Question 1

Why do I sigh so often even when I am not sad?

Accepted Answer

Sighing is mostly a physical maintenance reflex, not an emotion. A small brainstem circuit forces a deep breath roughly every five minutes to reopen tiny air sacs in the lungs that collapse during shallow breathing, keeping the lungs supple and efficient.

Question 2

What part of the brain controls sighing?

Accepted Answer

Sighing is generated by about 200 neurons in the preBötzinger complex, the breathing pacemaker in the brainstem. Researchers found in 2016 that these cells respond to two neuropeptides and form a dedicated circuit separate from the one that controls normal breathing.

Question 3

How many times a day does a person sigh?

Accepted Answer

A healthy person sighs roughly twelve times an hour, about once every five minutes, whether awake or asleep. That adds up to something near seventeen thousand sighs a year, the vast majority of them completely unnoticed.

breathing

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The Reset Breath Your Brainstem Takes Without You