Breathing Exercises for Anxiety – Break the Anxiety Cycle 25/30

Breathing Exercises for Anxiety – Break the Anxiety Cycle 25/30



Discover effective breathing exercises to reduce anxiety—learn diaphragmatic, box, and 4-7-8 breathing techniques to calm your nervous system and break the anxiety cycle.
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In this video, you'll explore effective breathing exercises and a deep breathing technique to combat anxiety. The video begins by acknowledging anxiety as a common and treatable condition, emphasizing the role of controlled breathing in calming the nervous system.

The primary focus is on “Breathing Exercises,” simple yet powerful tools to incorporate into your daily life:

Deep Breathing Technique: Inhale slowly through your nose, followed by a slow exhale through your mouth. This controlled breathing activates your body's relaxation response, reducing anxiety.

4-7-8 Breathing: Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 7 counts, and exhale for 8 counts to regulate your breathing and induce relaxation.

Box Breathing: Inhale, hold, exhale, and hold your breath again for equal durations to restore equilibrium.

Belly Breathing: Engage your diaphragm by inhaling deeply into your lower abdomen. This counters shallow chest breathing associated with anxiety.

The presenter encourages regular practice of these exercises and offers tips for integrating them into your daily routines, such as during morning rituals or stressful moments.

Remember, “Breathing for Anxiety” is a complementary tool, not a standalone solution. Seek professional guidance and consider combining these techniques with other therapeutic approaches for a comprehensive anxiety management plan.

In summary, this video equips you with practical tools to manage anxiety through controlled breathing. By focusing on deep breathing and other techniques, it empowers you to regain control over anxiety symptoms, enhancing your mental well-being for daily life.

00:00 Intro
01:30 Breathing Exercise
03:41 Heart Rate Variability
08:15 Benefits
09:10 The Vagal Break
09:57 Belly Breathing
12:35 Paste Breathing
14:25 Slow Breathing

Click the link below to access the transcript:

Breathing Exercise for Anxiety: Calming Anxiety in the Nervous System Using the VAGAL BRAKE 

