Breathing for anxiety

Is the obvious statement true?

We have all heard the famous line that “you need to breathe deeply when you are feeling stressed”.  However, how much of it is actually true? I have heard from different people that when they practice deep breathing, the practice just makes them feel more anxious.  What if we are doing it wrong? What if the wrong knowledge was passed on from generation to generation?  To explain how breathing affects the nervous system, I will need to refer to the nervous system.

Let’s look at the facts

The Automatic nervous system (ANS) consists of the Parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and the Sympathetic nervous system (SNS).  The SNS is associated with the fight or flight response and is triggered by inhalation. The PNS is linked to exhalation and the PNS is associated to calmness and relaxation.  Therefore, the flight and fight response is activated by inhalation and if someone is panicking and the person breathes quickly and deeply, the person’s health will deteriorate as the body will go into the hyperventilation mode.  Thus, we should be very careful about the whole concept of deep breathing.

What’s the solution?

The solution is to activate the PNS by exhalation while bringing enough oxygen to the body by inhalation.  Thus, our exhalation should be longer than our inhalation so that the PNS is activated and not the SNS.  There exists a procedure which I will describe below:

1. Exhale completely by emptying your lungs
2. Inhale for a count of 4
3. Exhale for a count of 6

Repeat this cycle three times or till you feel completely relaxed

In the YouTube video below, I demonstrate the breathing technique and talk about the whole process again.

I hope that you find the article helpful.

Much love,

Geerish.