Science says sighing is actually good for you

[Senior businessman sighing at his desk in his office. Photo via Thinkstock]

A sigh can mean many things. It can be an expression of tiredness, sadness, relief, or something similar. But as it turns out, we do it way more than we think and it’s actually good for us.

A new study published in the journal Nature discovered our need to sigh, regardless of how we feel, is simply to give our lungs a workout.

“It’s a behaviour we all do,” co-author of the study, Silvia Pagliardini tells the Edmonton Journal. “You should do it. Sighing is good for you.”

The average person sighs 12 times an hour without even realizing it, Pagliardini said. This unnoticed sighing works as “a healthy way to expand lung capacity,” the Edmonton Journal writes.

“If you continuously breathe and you don’t sigh, with time the alveoli in the lungs – these tiny sacs where the gas exchange occurs, so that’s where you get your oxygen from – tend to collapse,” she says.

The research found that two clusters of cells in the brain activate and control sighing. In a circuit experiment involving rats, slight “tinkering” changed the frequency of their sighs, the Journal reports.

Jack Feldman, the study’s co-author, tells NPR it’s “clear” a similar circuit controls sighing in humans. Figuring out how it works could possibly help treat some human problems – such as anxiety disorder or trouble breathing due to obesity – by inducing or suppressing sighs.

But for now, scientists still don’t know why certain emotions trigger sighing.

“It could be a way of communicating nonverbally,” Feldman said, or just a way to help us calm down.