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Therapy in a Nutshell and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.
In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction.
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In this video you'll learn how to use your breath 
to calm anxiety using the vagal brake. [Music] Okay. So anxiety is a state of your nervous system. 
It's when your autonomic nervous system is activated. This can be triggered by an actual 
danger – a real threat in the present moment – but just as easily by a perceived danger- a threat 
that you imagine, that you worry about that is so far removed from a physical threat that you don't 
even realize why you're having a physical response. The autonomic nervous system is the part of our 
nervous system that we don't directly control. That's why you can't just say, “Calm down” and it 
works. Except there are people who can. They've literally trained their nervous system to calm 
down upon command. So let's explore how you can use breathing to send a message from your body 
to your brain that you are safe and turn down the anxiety response. Now, we're going to be exploring 
our anxious and calming responses in our body. If you want more feedback from your body you can 
get a heart rate monitor or like a smart watch and watch what happens to your heart rate as you 
do this. Or as we experiment in this video you can just find your pulse and explore what happens. 
Okay so we're going to start by just exploring what's going on in your body. So place one hand 
on your chest and one hand on your stomach and take just a few breaths naturally. Just do it 
how you would normally breathe. And what do you notice? Which hand moves? For many people, their shoulders lift or their 
chest rises and their stomach is tight. For other people, they hold their breath. Notice how 
it feels when you're holding your breath. A lot of people hold their breath throughout the 
day, and it's something we naturally do when we're scared or tense or uncertain. It's an 
aspect of the freeze response. So just notice yourself breathing right now. Okay. Just pay 
attention to your heart rate for a second, if you can. Now take a few fast intakes of breath. This is an activating breath. 
When we're startled we take a sharp intake of breath. What do you feel 
when you do it? For many people this activates. It increases your heart 
rate. It's something our body does to prepare for action. So my heart rate 
just went up. Now hold your breath and sigh. Like that. This is a natural tension release. It's 
built into your nervous system. It releases tension instead of acting it out. So you might 
catch yourself doing this when you're feeling frustrated or upset, something like that. Okay. Now 
we're going to explore heart rate variability a little bit. And for this one it is pretty important 
that you find your pulse. So currently I'm just pushing really gently on my wrist here with two 
fingers, and I'm noticing my my heart beating in my wrist. Okay. After you've found your pulse, pay 
attention. I'm going to ask you to do a little bit of slower breathing, and I want you to pay 
attention to what happens when you breathe in. Try to breathe in for four or five 
seconds, and then breathe out for four or five seconds. Close your eyes. Okay. I'm going to have you breathe in for four, 
hold for four, and then breathe out very slowly for five. So let's try that. Breathe in 1 2 3 4, hold 
for four, 2 3 4, breathe out slowly for five, 2 3 4 5. Okay. We're going to do 
that again, and I want you to pay attention to your heart rate when you're in that holding pattern. So 
in slowly for four, 1 2 3 4, hold for four, 1 2 3 4, hold and breathe out slowly for 
five, 1 2 3 4 5. Did you notice what happened to your heart rate? Can you notice a change in your 
heart rate? So breathing in – you might need more time to practice this. And I know this is a short 
video, so later you can practice this. But breathing in increases your heart rate. Holding your breath 
also makes your heart rate go up. And long, slow out breaths slow the heart rate. They send a message 
from your body to your brain to calm down. This is kind of two-directional messaging. Your mind can 
tell your body to be activated or relaxed, and your body can tell your mind to be activated or relaxed. 
And what you noticed there – when you breathe in your heart rate increases and when you breathe out your 
heart rate decreases – this is called heart rate variability – is essentially your vagal tone. And 
people who have healthier nervous systems actually have a higher heart rate variability. There's a 
bigger difference in their heart rate between when they're breathing in and when they're breathing 
out. And we're not going to get all technical on this, but you can use heart rate variability, which 
is also known as vagal tone, to measure how strong your parasympathetic response is. Okay. So now 
that you've explored how changing your breathing changes your body's state, let's talk about how 
you can use your breathing to calm anxiety. Okay. And a quick reminder: like with all aspects of 
anxiety, you can't force it. You can't – like if you find yourself trying to force yourself to breathe 
deeper or getting anxious about your breathing or struggling against anxiety, like drop the rope. Go 
back to your default mode of acceptance, and notice and allow the sensations to be there, and just 
say, “Bring it on, body. Bring it on.” Because trying to force yourself to calm down is essentially 
telling your body that its own sensations are a threat. It's putting yourself into perceived danger. 
If you find yourself thinking, “I can't feel this way. I have to calm myself down,” then you're sending 
a message to your brain that you're in danger from your own sensations. So if you find yourself doing 
this, take a step back and go back to willingness. You can make space for your feelings. You can feel 
them and be okay. Sensations won't harm you. Fast breathing and sweaty hands won't harm you. So that 
being said, you can't push a rope, but you can pull it. If you are gentle and compassionate you can 
escape the anxiety cycle by using your body to calm your mind and turn on that parasympathetic 
response. So there's a lot of benefits training yourself to breathe for anxiety. So New York Times 
reports that consciously slowing your breathing to between 5 to 7 breaths per minute at rest can 
help reduce blood pressure, regulate heart rate, and lift mood. Researchers have also reported 
that breathing slowly can reduce chronic pain, stress, and depression and bolster fitness and 
energy levels. One study found that even just focusing on the way you naturally breathe when 
paired with other mindfulness practices was as effective as drugs to treat anxiety disorders. So 
what's happening here? Your body has a feedback loop. It uses the vagal nerve to send messages 
from your brain to your body and from your body to your brain. So when your breathing slows, 
it sends a message to your brain that you are safe; you can turn off the anxiety response now. 
