The simplicity of this statement may be hard for you to believe, but there is no better advice I could give anyone than, simply put, breathe! There are so many activities in which we engage for which, strangely, we stop breathing. You see, a cessation of breathing, or rather very shallow breathing, is part of the body's sympathetic nervous system reaction, or stress response, which is triggered whenever we fear something. The sympathetic nervous system reaction is also known as the fight, flight or freeze syndrome, or the "three F's," and includes blood flow to the major muscle groups (upper arms, thighs, and back) and away from the extremities (feet and hands), tension or readiness in the major muscle groups, blood flow away from the other body organs including the stomach, and increased cardiac reaction. If a ferocious lion were to walk into the room where you are now, I hope you would have some kind of reaction. You might need to run (flight). If the lion catches you, you better be ready to battle (fight). Perhaps if there is some chance that you might not be seen by the lion, you would do well to keep perfectly still (freeze).
It is this last reaction, freezing, that is by far the most common in us humans. Unfortunately, we react this way when there is practically nothing to fear at all. Even when you consider those activities that almost everyone considers scary, like public speaking or a meeting with your regional director, there is no chance of being ripped limb from limb, or that your home will burn to the ground. Thus there's little reason the three F's should be activated. Right? Well, of course we do become somewhat tense in these situations, even if no one can even tell. It's this last part, the part about no one being able to tell, that most involves the stop in breathing. When we stop breathing, we are freezing. With us humans we stop breathing or freeze so no one will notice how we are reacting. We don't want people to see that we're tense when we first meet them or when we're expected to give a rousing speech. Thus we react in the same way an animal reacts when afraid of a predator.
Of course there is no predator in these examples, just the importance of a situation. And perhaps we're not quite as frightened as that animal that is afraid of a real lion or bear. If we were that afraid, we probably wouldn't hide it very well. Sometimes, however, we stop our breathing even when there is really nothing about which to be afraid at all. You see, there is a problem for us humans in having such a huge brain (compared to other animals) in that we significantly overgeneralize danger. Sometimes we stop breathing just because we are trying to explain something to someone or because we are listening intently. Certainly we often don't breathe the way we should when we're having a stressful day at work. When we stay in this tense state, a state characterized by shallow breathing as well as tightening muscles and poor blood flow, for any prolonged period of time, we often develop head, stomach, back, neck or shoulder aches. Recognizing your tense state, and preventing it from becoming prolonged, can be the key to keeping yourself in a comfortable zone for better performance and a general sense of well-being. The way to keep yourself in that zone is to breathe.
Fortunately, even though our brains are maladaptively efficient to the point that we overgeneralize many experiences as dangerous, the size of our brain can also help us in that, unlike other animals, we have the force of will to overcome our overgeneralizations. That is, unlike other animals, we can tell ourselves to do things that trigger the opposite of the three F's. The opposite of the three F's is known as the parasympathetic nervous system reaction, or the relaxation response. When the parasympathetic nervous system is activated we can digest our food, rest, or go to sleep. Part of the relaxation response is breathing calmly and deeply.
Being human as we are, we can activate the relaxation response by forcing ourselves to breathe deeply. The body is a system that gives itself feedback to determine what to do next. The brain reads a certain amount of oxygen in the lungs, and rhythmic body and chest motion, as a sign that it's time to relax. If you breathe deeply, you won't even be able to help but get more calm. Even better than that, when we do breathe deeply, we calm down not only our bodies, but also our minds. The mind looks for consistency between the way we're feeling and the way we're thinking. Just like the tension in your body makes your thoughts more stressful (your heart starts beating hard so you start to worry that you are having heart problems), calm in your body makes you have more calm thoughts ("I'm starting to breathe easy, so everything must be safe"). As you will find out from using it to your advantage, breathing is the best, most obvious, and easiest way to make yourself calm down as quickly as possible.
