The breath is a tool that gets a lot of attention. Almost every yoga class, meditation class, or even just a get together with some granola folks will remind you that there are people who take breathing very seriously. For good reason, too. The breath is something you always have with you. Imagine the power of having an effective tool, that has benefits across different areas, with you at all times. Learning to harness breathing as a tool for anxiety, stress, and performance is a transformational skill that benefits most people.
Probably the first and most daunting element of a proper breath is using the diaphragm. If you were to observe the typical adult you might notice that they are breathing primarily with the chest. The typical adult human has adapted a chest breath recruiting more of the trapezius and accessory muscles in an effort to minimize the protrusion of the stomach or to accommodate tight fitted clothing. Regardless of the cause, this breathing habit is not helpful in many ways. Breathing too much with the chest can contribute to IBS, acid reflux, and anxiety.
Most of the time, people will experience some resistance to using the diaphragm intentionally. This resistance often takes the form of feelings of discomfort and thoughts related to performance. This was discussed in this post about distracting thoughts. Our thoughts often reflect on a bigger theme of discomfort and can often provide predictable obstacles when we try new things.
Using The Breath To Focus Attention
It’s relatively common to encounter breathing techniques when going to therapy, doing yoga, learning about meditation, running, and sometimes teachers will even teach these before tests. So the first rule of thumb, my rule of thumb, is that there are different reasons for these techniques.
This section is about using the breath to focus attention. Often times these techniques are used as a relatively quick method to focus attention by attending to some aspect of the breath like counting the pace. Most commonly patient’s will tell me about the square breath. This is when one breathes in for five seconds, holds for five seconds, and then exhales and holds again for five seconds each.
There are other techniques such as inhaling for a specified amount of time and holding for length of time and then exhaling again at a slow pace.
These breathing techniques are often so slow they aren’t typically intended to be done for long periods of time. This is quite different than the techniques often taught in Yoga, during biofeedback sessions, or those designed to regulate the physiological effects of anxiety. Their intended purpose is to draw your attention from intrusive or uncomfortable thoughts and direct them towards something less triggering while also providing a brief physiological reprieve.
Using The Breath To Relax
These techniques often involve engaging in a slow paced breathing practice for longer periods of time. They might be taught during biofeedback, Yoga, and meditation. As such, their specific goal isn’t necessarily relaxation, but it was the best short header I could come up with.
In biofeedback, the goal is to find a breathing pace that is often tailored to the individual to induce the greatest effect of relaxation. This is often reinforced by feedback that illustrates to the individual the effects of this breathing on the body.
Typically these paces range from 4.5 to 7 times per minute or roughly a breath cycle that is approximately 13 seconds long to 8.5 seconds. These paces are theorized, although research on this exists, to reflect an internal rhythm associated with individual dynamics associated with blood pressure called the baroreflex.
The depth of the breath doesn’t necessarily have to be deep, rather, it is paced at a slow rhythmic cadence. Breathing shallowly the first few times might actually be more comfortable for individuals who do this.
In Yoga, these techniques and rhythms are often similar. One key difference is that in Yoga it is often discussed as deep belly breath. This isn’t necessarily always the case, but from my own experiences depth is often emphasized. The pace is less individualized and the feedback is often the lived experience of how you feel during these exercises.
These topics, particularly biofeedback, are ones that I will cover in great depth in later blog posts. This is simply a general overview of the features of certain breathing techniques. Regardless of the technique above, using the diaphragm and belly to breathe are often considered to be key.
Start Breathing Now
You don’t have time to get to a yoga class or to get an appointment with a psychologist for biofeedback, but you want to start breathing now. Well, there isn’t a one size fits all technique, but my favorite general practice is below.
- Lay flat on your bed or other comfortable surface.
- Place your hands on your belly, meeting your middle fingers around the belly button.
- Inhale slow and steady for five seconds and exhale for five seconds.
- Focus on the pacing of the breath and avoid breathing too deeply.
- With each breath focus on engaging the diaphragm so the belly raises when inhaling and falling when exhaling.
- Using a pacing application or tool to help you maintain this for 10 – 20 minutes can greatly help. I prefer Breathe + on Apple devices. A small but powerful application for Android based phones is Breathe.
There are many things that breathing does for us, and these are just a few skills that can have a huge impact on how you feel. Gaining control of your breath can have huge benefits on your daily stress levels, ability to concentrate, and overall health.
Leave a Reply