vital signs and needs to improve your performance and wellbeing.