The Benefits of Deep Breathing
Life can be stressful at times. If you feel stressed out and anxious you are not alone. Anxiety is one of the most common mental health symptoms that we experience. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has estimated that nearly 20% of the US population is currently struggling with some form of an anxiety disorder. While some anxiety and stress can be benign (or even beneficial) long term stress has been linked to numerous physical health problems. Fortunately, our bodies come with a natural means of regulating that anxiety: Deep breathing. This simple and often overlooked tool is a way we can reduce the impact of stress and anxiety in our day to day lives and comes with numerous benefits.
Deep Breathing Communicates Safety to the Body at a Neurological Level
Breathing communicates safety to us at an unconscious level. When we are stressed, our autonomic nervous system is activated. Among other things, the role of the autonomic nervous system is to regulate our blood pressure, heartbeat, and breathing. When we are feeling stressed the autonomic nervous system sends signals to the body and increases our heartrate, muscle tension, and rate of breathing. Your body is literally preparing you to deal with danger. This is a really beneficial tool that our bodies have when there is actual danger but can get in the way when we are experiencing anxiety on a day-to-day basis.
Because of our breath’s unique quality of being both under conscious and autonomic (subconscious) control, we are able to directly interact with and control our autonomic nervous system by simply focusing on our breath. When we take slow deep breaths, we are communicating to our autonomic nervous system that things are safe and it is ok to relax.
Deep Breathing Decreases Stress and Promotes Relaxation
This is related to the first point. When we feel safe, we feel more relaxed. When we experience stress, our bodies release a hormone called cortisol. One of the ways in which deep breathing helps us relax is by reducing those cortisol levels in the blood stream. Deep breathing promotes a number of other physiological responses including reduced heart rate and blood pressure.
Deep Breathing Improves Focus
When we are stressed out it can be difficult to focus on anything else. Deep breathing can improve your ability to concentrate and decrease brain fog. When we are less stressed out, we have more mental space to focus on activities that we care about. We will feel less bogged down by stressors and have more freedom to give our full attention to what we need to be focusing on. Whether you are trying to study for a test, complete a project at work, or actively listen during a stressful conversation, deep breathing can improve your ability to remain present and focused.
Deep Breathing Can Reduce Physical Pain
Mindfully breathing can actually reduce physical pain. When we are experiencing stress, our muscles will tense up which increases the intensity of pain that we are experiencing. There are studies that show that slow deep breathing can reduce the intensity of pain (Gholamrezaei et al, 2021; Jafari et al, 2020). Earlier in this article we explored how stress triggers the release of cortisol. If cortisol remains in your blood stream for a long period of time it can increase inflammation. Deep breathing can reduce cortisol levels in the blood stream. Whether you have an acute injury or struggle with chronic pain, deep breathing is a tool in your toolbox to reduce the impact of that pain throughout the day.
Deep Breathing Improves Overall Physical Health by Improving Your Mental Health
A unifying theme of the benefits or deep breathing is its ability to reduce stress in our lives. When we reduce stress, we also improve our overall physical health. It is well established that stress and anxiety has a negative impact on our physical health. Stress and anxiety increase our blood pressure and makes our heart worker harder by beating faster. Anxiety and stress can lead to us engaging in unhealthy habits like overeating, drinking too much alcohol, or abusing drugs. Anxiety can keep us from engaging in healthy and meaningful activities like working out and connecting with others. All of these symptoms have a negative impact on our health if they become a lifestyle. Having a tool like deep breathing can help you reduce this stress in a safe way and make it easier to cultivate a healthier lifestyle.
Strategies for Improving Your Deep Breathing
Increasing your awareness of your breath can have numerous benefits and there are specific exercises and techniques that can increase the effectiveness of controlling your breath. Here are several exercises to get you started:
Belly Breathing
To get the most out of deep breathing we want to make sure that we are getting a full breath. One way to do this is to focus on breathing from your “belly.” This term can be a little misleading. When you breath from your belly are actually breathing from your diaphragm, a muscle at the bottom of your lungs that contracts as you inhale. This contraction is what pulls air into your lungs. Breathing from your diaphragm ensures that you get a full deep breath. Here is an exercise to ensure that you are actually breathing from your diaphragm.
- Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed and can focus on your breathing without interruption.
- Get into a comfortable position. You may sit or lie down if you wish.
- Make a triangle with your hands by touching both your pointer fingers together and your thumbs together. Place this triangle around your bellybutton.
- Inhale through your mouth while focusing on filling the space where you have placed your hands. This space should rise as you fill it with air. If you don’t notice your belly rising, or it is not rising very much, you are likely breathing from your chest. Some people find it helpful to think of breathing from the back of their throat or to visualize bringing air into their belly as they inhale.
- Exhale through your mouth like you are blowing into a straw or are trying to whistle. You should feel your hands sink as the air leaves your lungs.
- Repeat this cycle 3-4 times or longer if you wish.
Resonance Breathing
Resonance breathing is a great exercise to add once you feel comfortable with belly breathing and can consistently get deep full breaths. This exercise can help facilitate mindfulness and increase your control of your breath.
- Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed and can focus on your breathing without interruption.
- Get into a comfortable position. You may sit or lie down if you wish.
- Inhale like you did with belly breathing for a count of three. Your goal should be to fully fill your lungs by the time you count to three.
- Hold your breath for another slow count of three.
- Exhale at the same pace for a count of three. Your goal should be to have emptied your lungs by the time you finish that count.
- Repeat this cycle 3-4 times or longer. You can increase the count each time you repeat the breathing cycle (count of 4, 5, etc.). Doing so can improve your ability to control your breath.
4-7-8 Breathing
Another popular breathing exercise is called “4-7-8 Breathing” where you inhale for four counts, hold for seven counts, and exhale for eight counts. Breathing in this manner is especially effective at reducing stress. When we inhale it slightly speeds up our heart rate and when we exhale it slows our heart rate down. By intentionally inhaling for shorter periods of time and exhaling for longer periods of time you are able to reduce your heart rate and thus reduce stress in your body.
- Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed and can focus on your breathing without interruption.
- Get into a comfortable position. You may sit or lie down if you wish.
- Inhale from your belly for a count of 4, fully filling your lungs.
- Hold your breath for a count of 7.
- Exhale like you are blowing out of a straw for a count of 8. Your lungs should be empty by the time you reach 8.
- Repeat this cycle 3-4 times or until you notice your heart rate has reduced.
Conclusion
Stress and anxiety can be difficult to manage at times. Deep breathing is one of many tools that we can implement to reduce the intensity of that anxiety. That being said, deep breathing and other exercises may not enough to reduce stress long term. Sometimes mental health symptoms are too difficult to manage and more help is needed. If you are struggling with anxiety on a regular basis and it feels unmanageable it may be time to talk to a mental health professional such as a therapist, psychologist, or a psychiatrist. These trained professionals can give you more specific means of coping with anxiety as well as explore and address root causes driving your anxious thoughts.