Deep breathing can calm you down. It also increases blood circulation in the body. You are more relaxed and you feel more. During sex, you can control your arousal better and experience sex more pleasurably.
How am I breathing?
Pay attention to how you breathe. It's best to stand in front of a mirror and watch. Where does your body move as you breathe in and out? Do your shoulders rise? Does your chest move? Does your belly move? You probably breathe differently depending on the situation and your mood. But you may have a certain breathing pattern that you repeat often. Depending on how you breathe, different parts of your lungs are filled with air. If your shoulders go up most of the time, you're breathing into the upper part of your lungs. If your belly expands when you inhale, you're breathing into the bottom of your lungs. If everything in the front expands while inhaling - belly, chest, and a little bit of the shoulders - you're breathing in your entire lung.
How does abdominal breathing work?
When you breathe abdominally, you fill all of your lung down to your lowest ribs. There is the diaphragm, a muscle that spans the body like a sail from front to back and side to side. When you inhale, this muscle contracts, flattening the diaphragm and making more room for air in the lungs. When you exhale, it relaxes and the diaphragm rises again, pushing air out. Here's a picture from the Wikipedia article on abdominal breathing:
When the diaphragm contracts, the stomach, intestines, and other internal organs must make room. The muscles in the abdomen, sides, and pelvic floor relax. Relaxation means stretching, and stretching means more room. You can see this, for example, when your belly expands. These are the muscles that stretch to give the internal organs more room. When you exhale, these muscles contract slightly. It's like a balloon that expands when air goes in and contracts when air goes out.
Shortness of breath during excitement
Many people habitually breathe short or shallow. This means that they mainly breathe into the upper part of their lungs and their diaphragm is constantly in the same, rather tense, state. This tension promotes a feeling of stress and anxiety. This is related to your autonomic nervous system. It "reads" this tense, short breathing as a sign of danger. Because when we feel in danger, the body automatically tenses up and we breathe quickly and "short". This can create a vicious cycle: You are tense and short of breath, your autonomic nervous system thinks "Warning! Danger!" and you tense up even more and become even more short of breath. Substances are then released in your body that prepare it for danger. You can read more about the autonomic nervous system in this text.
Slow exhalation can quickly calm you down
The best way to calm yourself down when you are stressed or anxious is to exhale slowly. This makes your tense diaphragm move and relax: breathe out until nothing comes out. The diaphragm is then completely relaxed. You don't have to actively work on the next inhalation, it happens automatically when the body feels it needs air again. If you suffer from anxiety, it is especially important to exhale consciously and very slowly. For example, you can consciously exhale three times as long as you inhale for several breaths.
You may have read about the autonomic nervous system: Relaxing the diaphragm activates the ventral vagus.
Breathing slowly and deeply calms and reassures you
Breathing slowly and deeply is a great way to calm your excitement, anger, or fear. Your whole body begins to relax and substances are released in your body that calm you down and signal to your body and brain that you are safe. So abdominal breathing is good when you are scared, angry or upset. If you consciously breathe in and out slowly and deeply in such a situation, you will notice that it immediately calms you down a bit.
Abdominal breathing is muscle massage
As you can see, breathing is actually an interplay of tensing and relaxing muscles: When you inhale, the diaphragm contracts, relaxing the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles. When you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles contract slightly. You can think of this interplay of tension and relaxation as a kind of internal massage. It loosens your muscles. And this is very important if you want to calm down. Anxiety and stress go hand in hand with increased muscle tension.
Just feeling your breath will relax you
Sit or lie down comfortably. It's best to close your eyes so you can feel more. Now pay attention to your breath. Where is it flowing? How fast is it flowing? Where is your body moving as you breathe? If you take a short break from time to time and just pay attention to your breath, you will find that simply paying attention to your breath relaxes you. This is because you will be breathing more consciously and, in general, more slowly. Slow breathing calms you. It also helps you to feel what is going on in your body. And you can consciously focus on relaxing. You can also count to 100 very slowly as you inhale and exhale. You can quiet your thoughts by counting.
Breathing and sex: tips for men and anyone with a penis
Many men are quite short of breath during sex. Sure, you're sexually aroused, and depending on your arousal technique, you're also quite tense, and depending on your position, it can be exhausting - you can get quite breathless. If you want to better control your sexual arousal, feel it and enjoy it more, it helps to breathe down into your abdomen. This will prevent you from getting into a state of high tension where you feel little and have difficulty controlling your arousal. When you breathe all the way down to your abdomen, your sexual arousal can spread much better throughout your body. You will feel it more intensely and to a greater extent. And if you're nervous during sex, deep breathing can also help you calm down. It can also help if you're so tense that your penis doesn't get really hard or you can't feel it enough to reach orgasm.
Breathing and sex: tips for women and anyone with a vagina
If you get into the habit (practice!) of taking deep breaths during sex, you will be moving your pelvic floor muscles with your breathing, which will help prevent excessive tension and associated pain. The movement also increases blood circulation. This will make you more wet and better able to sexually arouse yourself when you receive a penis or other object with your vagina. Finally, it's quite possible that you'll experience arousal more pleasurably: on the one hand, you'll feel more, and on the other hand, you'll calm down with deep breathing and have more pleasant feelings.
How do I learn to breathe deeply?
Please read on in this text.