The breath is the fastest most effective stress or anxiety reduction. It beats out medications hands down. That said, knowing how and practicing are the keys for the breath to be there when we need it.
Another option to change the experience of stress and anxiety is medication. For a medication to work one needs to have it available, take it and then wait for it to work. Any immediate relief is generally placebo effect, or focusing on the idea that the medication will take effect as opposed to focusing on the cause of the stress or anxiety. Afterall Xanax which is fast acting takes anywhere between an hour to two hours to begin to work.
The breath works within one to two minutes.
There is a catch
The breath comes with a catch. In order for the breath to work, the person using any of these techniques that are listed in the article, you must practice them in advance and often. It has to be an option. A very unhealthy example that is well learned and incorporated in the user’s life is cigarettes. A person who smokes (vapes) practices throughout the day every day so that when the user is stressed or anxious, they know that they can reach for the pack (or pen).
They have experienced many instances of stress or anxiety and reached for their solution very often so when stressed, the brain cues the user who then smokes. The biggest reason why smoking works is in a small part the chemical but the bigger part is breathing and taking a break from the situation to which the person is reacting with stress or anxiety. Of course what they are breathing in is quite harmful.
Why Breathing?
To understand, we have to understand the central nervous system or CNS. We have two operational modes – parasympathetic and sympathetic. The parasympathetic is the rest and digest mode. Things are calm in the system and as such our bodies focus on digesting food, being in a more or less relaxed state and going about the acts of daily living.
The sympathetic is the flight-fight system. This is a state of alarm. Imagine caveman Bob walking down the path when all of a sudden out jumps a sabertoothed tiger. The brain assesses the options and will prepare to run away or fight. For anxiety and stress, we are going to focus on the “run away.” A simplified explanation, now Bob’s hypothalamus sends signals to the adrenal glands which in turn releases epinephrine (adrenaline) into the bloodstream. This triggers a host of activities:
- Heart rate increase to pump blood to the legs for quick get away.
- Blood pressure increases
- Breathing becomes rapid and most often through the mouth
- Pupils dilate
- Sweat increases
- Blood sugar is released to provide the fuel for the flight
- Digestion paused (parasympathetic activities are decreased) to use resources elsewhere and that includes reduced blood flow to the brain
Modern Human
Most of us don’t have to outrun any sabertoothed tigers. Some of us do live in situations in which physical harm could occur – war zones, domestic violence relationships, physically violent households, drug lifestyles for example. Most of us now have very different lifestyles than our ancestors but the same system to deal with stress.
Modern Bob for this example is a typical middle class American. He and his wife have a mortgage, two cars both of which are financed, a couple of kids involved in sports and activities with one about to go to college. His wife works part time now that the kids are in school.
Bob is working at his desk in his cubicle for a advertising agency. The rumor has been that the company is in the midst of being sold and that the merger may result in people losing their jobs. Everyday the gossip circles around the merger, bets on who gets the pink slip and many bet that the older more experienced and higher paid employees like Bob will be on the chopping block.
Then Bob gets an email with subject line “Imminent Layoff Announcement.” Bob starts to sweat, breath heavily, hands shake as he opens the email. He is scanning as he cannot seem to focus and he finds his name under the section of first wave of layoffs occurring in two weeks. Now he is shaking, breathing hard, sweating, feels trapped and wants to get the heck out of the office and run. His thoughts are a jumbled mess and he feels a jolt of energy but he isn’t sure what to do. He tries to read the email but jumps up and walks about the floor where many of the fellow employees are doing the same.
When asked he may say he is extremely stressed and worried. His body just geared up to out run the attack from the imminent layoff announcement but the attacker doesn’t have teeth, claws nor poses an immediate threat to Bob’s life, however the CNS cannot distinguish an attack from a real threat to a psychological stressor.
Breathing is the Nervous System “Switch”
During a training for a trauma therapy technique, the teacher showed a clip of a polar bear being chased and then tranquilized in order to be studied. A researcher explained that the bear was stressed due to the chase and the bear was breathing heavily while tranquilized. He said “wait for it” and then the bear sighed and shuddered a few times and seemed to calm with breathing returning to normal pace. The researcher explained that now the bear would switch into recovery mode.
What does that bear have to do with worried Bob? The breath is the switch to move into rest and digest. We can thanks to our thinking brain switch by manipulating our breath. Animals do naturally after the threat is over. Humans also thanks to that thinking brain can ruminate on the stressor thereby re-engaging the fight-flight every time they think about the stressor.
