For years we’ve been told to use deep breathing for anxiety as a means of calming down. Unfortunately, for some people with anxiety, deep breathing can actually make things worse by triggering hyperventilation or panic attacks. In this post you’ll learn why slow breathing with a longer exhale works better.
When Deep Breathing is Helpful
Deep breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing, is where you breathe in deeply and try to engage the diaphragm, to use your belly to breathe. It’s easiest to do laying down, and you’ll notice your stomach rising when you breathe.
Diaphragmatic breathing has a bunch of benefits. It can help trigger the parasympathetic response, which is the calming response in your nervous system. This can slow heart rate, lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, etc.
If deep breathing is working for you, that’s great.
When Deep Breathing Leads to Panic Attacks
But what often happens when you tell someone with anxiety to take deep breaths is they take a large inhale of breath, sometimes almost gulping the air. Anxious folk so badly want to feel calm that they go above and beyond and try to force themselves to calm down, and then that pressure can make them even more anxious.
But even more than that, focusing on taking deep breaths can lead to hyperventilation.
When you focus on the inhale, you can accidentally overbreathe which can cause a drop in carbon dioxide and nitric oxide, which can make you feel more breathless. You might get dizzy, tingly, or gasp for more air. For some people, that can trigger a panic attack. And the harder you try to make yourself less anxious by deep breathing, the worse it gets.
Better Breathwork: Breathing Techniques for Anxiety
So what to do instead? Focus on two things instead of deep breathing:
- Slow breathing.
- Longer exhale than inhale.
Instead of trying to force yourself to breathe deeper, gently invite yourself to lengthen your outbreath, to gently breathe out longer than you breathe in. Slow breathing can feel like softening instead of forcing it.
So here’s how to do it.
- Close your mouth and breathe in gently through your nose. This can help slow things down.
- Pause briefly before exhaling.
- Extend your exhale a little longer than your inhale.
It’s still ok to focus on your belly expanding instead of your chest. And you can get all the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing.
Research consistently shows slow breathing improves symptoms of:
- Generalized anxiety
- Panic disorder
- PTSD-related hyperarousal
Using Deep Breathing for Anxiety Correctly
Do one of these instead:
- Imagine there’s a dial that says “willingness” and you’re turning up the willingness dial instead of the control dial. Instead of struggling against your body, say, “It’s ok to feel what I’m feeling. It’s ok to have sensations of anxiety. I’m not in danger. It’s safe to feel my feelings.”
- Get really curious. Pretend you’re a scientist exploring the sensation of anxiety for the first time, observe it without judging it. Describe what breathing feels like: where does it start, where does it feel warm or cold? Just get curious and descriptive instead of trying to force your sensations to change.
The important thing is we can’t force our bodies to calm down with deep breathing. Instead, gently guide your body to soften and slow your breath. By practicing slow breathing plus acceptance, little by little you can restore your sense of safety and turn on that calming parasympathetic response in your body more and more often.
And if you’d like to learn more about how to soothe your nervous system, I’ve got two free courses for you. There’s one on Grounding Skills and another called How to Stop Panic and Anxiety Attacks.
