Deep Breathing 101: Because Yelling Into a Pillow Isn’t a Therapy Technique (Or Is It?)

Description: Do people always tell you to “breathe” when you’re feeling anxious? Does it ever help? Let me explain how to breathe effectively to decrease your symptoms and help you chill.

Key Points:

-            Benefits of deep breathing

-            Procedure to deep breathing

-            Videos on deep breathing

Coping skills are essentially things that you do to help you cope with situations that suck. Usually things that suck tend to increase anxiety in people (refer to article “What is anxiety and why is it a thing”). Now typically when you’re feeling anxious, people will say “ just breathe”. Sure, breathing will help…when it is done correctly and effectively.

Don’t look at me like that. Deep breathing is a skill. Let’s do this step by step.

1)        Put your left hand on your belly, and right hand on your chest. Take a few deep breaths. What part of your body is moving? Is it your chest? If you’re breathing with your chest, I’m willing to bet it’s not very helpful in decreasing your emotions.

2)        Keep your chest still during the rest of the steps.

3)        Use your ab muscles to bring air into your lungs while expanding your belly. You’ll feel your left hand moving up and down. Feels weird right?

4)        Try it a few more times. Do you feel a little lighter? You’re doing it right, and it’s working!

This is deep breathing. Have you ever watched an infant or tiny human breathe? Yes? Where do they breathe?

Usually, it’s with their bellies. This opens up the diaphragm to allow enough oxygen in to flow to the rest of the body. Ultimately, it will relax the body and nervous system before anxiety even begins. Lack of oxygen in the body will trigger your nervous system and increase anxiety. It’s a domino effect. Over the lifespan, for some reason, adults tend to switch to breathing with their chest which, as you now know, is ineffective. Now let me tell you a few benefits of deep breathing.

Deep breathing is beneficial in treating mental/physical symptoms, including but not limited to, reducing anxiety/depression, lowering blood pressure, increasing amount of oxygen in the body, managing stress and pain. This simple, yet super effective strategy can be difficult to do at times. But the key thing is to practice as much as possible. When you’re in the car driving, walking around the grocery store, out to dinner, whenever, just practice! The more you practice, the more you will do this automatically. Stopping anxiety in it’s tracks!

Sources:

Breathing brings benefits infographic. www.heart.org. (n.d.). https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/breathing-brings-benefits-infographic