Why Do We Sigh?

We sigh to avoid lung failure, scientists have revealed.

17:52 12 February 2016

Contrary to popular beliefs, sighing is not a simply a sign of despair.

 

According to scientists, an average person sighs every five minutes, equivalent to 12 sighs per hour. This allows the body to inflate the alveoli so it will not collapse and lead to lung failure.

 

Jack Feldman, a professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of the UCLA Brain Research Institute, said: “A sigh is a deep breath, but not a voluntary deep breath. It starts out as a normal breath, but before you exhale, you take a second breath on top of it.” 

 

Meanwhile, experts at UCLA and Stanford universities in the US said that a pair of neuron clusters in the brain is responsible for turning our normal breaths into sighs.

 

The study aims to help doctors treat patients breathe deeply without assistance or who have disorders where they sigh too frequently.

 

Mark Krasnow, a professor of biochemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said: “Unlike a pacemaker that regulates only how fast we breathe, the brain’s breathing center also controls the type of breath we take.”  

 

“It’s made up of small numbers of different kinds of neurons. Each functions like a button that turns on a different type of breath. One button programs regular breaths, another sighs, and the others could be for yawns, sniffs, coughs and maybe even laughs and cries.”