Power of Your Breath
This page provides an immediate solution to stress and anxiety you may be experiencing right now.
When someone is feeling very stressed or anxious, the most common piece of advice is “take a deep breath”. But is that really the best advice? Sort of
Often when people are feeling stressed or anxious, the “fight or flight” response kicks in and breathing becomes shallowed and quick. This creates an imbalance in our bloodstream as the carbon dioxide starts building up to dangerous levels.
When our bodies have too much carbon dioxide buildup, it can lead to increased heart rate, dizziness, muscle tension, and other physical sensations. And in severe cases it can lead to panic attacks where your breathing becomes so shallow that you feel that you can’t breathe, known as hyperventilation. This type of breathing is called thoracic or chest breathing.
Lung Sacs and the Importance of Deep Breathing
Your lungs contain little sacs called alveoli. Visualize them filling with oxygen as you breathe in deeply, and as blood rushes through them the oxygen rich blood is carried away and replaced with carbon dioxide, or CO2. So when someone starts breathing slow and rapid for a period of time due to stress, the excessive build up of CO2 becomes extreme as these sacs are not completely emptied creating very uncomfortable physical symptoms, thereby increasing stress and anxiety even more which is the reason for physiological panic attacks.
So it is important to breathe deeply when feeling stressed – both inhaling deeply to get as much oxygen to your bloodstream as possible, but also just as important exhaling to remove as much CO2 as possible.
The first breathing technique recommended by HIMbody involves both slowing down your breath, but also ensuring it is deep.
Boxed Breathing
Boxed breathing is a simple breathing exercise and it involves:
1. Breathing in deeply for 4 seconds
2. Holding your breath for 4 seconds
3. Breathing out deeply for 4 seconds
4. Holding for 4 seconds
(repeat this a few times)
4 seconds is not the important component to this exercise. Instead, it is the consistency of each component (could be 3 or 5 seconds) and ensuring that it is slow and deep.
TIP – if you’re new to the practice of mindful breathing, try boxed breathing in 3 second intervals to start, then slowly try increasing to 4 or even 5 seconds.
Inhaling vs Exhaling – So What’s the Difference?
On the surface, one would think that inhaling for the same deepness and duration as exhaling would be best. However, there is an important difference, and it is related to the duration of each.
When a person inhales, the diaphragm – the involuntary muscle organ that expands the lungs – moves down and the heart can expand more because of the added space. What happens next is that the blood starts to flow a little more slowly through the heart, and sends a signal to the brain to speed up your heart rate. The opposite is true of exhaling – diaphragm moves up, heart becomes slightly compressed, and triggers the brain to slow the heart rate.
This is the difference between inhaling and exhaling – inhaling increases heart rate and exhaling decreases heart rate.
See below for a video explanation and another breathing technique known as the physiological sigh.
4 – 6 Breathing
So keeping with the idea that exhaling is more important than inhaling for combating stress relief, HIMbody’s 2nd recommended breathing technique is 4 – 6 breathing. This one is a little trickier, but if you’ve mastered the boxed breathing method this should provide more immediate relief if you are feeling stressed or anxious.
Exhaling for a longer duration than inhaling sends signals to your brain which helps to lower your heart rate and reduce other stress physiological responses. Here is the exercise:
1. Breathe in deeply for 4 seconds
2. Breathe out deeply for 6 seconds (hold as long as you can)
(repeat this a few times)
The important component of this breathing technique is exhaling for longer than you inhale. If you can do this exercise for a couple minutes, it should immediately make you feel more relaxed and reduce any physical stress symptoms.
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