Breathing Your Way Free

An Embodied Guide to Anxiety (II)

This is Part II in a series about anxiety from an embodied perspective. Read Part I for background and an explanation of any technical terms I use.

Toolkit: Practices

In Part I, I went over the ‘theory’ of anxiety and what it is from a multitude of embodied perspectives. Supported by that foundational understanding, we are ready to explore practices and tools to shift your state of being.

The focus of all practices in the following posts is to bring your nervous system into parasympathetic dominance, or a state of rest, safety and healing. It is fine if you can only remain in that state for a few seconds or minutes at a time. Don’t give up—just keep doing what works and over time you will be able to surrender to and sustain your relaxation. The impact of such practices may be subtle but it is cumulative. Every time you slip into relaxation, the effect adds up, and it also generates a feedback loop that will keep you there for longer and longer. You are filling up your inner reservoir, even if it’s only one drop at a time.

With each practice I will also include ‘things to avoid’ or which are likely to trigger or intensify anxiety. The lifestyle considerations in the next post will be about how to live a life that makes room for and properly integrates the relaxation response, what triggers the stress response and how to avoid it.

my top 4 areas

Broadly speaking, there are 4 areas you can work with, all equal in importance and impact—choose whatever appeals to you. I selected these 4 areas with consideration of what works best and what’s doable when you’re taking a DIY approach. Some practices (like meditation) work better with guidance, so I am not including them here.

in this post:

1. your breath

   1. learn to breathe in a way that signals to your body that you are safe

   2. avoid breathing in a way that activates or intensifies the stress response

in the next posts:

2. your senses

   1. use your senses to ground and center yourself (aka. mindfulness)

   2. deliberately prioritise sensory pleasure, which is the opposite of tension

   3. avoid overstimulation or hyper-stimulation of one sense

   4. practice sensory withdrawal when needed

3. your body

   1. engage in appropriately chosen and structured physical activity

   2. cultivate open (rather than focused) somatic (internal body) presence

   3. avoid ruminating or spiralling endlessly in thought

   4. avoid dissociating from your body

4. lifestyle considerations

   1. adjust your lifestyle to prioritise healing, recovery, safety, and stability

   2. limit destabilising influences on your life, until you develop the capacity to handle them

practice advice: less is more

Many of the practices I recommend will sound simple and basic. This is deliberate, and it doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. Anxiety is characterised by overwhelm and overstimulation—so the way out of it is to return to natural simplicity, to take a minimal approach and go back to basics.

Because of the sensory and energetic overload that comes with anxiety, people often default to doing more, or increasing the intensity, variety or frequency of activity. This is an instinctive way to try to channel the extra energy in your system, but without awareness you will be acting it out instead of transforming it.

It can also lead to a ‘window shopping’ approach where you try out lots of things all at once, without giving your system enough time to adjust and integrate what you’re doing. In the process, your body and nervous system get more confused and overwhelmed because they can’t figure out what’s going on.

My suggestion is to do slightly less than what you feel like and take more time than you think you need. In the process you learn to tolerate the peak of your current state without amplifying it, and then bring it down.

In terms of the 4 areas I will go through, pick one to start with, and explore the recommended practices regularly for at least a month to see if they have any impact. When you are DIY-ing, you don’t have the benefit of external guidance, so you need to become your own coach: being aware of your own state and progress, encouraging yourself, and inquiring gently to discern what works and what doesn’t. You can always reach out to me, or to another experienced practitioner, for advice and support when you need it.

Finally, some people can become slightly obsessive about a technique or a practice, which is a reflection of the hypervigilance that I talked about in Part I. For example: you feel anxious, you know you are not breathing properly, but any attempt to work with the breath just makes you more anxious, and so on in a spiral. If this happens to you, choose a different practice or technique. Look for the one you can relax or surrender into, rather than one which heightens your need for control.

how to know if a practice is working

If a practice helps you relax, or unwind from a spiral of anxious rumination, then obviously it’s working. However, sometimes your body will respond in different ways that might not make immediate sense to you. I would like to point such instances out to you now, so you are aware.

going down

The main responses I see, and that students incorrectly judge themselves for, are:

• yawning, sighing or other changes in breath pattern

• feeling sleepy or suddenly exhausted, nodding off or drifting away into a reverie

• becoming aware of discomfort, aches and pains in your body, or

• wanting to stretch and adjust their body when they start to practice.

