Mindful Breath Practice
How breath awareness can help manage anxiety.
In a world filled with plenty of things to be anxious about, it can feel like its hard to breathe.
Breathing is our basic support system. In times of stress and difficulty, simply focusing on breathing can restore a sense of inner capability and calm. It's for this reason that my eye was drawn to two recent books on the topic of breathing: Breath, by James Nestor and Close your Mouth by Patrick McKeown, founder of the Buteyko Clinic. This blog is the first in a series of two to consider some of the learning points taken from these books and how breathing practice and mindful breathing can be a form of self-support when facing anxious feelings.
I've enjoyed sitting down to read both of Nestor and McKeown's books. It's felt relaxing and strangely productive at the same time. And, based on a resting respiratory rate of 12 breath cycles per minute, I've taken somewhere close to 72,000 breaths as I've read! It’s caused me to be far more aware of my breathing, moment-to-moment, and has reminded about the role breathing plays in emotional and neurological regulation, particularly when experiencing anxiety.
Take a breath
Mindful breathing can be a form of self-support when facing anxious feelings
Breath Awareness: A Powerful Tool
Become more aware of our breathing in any given moment provides valuable data about our experiencing within and our relationship to the world around us. Such data gives us more information about what is happening, leaving less to our fearful, anxious imagination.
Perhaps you've noticed how your breath changes in response to emotional experiencing - becoming faster or slower, deeper or more shallow, smoother or more erratic? For anyone who wants to build breath awareness into daily life, it can help to try sitting and tuning into what you experience in the present moment. Aim to narrate or describe what it is you experience about your breathing. You can begin each sentence with the phrase, “right now, I’m aware that…..”
Awareness of your breath in this moment is possible.
The phrase “right now, I am aware of…….” can be a helpful tool towards non-judgemental awareness of your breath.
Questions that can support this awareness exercise include:
What word describes my breathing right now? Is your breathing laboured? Smooth? What other word(s) express the felt sense of your experiencing?
Consider the pace of your breathing: fast, slow, gradually increasing or decreasing in pace?
Consider the depth of your breathing: shallow, light breaths or somewhere closer to deep breathing?
Consider anything you notice about the outbreath as distinct from the inbreath. How does your exhale differ from your inhale?
Consider where in your body you sense the breath as it moves within your system. Which muscles move as you breathe? Does your breath change with your increasing awareness?
Having greater awareness allows us to notice thought patterns, breathing changes and tension in our body. Our breathing patterns can be signals of anxiety building and allow us to choose to respond in a way that is self-supporting and self-caring.
What do you notice as you breathe in? Breathe out? How does this act of giving deliberate focus affect your experience of anxiety?
Non-judgmental Acceptance of the “What Is”
As you tune into your own breath and increase your awareness of your experience of your breath, you may find yourself drawn into judgements or injunctions. These might take the form of:
I need to be more relaxed.
Why can’t I just chill out like other people?
I get distracted too easily.
My breath is too ….. or not enough…….
As you read through this list of judgements and injunctions, I wonder how you are feeling right now. For many people, judgements, and injunctions (the “shoulds”, “must” and “oughts” of life) lead to contraction and tension. Judgments, including self-judgment can reinforce anxiety. Consider if you can adopt a non-judgmental approach to breathwork awareness. In other words, an acceptance of what is - rather than a striving for change. Sure, change may happen in the process - but this is not the end goal. Instead, you are seeking to adopt a mindful acceptance of whatever it is you notice about your breath and your experience of breathing. Such a state of mindful and non-judgmental acceptance of the “what is” helps to place you firmly in the present moment, in the here-and-now. That can be a powerful antidote anxious worrying about the future or ruminating on the past.
Breath awareness - when practiced with an attitude of compassionate non-judgmentalism helps to place you in there here-and-now.
Breathing and the Autonomic Nervous System
When we experience anxiety, or face some stress or threat, our autonomic nervous system prepares the body for fight or flight in response. Our heart rate increases, muscles tense and our digestion slows. Most aspects of our nervous system cannot be consciously controlled. Breathing is unique in that, through conscious breathing, you can regulate your nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is the way our body regulates processes for rest and activity, and this process happens automatically. It consists of 2 main branches: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic branch of the ANS stimulate the body’s fight or flight response. When faced with a danger, or potential danger, the sympathetic system causes changes in our heart rate, rate of respiration, digestion and muscle tension so that we are physically prepared to fight or flee. This happens as soon as our brain detects threat, even if the brain is mistaken. For example, on seeing a coil of rope from the corner or your eye, your heart may begin to beat fast and your breathing rate will automatically increase. Your brain has read the sensory data as “snake” and responded in much the same way as it would if you saw an actual snake. This process is extremely useful to our survival. However, when we remain in a state of heightened sympathetic stimulation, our body remains tense, on edge and anxious.
The parasympathetic branch of the ANS is focussed on restoring calm and balance to our bodies after sympathetic stimulation. It prevents the body from overworking and brings our breathing, heart rate and muscle tension back to a more regulated state in order to facilitate rest and recovery. Breathing has a vital role to play in kickstarting the parasympathetic response of calm and balance. It’s been shown that deep breathing can activate the parasympathetic branch of the ANS and decrease levels of the cortisol stress hormone. Consider building in an awareneass breathing practice when you sense your nervous system would benefit from calm and balanced regulation. Allow yourself to simply breathe and use your breath as a focus for your awareness as a way to benefit from parasympathetic activation.
Like the ebb and flow of the sea, breath comes in, breath goes out.
There’s no need to force or change your breath.
And so, a commitment to noticing and describing - with a non-judgemental, descriptive approach can be a powerful place to begin with breath work for anxiety. Noticing and naming how your breath changes in response to feelings of fear, panic and anxiety can be a helpful place to start when looking to incoporate breath practice into your daily routine.
Many people benefit from working with a therapist to consider how awareness and mindful breathwork practice can be incorportaed into their life. If this is something you’d like to explore further - either through face-to-face therapy in Preston, or via online counselling, please do get in touch. I’d be glad to hear from you.
In a later blog, we'll consider some practical and accessible breath practices to support your parasympathetic branch of the nervous system in restoring a sense of calm regulation.
References:
· Gerritsen, R., & Band, G. (2018). Breath of Life: The Respiratory Vagal Stimulation Model of Contemplative Activity. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 12, 397.
· Ma, X., Yue, Z. Q., Gong, Z. Q., Zhang, H., Duan, N. Y., Shi, Y. T., Wei, G. X., & Li, Y. F. (2017). The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 874.
· McKeown, P. (2004). Close Your Mouth. Buteyko Books: Moycullen.
· Nestor, J. (2020). Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. Penguin Books: London.