Working on having better breathing mechanics and a better respiratory system in general, may be the highest priority thing that you can look at because we breathe somewhere around 20,000 - 24,000 times a day.

Your average rest respiration, while sitting etc. falls into 12-14 per minute. If you score higher constantly, there might be time to look reasons for it.

If you breathe incorrectly, it has huge consequences.So, learning to breathe better can pay off in so many different ways.Here is a couple of examples:

• It can reduce pain. In other words, if you have pain kind of chronically in your body, learning better breathing may help you not only decrease it but even get rid of it.

• It improves athletic performance. Breathing well is a cornerstone of high-level athletes, so working on your breathing mechanics can improve your tennis game, your golf game and any sport that you're involved in.

• It can improve your concentration. Your brain is fueled by a mixture of blood gases-oxygen and carbon dioxide and if you breathe properly, you can provide better fuel to your brain, which has huge ramifications for how you think.

• Good deep breathing is a form of visceral mobilization. In other words, by breathing, we "massage" these relatively softer organs, squeeze them and move them around a little bit which, mechanically, have an impact on overall gut function.

A couple of studies compared 20 minutes of breathing practices compared to 20 minutes of reading. What they were looking for is they were testing inflammatory markers in the saliva. They found that breathing group decreased inflammatory markers more than reading group.

How to start practice better breathing?

Here's one to put in use: Pursed-lip breathing drill. - Start with is a two second inhale through the nose. Comfortable. And then a four second exhale through the pursed-lip. Then pause.At the end of the exhale there is what is called a natural respiratory pause for most people. It's going to last 2-3 seconds.

Focus on doing 30 breaths, twice a day and see how your breathing mechanics improves.

Want to learn more about techniques and how to improve your performance? Follow and contact @mikkopaunonen