These are all very good signs, as they mean your body has entered rest and self-healing mode.¹ Please yawn and stretch as much as you like, and accept the feelings of tiredness as the trough of a wave that will—eventually and naturally—rise again. As I explained in Part I, anxiety involves being constantly ramped up to deal with perceived threats, which is fatiguing for your whole body. The moment you unwind that pattern, it is natural that tiredness, low energy and the instinct for comfort will arise. Follow that downward pull into relaxation, and in time, it will turn into recovery and rejuvenation.

in-between

In this process, you are re-learning how to live in and act from a state of relaxation, rather than from a state of activation or arousal. In the beginning when you relax, you might feel so tired that you fall asleep, doze off or drift ‘out of it’ right away. Your job is to surrender to and remain in that in-between dozy/drift/sleepy state, and over time habituate yourself to it, such that you (eventually) remain awake but totally relaxed simultaneously. Over time, this relaxed-yet-awake state of being filters out into your life and starts to recalibrate your arousal down to a healthier and more appropriate level.

Imagine your nervous system as a seesaw that doesn’t balance very well. It knows how to be anxious and activated (one side of the seesaw), or completely shut down as in sleep (other side of the seesaw). It doesn’t yet know how to be in between the two states, and instead can only flip back and forth between the two extremes. Over time as you train in relaxation, you will learn to be in the state of equilibrium, where you are awake (side 1) yet relaxed (side 2) at the same time.

going up

The other possibility is that when you start to practice, you suddenly feel a heightened sense of arousal and activation—in other words, you become aware of all that excess energy circulating in your body, your nerves feel jangled and fried, your muscles feel tense, your brain feels like it’s running at superspeed. This is harder to deal with but also not necessarily a sign that you’re doing anything wrong. You might simply be becoming aware of whatever was already happening under the surface. In this case, tolerate the intensity as best you can without struggling or fighting against it—and, like the crest of a wave, it will also, eventually and naturally, come down again.

If, however, you find that a practice actually increases your level of arousal and it doesn’t come down, then please stop the practice and seek out help, or try a different one. If you’re unsure, also seek out help, as an experienced practitioner will be better able to discern what’s going on and guide you in the right direction.

Disclaimer: If your anxiety is severe, or comes with any form of trauma, please seek out help. We are not always meant to, and nor do we always need do, face life alone. None of what I share is a substitute for medical diagnosis, treatment or advice. Please take whatever serves you from my words, in conjunction with the professional support that you need.

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Breath

This is one of the most important areas to address. Breathing has a strong impact on our emotional and mental states, and can be used to rebalance when we feel off-kilter. In Part I I mentioned that, according to ayurveda, anxiety arises from an excess of air and space (or vata dosha). Recalibrating our relationship to the air we breathe is therefore an ideal way to pacify vata. Breath is also a powerful tool because it bridges conscious and unconscious states of being; learning to breathe differently is a way of influencing a part of you (the anxious part) that was previously beyond your control and awareness.

When we are anxious, breath becomes rapid, shallow, heavy and inhibited—mirroring the state of our mind and body. In order to restore a feeling of relaxed calm and safety, we need to gently encourage a longer, slower, freer, and softer breath pattern.

Here are three simple practices I recommend for anxiety:

1. Breathe through your nose, not your mouth. Especially when you sleep, and even when you exercise. This is the #1 Most Important Thing you can do for your breathing health.

2. Longer exhales

   1. Slow down and smooth out the out-breath as much as you can. When you’re anxious, the inhale becomes longer than the exhale. You need to reverse this, or at least balance out the two phases. See this explanation.

   2. If you prefer more structure, you can try counting the length of your inhale and exhale in seconds, and slowly stretching it out until your exhale is longer than your inhale. Begin by adding 1-2 seconds on to your exhale and relaxing into that new rhythm for a few minutes.

   3. Then adjust until you reach a ratio of 2:3 or 1:2 (inhale:exhale). Eventually, slow down until each breath lasts 6-10 seconds, or you’re breathing 6-10 breaths/minute, as in this paced breathing soundtrack. This is an app with both preset and custom intervals that will count for you and tell you when to breathe, so you can just surrender and be guided by the voice.

   4. To gain more control over your breathing, you can lightly constrict your throat as you exhale, as if you were sighing very slowly. Mouth remains closed, and the sound you make is very soft, only barely audible to yourself. This is called ujjai breathing or Ocean breath. If you sound like Darth Vader, you’re doing it too forcefully and too loudly.

      1. This kind of breathing activates the parasympathetic response, and is also considered a ‘cooling’ breath in yoga and ayurveda. You can do it anytime, but an ideal moment is just before you go to sleep, as it counteracts the ‘heat’ of whirling thoughts and assists in the withdrawal of the senses towards subtle, internal sounds.