So, let's talk about a way to improve your breathing. While there are many ways to breathe that are helpful, I will describe just one method that has been extremely helpful to me. The one thing that all breathing methods have in common is that such breathing must be "diaphragmatic" breathing. That means that you are not really taking a deep breath unless your diaphragm descends and thus forces your belly to rise (the stuff in your abdomen has to go somewhere when your diaphragm moves downward). To understand what I mean, I suggest you put your hand on your belly and breathe as deeply as you can. If your belly rises naturally from the force of your lungs filling with air and pushing down your diaphragm, then you are taking a diaphragmatic breath.
Many people have difficulty with diaphragmatic breathing at first. Some people force their belly outward even though they have not taken a large breath. Some people simply feel like they can't breathe any more deeply because when a person is in a stressed state it does not feel natural to take large, deep breaths. For some people there is a feeling of self-consciousness because we tend to be very weight conscious in our culture and certainly do not want our bellies to protrude any more than necessary. Other people start to take short quick breaths and can even start to hyperventilate because they are not taking deep breaths. So it is very important to make sure that you are taking as much air as possible into your lungs. Let the air in your lungs push out your stomach. You may even find it easier to push out your stomach first to make sure your diaphragm has moved. When you become comfortable, you will see how it is natural to simply pull down your diaphragm to suck air deeply into your lungs.
Once you get the feeling for a diaphragmatic breath, I want you to try taking such a breath by inhaling through your nose and then exhaling through your mouth (if you're congested, just use your mouth – remember, it's the diaphragmatic nature of the breathing that's most important, not the exact way you breathe). Keep your hand on your belly so you will continue to monitor the depth of your breathing. Now as you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, I want you to try to get into an easy, slow, and natural rhythm. Within your rhythm, notice a sensation of floating when you inhale and then a feeling of sinking as you exhale. In and floating... out and sinking. In and floating... out and sinking, all in a nice, slow, comfortable rhythm. Try floating like a helium balloon, and sinking like a lead weight. Or, if it suits you better, float on top of a wave as it gently carries you, and let yourself sink as the wave gently passes. As you get yourself into a comfortable pattern, you will see that you are now much more relaxed than you were when you started.
What I will now ask you to do will really sound like overkill, but it generally proves to be helpful. The primary goal in learning to breathe better is that you start noticing your shallow breathing naturally, and then do something about it so that you keep yourself calm and relaxed. The feeling of shallow breathing needs to become a trigger for making you breath. So, what I want you to do is take at least six deep, diaphragmatic, breaths every half hour on the half hour for the next three days. That's right, every half hour on the half hour for three days. Please do not hold yourself to this pattern in an obsessive fashion. If you are a typical person, you are going to forget many times over the next three days. When that happens, just pick it up again and try to stay on track. The purpose, remember, is simply to make you as aware as possible of your shallow breathing. If you monitor your breathing frequently over the next three days, you will start to notice shallow breathing whenever it occurs. When you notice it, you will become accustomed to fixing it.
Noticing shallow breathing is the absolute best you can do. You will never be able to prevent shallow breathing all of the time. If you do become a master of your breathing at all times, you are probably not human. To be alive is to react to your environment. Breathing can simply help you stay as relaxed as possible when you do notice that your breathing has become shallow. If you use this tool frequently and well, however, you will soon find that you are preventing debilitating tension in your life. If you get aches in your body, including headaches and stomach aches, you will notice that they occur much less frequently. You will even notice that sometimes you are able to rid yourself of these aches, especially headaches, after they already exist (although that is much more difficult).
After reading this article, I hope you will make good use of breathing as a tool. If you do, you will notice that you will use it for the rest of your life. It will likely become a cornerstone of your effort at wellness and well-being. Breathing, of course, is absolutely necessary in staying alive. So why not breathe in life itself? Breathe it in deeply and serenely. And while you fill your lungs with oxygen, you may find yourself freer from the tension that had once limited you in so many ways. You may have noticed in your life that people tend to react to you in a calmer fashion when you are calm. Becoming more relaxed can have advantages you never knew were possible. With freedom from excessive tension, you might just find yourself fulfilling your potential as you have always wanted and had hardly ever imagined. With more freedom from tension, you might just find life opening itself up to you in ways for which you'd always merely dreamed.