Bob may have some potential changes coming in his life and he and his wife will have to make decisions, adjustments and maybe change plans. Now is it better to be calm, in rest-digest and consider the changes or worried, stressed and in fight-flight mode? Another way to consider this is how much upset is required in order to face the situation? The rational answer is enough to be motivated to do things and not so upset to shut down (depressed) or panicking (anxiety and stress).
Note on Shutting Down/Depression
Let’s say that after the initial flight reaction, Bob went to his car and sat for several hours and then went home and locked himself in the bedroom. This is an example of shutting down and depression and it may appear to be the absence of mental activity but that isn’t true at all. Often times it is a response to “too much” emotional reaction as in the case of Bob. As Bob began to consider the ramifications likely with a dose of catastrophizing (I’m not going to find a job and we are going to go broke.”) and can’t standitis (“I can’t stand this situation,” or “This situation can’t happen.”) he concluded that it was too much to handle and deal with so he shut down. However his body wouldn’t be in a rest-digest and instead he CNS is still in fight-flight.
Practice, Practice, Practice…..PRACTICE
I’m going to discuss and demonstrate six different breathing techniques to practice. The key here is to practice. It takes 66 to 256 days to create a habit and the new habit be ingrained to the point that the habit is the “go to” in the situation. If the habit isn’t practiced, then in the time where it would be useful, it won’t be remembered. I can tell when people try something but then don’t practice it as it may sound like, “Oh yeah I tried that and it didn’t work.” If we try once and think that we will remember when we are under stress, we absolutely will not.
The other problem with something new is cognitive emotive dissonance. Cognitive emotive dissonance is an aversion to change, discomfort from doing something new and often feels like stress or anxiety or just yucky. Once we practice enough that the yucky feeling goes away replaced most often with a sense of accomplishment and we have overcome cognitive emotive dissonance. Too often people will get that yucky feeling and believe that the new experience is “wrong” and stop. If you experience aversion to a new practice remind yourself that with practice it goes away.
With any new habit, I stress the importance of when you do it, do it often so that it will be the “go to.” So as you go through the breathing exercises, try them all. A few may have certain applications but most are general. Pick one or two that you like and then create a “Breath Break” habit.
Breath Break
A habit requires a que, routine and reward according to the model I use created by researchers at MIT. To understand, let’s consider a very unhealthy habit – smoking cigarettes. Bob saw the email subject line and felt the stress. He grabbed his pack (or vape) and stood up. He saw a few other smoking buddies and they were also heading for the elevator. Down they go and outside to congregate at the smoking area where others are and they light up and discuss what’s going on.
- Cue – Stress feelings
- Routine – Grab his pack and look for others who he generally smokes with and then heads outside.
- Reward – Social interaction, calms down because of the distraction from the others and also the chemical release which doesn’t affect the stressor but does affect Bob.
Creating the breathing break habit: Now to create a habit around breathing so when the cue of stress feelings arise, you engage in a healthy habit that will actually reduce stress, try the breathing break. Feel free to adapt, change and fit it into your lifestyle in anyway that works. Just don’t forget the cue, routine and reward and PRACTICE.
| Step 1 – Plan: Pick a breathing technique that you like and decide when in the day and every day you can practice it. Determine anything that you will need such as privacy or explain to housemates what you are doing so that you will be left alone. Plan a time of at least 3 – 5 minutes. | |
| Step 2 – Cue: Decide what will be your cue. Will it be an alarm on your phone or an event such as waking up, getting into the car to start the day, lunchtime, or getting into bed at night? | |
| Step 3 – Routine: This is the how to. Will your routine be sitting on your office chair, turn on meditative music, holding your body and hands in a particular way? Will you listen to my explanation or record yourself guiding you through the exercise? Once you learn the technique it isn’t likely that you will require any guidance. | |
| Step 4: Reward: The intrinsic reward will be feeling relaxed, calm and much less stressed. Maybe to help noticing the changes is to take a moment to jot down how you feel, record an audio log or at minimum think about how you feel. It is perfectly fine to add an extrinsic reward for this as well. You can do something nice for yourself every week/day/two weeks (whatever works for you) that you do the Breathing Break. | |
| Notes on rewards: It is a good idea to refrain from food or excessive eating as rewards for so many reasons. Not helpful to create a bad habit along with a good one. Pick something you actually like not something that you think would be a good idea to like. An actual example from someone for a new habit that they would every 7 days when they did their practice was a nice bubble bath, music and afterwards a fuzzy bath robe and PJ’s. To help you think of things you enjoy but don’t always have time. Then establish when you do X days of Breathing Break you get to do…… | |
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Have you watched a baby breathe? Their bellies rise and fall with their breaths. That is the epitome of rest and digest breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing is breathing from the diaphragm. When we are stressed we will often find ourselves breathing rather shallowly with our chest rising and falling. When we focus on the diaphragm we take deeper breaths.
