A Natural Anxiety Treatment - Breathing Exercises for Anxiety and Panic

Copyright (c) 2010 Peter Rubel

Nasal breathing from the diaphragm often proves to be an effective means of treating anxiety and panic attacks.

I. Reasons Why Breathing Matters for Anxiety and Panic

In the immediate presence of real danger, a person's sense of anxiety is amplified. Stress hormones increase in the blood stream, heartbeat and breathing rate rise. In other words, the body quickly prepares for a fight or flight exertion.

Panic attacks follow with similar emotional and bodily reactions, but they are irrational at least in that there is no real and imminent danger justifying fight or flight. The panic attack response is thus ineffective, even counter-productive.

In particular here, hyperventilation that might have provided muscles and organs the added oxygen needed for fight or flight instead upsets the proper oxygen/carbon dioxide ratio, which in turn gives the brain feedback causing greater anxiety. Hyperventilation restricts blood flow and causes numbness in extremeties and dizziness or a sense of unreality, which the panic sufferer interprets as a greater threat, so causing even greater anxiety levels. Or at least the spiral is typical in those enduring a panic attack.

And typically, self-conscious slowing of breathing during an attack helps improve the oxygen/carbon dioxide ratio, thus reducing symptoms that increase anxiety level. And slow and controlled breathing distracts the mind from anxiety-inducing "what if" and morbid thoughts.

Between panic attacks, sufferers often exist in a heightened state of anxiety and hyperventilation, less anxiety and hyperventilation than during an attack, but enough to make the switch to panic easier and more likely than normal.

II. Method in Breathing for Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Exercises useful in reducing breathing rate and feelings of fear are simple and easy, although over time they require focus and discipline both for habit-forming practice and for use during an anxiety attack.

Those with heightened anxiety levels, like those suffering from a wide variety of health-related stresses, often breathe through the mouth. Mouth breathing makes hyperventilation easier and decreases the efficiency of oxygen/carbon dioxide flow in comparison to nasal breathing. Often mouth breathing is the method to which the person has become most accustomed, and so a bit of retraining become necessary with exercises self-consciously practiced regularly over a period of time.

Another typical suboptimal breathing practice, especially for those with a sedentary lifestyle sitting long hours in a classroom or business office, is shallow, rib-cage centered breathing. This does not make full use of the lungs and it does not use the lungs in an optimal fashion.

Under the lungs is a thin layer of muscles called the "diaphragm." When breathing from the diaphragm (rather than from the upper rib cage), the abdomen or stomach area rises and falls when one breathes. Breathing from the diaphragm uses the whole of the lungs.

Nasal breathing from the diaphragm discourages hyperventilation and increases efficiency with respect to mouth breathing. One can breath slower and feel less or no dizziness or numbness.

III. A Routine for Teaching Oneself Proper Breathing

A breathing exercises plan geared toward reducing anxiety level follows.

1) Set apart five minutes each morning and evening. More times are preferable, but fewer times consistently is better than more times inconsistently. Mark on a calendar the same times every day. This will help solidify your commitment and make the practice a habit.

2) Get comfortable in a quiet place. Let the phone ring. Don't answer text messages. Unplug from your iPad, iPhone, iPod, MP3 player, DVD player, whatever. Stay off the internet. Turn off radio and TV, or at least park yourself in a place where distractions are minimal. Don't think about what you have to do or what you did that day. Relax your shoulder muscles.

You may allow yourself a watch or time piece with a seconds hand or that counts seconds.

3) In the beginning, one must take care to know one is breathing using the diaphragm. This can be verified by holding hands over the abdomen, below the rib cage. The abdomen should rise when inhaling and fall when exhaling. If the rise and fall stops, one has started to breathe improperly from the upper rib cage again.

4) Inhale through the nose from the diaphragm slowly, counting slowly to three or four from the beginning to the end of the inhaling cycle--counting "one, one thousand, two, one thousand" and so on to approximate seconds. Or breathe in over a three of four second interval using a time piece.

5) After a brief pause, exhale slowly for three to four seconds as for inhaling. After a brief pause, inhale and so on.

6) Continue practicing for four to five minutes.

7) Repeat the process twice a day, morning and evening as noted for five or six weeks to develop a habit and to begin training oneself so as to make slow, controlled breathing almost second nature when one undergoes a panic attack or when one feels anxiety levels rising.

Notice any difference? Remember and celebrate your victories. Reinforce success.

About The Author Beginning with panic attack symptoms, see the free ebook and email mini-course for more panic attack help.