Breathing tips for anxiety

We’ve been breathing all our lives so surely we should be experts at it? But it’s so automatic, many of us don’t pay attention to how we are breathing – unless we have a heavy cold or we experience panic, and suddenly we’re very aware of not getting enough breath.

Anxiety sufferers have a tendency to shallow breathing or even unconsciously holding their breath – which increases anxiety. But as I wrote in the previous post, learning how to breathe more effectively and just paying attention to how you breathe is my number one tip for managing anxiety.

If you’re new to it and have never taken a yoga or meditation class where they usually teach you how to breathe deeply, do this first:
sitting in a chair or lying down, place one hand on your chest, another on your tummy. While breathing normally, notice which hand rises. If it’s the hand over your chest, then what we’re aiming for is to get the hand over your stomach rising instead. Keep your hand over your stomach and consciously breathe into your hand, feeling your stomach swell.

The goal is to get into the habit of checking in to or just noticing your breathing as often as you can during the day; and each time you do, just take a few slow breaths into your stomach without putting any special effort into it. It becomes nearly addictive after a while because it feels so good. Hopefully with time, stomach breathing will become your default setting.

Rhythmic breathing 

But for those ’emergency’ times when anxiety is building and threatening to spill over into panic, rhythmic breathing is really good, eg where you breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for another 4 seconds and then breathe out slowly for 8 seconds. Preferably breathe in with your mouth closed and breathe out with your mouth open, and repeat until you feel calmer.

Practising this kind of breathing frequently has also been found to improve emotion regulation in general – in other words, help us deal with our emotions better.

Mantra breathing

This is another form of rhythmic breathing that is also great at helping you calm down, and is good for building inner strength. Here, you repeat any mantra that feels right to you as you breathe in and out. For example, breathing in words like ‘I am strong’ and breathing out a slightly longer phrase like ‘I can cope with what life throws at me’; or, another example, breathing in ‘I am safe’, and breathing out ‘everything is going to be okay’.

Breathing and trauma

Sometimes, however, some people will simply find it too difficult to really tune into their breathing. I’ve worked with many clients who have suffered severe trauma, and being in touch with their breathing increases rather than decreases their anxiety. If this is you, focus instead on grounding yourself. Look around your immediate environment and name as many things as you can see. You should begin to feel calmer as you ground yourself in the present.