Home Consumer You Sigh Without Realizing It Every Five Minutes. Here’s Why.

You Sigh Without Realizing It Every Five Minutes. Here’s Why.

We sigh when we’re stressed, when we’re in love and when we practice yoga and meditation — but that’s not all. Our brains signal for us to sigh every five minutes, often without us even realizing it. (Seriously, listen to your own breaths in a quiet room, it’s like clockwork.)

Sighing, or breathing more deeply than normal, is a vital part of our everyday lives, as it helps preserve the health and function of our lungs. But exactly where our sighs originate in the brain has been somewhat of a mystery — until now.

A team of researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, has pinpointed two clusters of neurons in the brain stem that are responsible for the deep exhalations, outlined in a new study published in the journal Nature on Monday.

Converting our normal breaths into sighs is regulated by the fewest number of neurons yet seen linked to a fundamental human behavior, said research co-author Dr. Jack Feldman, a professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Faith Based Events

“This work was very exciting to us,” Feldman told The Huffington Post. “You breathe 600 million times in a lifetime, how does the nervous system do that? … We’re hoping that in understanding breathing we can find some basic principles in how the mammalian, including human, brain is working to produce more complex behaviors.”

The researchers examined more than 14,000 gene-expression patterns in the brain cells of mice. From there, they pinpointed roughly 200 neurons in the lower part of the brain stem that contain two specific neuropeptides, which are molecules that brain cells use to communicate with each other.

Another cluster of 200 neurons contains peptide receptors that are activated by the neuropeptides, which leads to the triggering of breathing behavior.

[vc_message message_box_style=”3d” message_box_color=”turquoise”]

By Jacqueline Howard, Associate Science Editor, Huffington Post,   SouthFloridaReporter.com, Feb. 11, 2016 

[/vc_message]
[vc_btn title=”More on Why We Sigh” style=”outline” color=”primary” size=”lg” align=”center” css_animation=”appear” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fentry%2Fwhy-we-sigh_us_56ba27e7e4b08ffac122c4f1%3Fir%3DScience%26section%3Dus_science%26utm_hp_ref%3Dscience|title:More%20on%20Why%20We%20Sigh|target:%20_blank”]

Disclaimer

The information contained in South Florida Reporter is for general information purposes only.
The South Florida Reporter assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents of the Service.
In no event shall the South Florida Reporter be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. The Company reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modifications to the contents of the Service at any time without prior notice.
The Company does not warrant that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components