How To Use Breathing to Reduce Anxiety

Many of us have heard of various types of breathing techniques meant to calm the nerves but just as many of us never actually try them. Some people feel strange doing breathing techniques that have strange sounding names and seem rather complicated. However although you may be reluctant you should at least consider using breathing to reduce your stress and anxiety.

Learning how to breathe to reduce anxiety is a useful way of helping us when we get nervous or have a full blown panic attack. This is not just because breathing deeply and slowly brings you closer to the cosmos but because it has a physiological effect that literally calms you down.

When we get nervous or panicked one of the first things to get disrupted is our breathing. In fact your breathing rate is changed long before you get the idea or feeling that you want to go home or crawl under a rock.

Often our breathing becomes shallow and is done through the chest which in turn changes the bloods oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. This is the start of what we know as hyperventilation .

Hyperventilation, even if you’re unaware of it, can cause you to feel uneasy and of course it also facilitates our slip into a state of panic. Uneasy breathing is the cause of so much of our angst yet we normally don’t think to address it as a problem.

Instead we focus on the end result of all the bad breathing. One way to manage this involuntary tendency is to use diaphragmatic breathing which I also like to call good old belly breathing.

It doesn’t require knowledge of yoga or spiritual insights just some basic pointers. The video that I embedded is a good start. You can of course ignore all the links and instead focus on the animation.

The book on the belly exercise is great because it shows you exactly where your breathing should originate. The diaphragm is a bowl shaped set of muscles located below the ribs and just above the stomach.

Using these powerful muscles and not the chest to breath is more natural and makes long deep breathes easier to do. You can try this technique lying down but you can also do it while sitting or standing.

Obviously if you’re really nervous while out at a restaurant you can’t push the table away and excuse yourself to the floor. You can however sit and place your hand over your navel and feel your breath going in and out. When you inhale your stomach should expand as much as possible and when you exhale you should make the stomach flat.

You may notice that taking deep breaths can make you feel light headed if your not accustom to it. But not to worry, just pace yourself and only breath in as long as it’s comfortable for you. The goal is to slow your breathing and by extension calm you, the goal is not to knock yourself out. A good rule of thumb is 3 seconds in – three seconds out.

Remember that this technique is an effective way of calming our nerves when we feel bad, but that doesn’t mean that it should only be used when things get rough. You can also use diaphragmatic breathing to preempt the nervous tension that creates so much anxiety to begin with.

This breathing stuff is really awesome for two reasons. For starters it is free, yay free. And secondly anxiety and total calm find it difficult to occupy the same space at the same time. Don’t just be nervous attempt to counter act your anxiety.

Notice that I didn’t say fight the anxiety. You must accept the state you’re in and also counteract it’s effects by bringing balance to your mind and blood stream. Breathe slowly, deeply and often and you’ll find that you can do something, finally, to reduce the strength of your angst.