system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why does deep breathing relax you?
gpt
Holding your breath (or breathing much slower all of a sudden) highly decreases your oxygen intake. This activates a "dive reflex" that also happens when you dive into water. This puts your body into survival mode, decreasing the heart rate, rerouting blood away from the extremities and to the vital organs, and makes your brain calm down. This all conserves oxygen and also happens to calm you down (the brain uses alot of oxygen, so the your body wants to calm it down to conserve oxygen)