This reaction is called the vagal brake. So the vagal brake is your body's built-in system to slow 
heart rate, lower blood pressure, regulate breathing and digestion, and help you relax. So there's a 
lot of things you can do with your breathing, but there are two things I'm going to teach you 
right now. You calm your body down in the moment, but the more you practice slow breathing and other 
parasympathetic exercises, the more you strengthen your vagal tone. It's like the muscle that you can 
use to calm yourself down. And monks who train for hours every day, they can change their heart rate 
with a word or a thought. And to a degree, you can learn it too. So let's learn the first most simple 
exercise for anxiety, and that's belly breathing. So belly breathing, or diaphragmatic 
breathing, triggers the parasympathetic response in your nervous system. So it can be easiest to 
learn this exercise when you're lying flat on your back. So I'm going to give you the explanation 
of how to do that first. Um you can also learn to do it while sitting in a chair. So lay down flat 
on your back. Try to loosen up just a little bit, and place one hand on your chest and one hand 
on your stomach. See if when you breathe in you can allow your stomach to raise first before 
your chest raises. Feel the difference between breathing with your stomach expanding instead of 
breathing with your chest. Okay. The next thing to notice while you're laying on the floor is to 
just take really gentle and slow breaths in and out. Breathing in too deeply or forcibly can cause 
some people to hyperventilate, so focus more on just allowing your stomach to move gently up and 
down, loosely moving without lifting the shoulders. And again, you're trying to get your stomach 
to raise first. It's okay if your chest raises afterwards. And if you find yourself feeling a 
little bit faint or hyperventilating, try just using slow breathing. You don't 
need to gulp in a lot of air and fill up too full. Just slow your breathing 
down to four or five seconds per breath. And the other thing to watch out for is 
breath holding. So you want to imagine as your breath comes in and out that it's like a wave 
going up and down, with a smooth rounded top and bottom. Allow yourself to breathe in and out. Now, 
because when people try to practice breathing with their belly they sometimes breathe in 
too deeply, we are going to instead focus on my preferred technique for breathing. And you 
can do this sitting up or laying down. So my preferred technique for breathing for anxiety is 
slow breathing, or paced breathing. And the goal with paced breathing is to simply slow the breath 
and lengthen the out breath. And this might take a little bit of exploring to figure out what's 
the right pace for you. So we're going to start with counting in for four and then out for six, and 
then pause. Um you just want to find the right pace. And again, like I said, if you imagine your breath 
as a wave, you want it to look smooth and steady with gentle peaks and valleys, not with sharp 
starts or stops or breath holding. And as you breathe slowly, remember to relax your shoulders 
and allow your stomach to rise. I'm going to link in the description a couple of videos that will 
guide you through this paced breathing exercise. There's also apps you can use. And you want to just 
practice this several times a day. I'll link some good ones below. So paced breathing: in for four, out 
for six. 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4 5 6. 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4 5 6. Just gentle 
and slow breathing. For some people, they might want to lengthen that to six or seven seconds on each 
end, in and out. And for other people, shorter might be better – three or four seconds each direction. Let me 
teach you one more way you can use breathing. So if you're non-forceful with yourself, you can use slow 
breathing during a crisis or panic. So if you feel yourself getting worked up, you can remind yourself 
to breathe slowly and gently. And sometimes this can help you calm down in a stressful moment. Or, 
for example, if you're doing exposure therapy work or you're preparing to do exposure therapy work, 
like when you're doing imaginary exposure, you can use slow breathing to reduce your anxiety. 
Um and the cool thing about slow breathing is it can move your brain waves into an alpha rhythm, 
which is like relaxed but alert at the same time. Now again, with all these breathing techniques, we 
can't force it. If you find this backfiring, if you find yourself getting anxious when you try to slow 
your breathing, take my course on how to process emotions because it means you're getting stuck 
in a struggle. Um I've also got a series of videos at the end of this course about how to deal with 
panic attacks. Okay. And lastly, it's just important to remember there's a difference between a coping 
skill and an exercise. A coping skill might help us calm down in a moment or get us through a 
difficult situation, but an exercise is something we need to practice regularly to build up strength. 
Um and as I said earlier, you can actually measure the strength of your parasympathetic response, 
which is also known as vagal tone, through your HRV. Um we talked about strengthening your 
vagal tone on day 22, but the important thing to remember is that if you want a resilient 
parasympathetic response, you should practice slow breathing throughout the day. So you want to 
trigger yourself to use slow breathing multiple times throughout the day because this trains your 
nervous system to have a strong calming ability. So that's what I mean by exercise. We practice calm 
breathing multiple times throughout the day, and that strengthens your parasympathetic response. 
You shouldn't just wait until you're anxious to try slow breathing. If you do want to practice 
this I'm going to encourage you to take a full week where you practice doing slow breathing on 
average every 15 minutes throughout the day. You can use the app Lotus Bud to remind yourself to 
do this um or some other app that has a reminder. And this is going to be a little bit difficult 
at first, but soon it's going to become a lot more natural to notice your state and then trigger 
that relaxation response with a few slow breaths. So that's how you use breathing as an exercise 
to increase your nervous system's resilience to stress. We can strengthen our vagal tone by 
practicing breathing a few times each day. So again, our vagal tone is like a muscle. What we exercise 
we get more of. If we exercise our parasympathetic response it will help us get better at calming 
down. So it's important that you don't wait until you feel anxious to practice slow breathing. Use 
it throughout your day to regulate your nervous system and train your parasympathetic response to 
turn on. This is one of the most effective ways to use breathing to manage anxiety. Okay. I hope this 
was helpful. Thanks for watching, and take care. [Music]

#Breathing #Exercises #Anxiety #Break #Anxiety #Cycle

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