The Link Between Sighing and Stress

What's in a sigh? For most people, the mere thought of a sigh evokes a picture of our breath shaking off the weight of the world while we're processing a stressful situation. While all of us know what it's like to sigh, few ever stop to wonder why we sigh. It turns out that our brains may be instinctually providing us with a mechanism to calm down naturally when in a heightened state.