Use Your Breath to Reduce Anxiety

Take a deep breath for anxiety right now, then ask yourself how many times you took a deep breath today. What about this past week? I've been engaging in self-reflection about my breathing this past week, and I was surprised to find that I had no idea how many deep breaths I'd taken. I enjoy meditating and have found deep breathing helpful for staying calm when I'm handling a lot of stress, but I haven't made a conscious effort to breathe deeply in recent weeks. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that deep breathing is not just a great way to relax, but our breath is how we communicate with our anxiety. 

Communicate with Your Anxiety Through Breath

When you notice you're feeling anxious, I'm guessing that the first thing you do is tell yourself to stop. You may say things like, "This has happened before, I'm safe," or "I know there's nothing I need to worry about," but I'm guessing your anxiety doesn't just go away when you tell yourself that. Part of the process of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is learning to challenge your anxious thoughts and identify when your thinking is inaccurate. While this addresses the cognitive component of your anxiety, you can also challenge your anxiety with a very special tool: your breath. In the same way that we address thoughts that arise from anxiety with countervailing thoughts, we can address feelings of anxiety (like feeling sick to your stomach) with the breath. 

Your breath provides the means by which you can communicate with your anxiety and lets it know that you are safe. When your body is telling you to feel anxious, you need to explain that you are actually safe in a way that it can understand. Anxiety operates quickly in order to protect us, but it doesn't always activate at the right time. When that happens, it can be difficult for your body to know that you're actually safe, and deep, slow breaths are a great way to let your body know that it doesn't need to be on the alert. As with any skill, learning to communicate with your anxiety takes practice, so please find my thoughts below for how to start your practice. 

Learning to Communicate with Anxiety Through Breath

It's important to practice deep breathing when you're not anxious so that you have it at the ready when you do experience anxiety. I start either in an upright, seated position or laying on my back in bed. For each breath, I inhale through my nose and expand my stomach until my lungs feel full, then I slowly release air through my nose. With each breath, I inhale and exhale more slowly, gradually increasing the time I spend on each breath.

As I breathe, I stay focused on the sensation of breathing. After several breaths, I often notice that my mood has improved, even when I am already calm, and that my mind feels more at ease. Although I like to take at least 10 breaths at a time, remember that you can engage with your breath for any amount of time. 

Creating space in your workday, your home life, or your free time to engage with your breath is an excellent way to communicate with your anxiety and cultivate calm in yourself.

Please share more ways you communicate with your anxiety, or use your breath to calm anxiety, below.