Breathing for Anxiety

March 14, 2020

Let’s talk about anxiety and stress !  Whether you are completely in quarantine, socially isolating yourself or going about your daily lives, there is tension and angst in the air.  It is almost palpable.  We can feel it in our conversations and in the voices of the people on the news.  Therefore, it IS affecting our bodies whether we are aware of it or not.  Some of us are really good at masking it but our bodies know.  When our bodies think we are in danger we go into some sort of flight or fight; also known as the sympathetic nervous system.  This serves us well if we are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger or have to rescue someone from a burning building.   When an event like this is over, our bodies naturally go back to it’s normal calm; known as the parasympathetic nervous system.

Unfortunately, with the situation we are currently in, our bodies perceive  a “constant” threat and we can be in fight or flight for much or all of our day.  Our bodies are being flooded with hormones to increase our heart rate and move the blood flow to our extremities (to help us run).  This can cause  tight muscles, anxiety, digestion issues and shallow breathing among other long-term issues if not corrected.

The good news is that there are a lot of ways to move out of our sympathetic nervous system and back into the parasympathetic if we will only take the time.  Besides some obvious ideas of being out in nature,  taking a lavender bath and turning our devices and t.v.’s off regularly,  working with the breath is one of the fastest and easiest remedies.  Today’s suggested practice is focused on reducing anxiety and angst.  There is also breath work that works for depression which I can address later.  However, if you are suffering more from depression than fear, angst and anxiety and want suggestions now, please let me know. ​From this came my idea for Tracy’s Dailyish Calm.  My goal is for all of us to stay in balance between being vigilant**, and informed vs. living in fear and panic. Science tells us that anxiety and fear decreases our immune system’s capability.   So anything we can do to calm our systems will  benefit us.

In addition, I truly believe we have the power to change the negative energy this virus is causing.  Science shows us that there is power in group visualization and meditation.  Whether you have experienced this or not and whether you believe it or not, what do you and we have to lose?

Each “dayish”  I am going to send a quick message/lesson taken from things I have learned through teaching yoga and meditation for stress relief, anxiety, depression and daily life. This will be followed by a simple suggested practice for the day to help integrate that lesson.

Today’s Suggested Practice

All of the breath suggestions below can be used separately or together.  Experiment to see which one works best for you.  I would suggest 1 - 5 minutes each time you do it.  You can do it as often as you like and anytime you feel a need to feel calmer.  They can be done in the car, in your bed, sitting in a chair, etc.  

It also works great if you are about to walk into a tense situation, meeting or conversation.

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Circular breath
(it sounds harder than it is...give it a try and you will get the hang of it):

1.  Using your right hand, place your  thumb on the outside of your right nostril.  Fold the pointer and middle finger down and place the ring finger on the outside of your left nostril.  

2.  Close your right nostril with the right thumb and inhale fully into the left nostril.  Now let go and  close the left nostril with the ring finger and exhale fully out of the right nostril.  Do this over and over.

3.  If you are extra stressed, let the exhale be longer than the inhale.

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Belly Breathing

1. When we are stressed we tend to breathe in and out of our chest area...this is an energizing breath and we DON’T want that when we are trying to calm down.  Place your hands on your belly and take deep belly breaths.  The breath will move up into the lungs which is fine.  The idea is to begin and end  the breath from deep in the belly.

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Nose/Mouth Breathing

1. Inhale into both nostrils and count how long it takes to get to a full inhale.  Let’s say you count to 4.  

2.  Now exhale out of your mouth for double that number;  in this example exhale to the count of 8.  

3.  The numbers aren’t important.  You basically want to exhale twice as long as you inhale.  

Happy Breathing :)