To do the diaphragmatic breathing, you an do so in either an upright or lying down position. If sitting make sure your spine is straight and your head is stacked directly over your spine. Helps to tuck your chin a bit and push the head back and forth until you feel supported. Then as you inhale let your diaphragm direct by pulling outwards (let your belly rise). As you exhale pull the diaphragm inwards. Placing your hand on you belly can indicate to you if you are doing it correctly. This is deeper breaths than the usual chest controlled breathing.
Same Length Inhale and Exhale Breathing
To switch into rest and digest, we will take long deep breaths. In this method, the breath inhale and exhale will be the same time. It is often helpful to start with 3 or 4 seconds and then work up from there to longer in and out breaths. This method is good to switch so to speak and great way to bring relaxation into our day.
To do this breathing, again it can be done in an upright sitting posture or lying flat on your back. You are going to breathe in for a certain number of seconds, pause for a second and then exhale for the same number of seconds. Hint you can keep track of the seconds with counting in your head or with your fingers like I do in the video.
Box Breathing
Box breathing is another great way to manipulate your breath to bring about relaxation or interruption to stress and anxiety. This is a good method to interrupt the overthinking brain at anytime and especially at bedtime. If the anxiety has started to become panic, box breathing is excellent for calming and interrupting. If you are someone who tends to overthink, box breathing may be the method for you as it requires focus to do.
Nadi Shodhana or Alternate Nostril Breathing
Nadi Shodhana is a Sanskrit word meaning “channel’ or “flow” and “purification”. This breathing is about bringing balance. We have two hemispheres and generally the left side is the analytic and the right is the imaginative. Alternate Nostril Breathing benefits include: brings balance to the brain, calms the nervous system, fosters mental clarity and alertness and improves concentration.
Lion’s Breath
Lion’s Breath is an energetic breathing technique. It is said to alleviate stress, eliminate toxins and energize and stimulate face, through and upper chest. In a small study lion’s breath was shown to be helpful for COPD and asthma to reduce hyperventilation, normalize carbon dioxide levels and decrease bronchospasm that causes breathlessness.
Three Part Breath
The three part breath takes some focus and concentration. As such, it improves focus and concentration. It also reduces blood pressure and lower heart rate and it is deeply calming and reduces stress levels. This is another great method for someone who tends to overthink.
These breath exercises included here are not an exhaustive list. One variation that I didn’t demonstrate to the same length of inhale/exhale is to allow the exhale to be much longer than the inhale. This can signal the body to relax. This is often a bedtime breath work to encourage sleep.
What to Expect From Breathing Break
When you start a breathing break practice you are doing something wonderful for stress and anxiety reduction. The main purpose of this practice is to do it so often that when stressed or anxious, you automatically go to the breath to calm yourself. To do that, takes practice. As you practice you will have so many other benefits:
- Decrease Stress
- Improves Sleep Quality and often improves ability to fall asleep faster
- Increases Awareness or being in this present moment
- Reduces blood pressure especially systolic pressure
- Improves lung function
- Can improve focus, concentration or attention
- Improve over-sensitivity of the nervous system to perceived stressors
- For those who have strong spiritual practices, breathing practices can improve spiritual attunement
Breathing Practice Improves Therapy Outcomes
Awareness is key to self improvement. Without it, little can happen in therapy. When we can focus inward so to speak and are aware of our thoughts and feelings then all sorts of amazing things happen from therapy. Breathing practices are very helpful to improving awareness and often the first step in calming enough to engage with the practices of Rational Self Counseling skills.
Next Steps
Want to explore further other options to reduce anxiety?
How aware are you? In this free course you can explore awareness and tips and tricks to improve awareness. That along with a breathing practice can be quite beneficial.
In this course – How To Stop Anxiety with Grounding, learn effective and personalize grounding techniques to further enhance breathing break practices
Struggle with anxiety and would like to learn how to resolve the underlying causes for you? In this Therapy without a Therapist course, you can learn just that.