Here is one of my guided practices, exploring Ocean or ujjai breath:

3. Diaphragmatic or ‘horizontal’ breathing

   1. When you’re anxious, the movement of breathing concentrates in the upper chest, collarbones and shoulders, which move up and down. This is called vertical breathing, and should be avoided as it signals stress to the body. This kind of breathing is visible from the outside, ie. other people can see it, and it also creates tension in and around the neck.

   2. Instead, you need to switch to horizontal breathing using your diaphragm, the main breathing muscle of your body. To do so, place your hands on either side of your lower ribs, about halfway down your torso, between your sternum and your navel. Underneath your hands, inside your ribs, is your diaphragm. (You should be able to feel the bones of your ribs. If you are feeling the flesh of your waist, your hands are too low.)²

   3. When you breathe in, feel your hands spread wide to the sides. When you breathe out, your hands narrow towards each other. The primary movement is horizontal and it is invisible from the outside—other people should not be able to see you breathing.

   4. If you can’t feel the movement, you need to relax your belly and soften the shoulders, chest and neck. It’s only a small movement (1-2inches at most), so don’t exaggerate or increase your breath to try to feel it; instead, relax and attend to the sensations and the feedback from your hands.

      1. Diaphragmatic breathing stimulates your vagus nerve, which is one of the main nerves responsible for your relaxation response. Since it is a sensory nerve, the effect is enhanced when you attend to sensations and the movement of breath.

Here is a guided practice I recorded exploring diaphragmatic breathing:

4. Soft, Subtle or Light Breathing

   1. The final (and often most transformative) factor when it comes to breathing and anxiety concerns breathing volume, or the amount of air you are breathing.

   2. When we are anxious, we tend to breathe more heavily, and take in more air than we need to. This is called overbreathing or hyperventilation.

   3. Even 30 seconds of slightly heavy breathing is enough to create tangible changes like feeling dizzy, light-headed, or tingling in the hands and feet. If you’ve ever tried breathwork techniques like Wim Hof or Holotropic Breathing, you’ll recognize the sensation. This happens not because you are breathing in more oxygen, but because you are breathing out too much carbon dioxide (which you need at certain levels to function properly).

   4. The way out of this pattern is to practice breathing more softly, lightly, subtly and slowly. Stretch out your breath and take your time with it, as if savouring every molecule of air as it enters and leaves the body. Sense the airflow in your nostrils or your throat and actively reduce it until you can barely feel it. Quieten your breath until you can barely hear it. Relax into this sensation, and make sure you aren’t freezing or tensing up your body to inhibit your breathing.

      1. Many traditions, such as qi gong (and yoga when it’s taught properly), emphasise that healthy and efficient breathing is not visible, audible or even tangible in any way. In other words, the mark of an experienced practitioner is that their breathing is subtle, light, soft, quiet and relaxed.

      2. The ‘common sense’ analogy to this is to think about the way an elite athlete or a very fit person breathes, compared to somebody less fit or someone who is ill. The former breathes less while doing more, the latter breathes more while doing less. Which is more efficient?

   5. Sensations that suggest you are on the right track include:

      1. feeling like you want to take a bigger breath, or that you’re slightly out of breath—this is called air hunger, and it should be tolerable rather than stressful or panic-inducing

      2. warmth in your face, hands and feet

      3. increase of saliva in your mouth, or needing to swallow

      4. feeling relaxed or sleepy; feeling alert or focused—which way you go depends on the level of air hunger you experience

      5. quietening or slowing of the mind, feeling spacious or drifting a little bit

      6. becoming aware of other bodily sensations and wanting to stretch to make yourself more comfortable

   6. This practice is difficult, even for people who are not anxious, so it is best done under guidance. In my experience, it takes a couple of tries—and usually some back-and-forth and reassurance from a teacher—before you get it and are comfortable enough to do it properly on your own. Most of the people I know who tried to DIY it from a book or video haven’t quite got it (including myself, until I got coached). That is why I have decided not to include a guided practice here. However, feel free to play with the ideas above on your own and let me know in the comments if you have any questions or feedback, or book a session with me to take this further.

If you are prone to anxiety, your breath is very likely to be dysfunctional, and you need to do such practices regularly throughout the day (5-10 mins, 3+ times a day) until you restore a healthy breath pattern. The purpose of breathwork is not only to bring you immediate relief and shift your current state, but to create long-term changes in your breathing so that you enjoy better health and less anxiety even when you’re not doing the practices.

If you’re interested in learning more about your breathing, please come to my breathwork class at Space2B or get in touch and arrange a breath coaching session.

Let me know in the comments if you learned something new, if you tried some of these practices out, or if you already do some of them. Any and all questions and responses are welcome.

If you appreciated this post, or any other one, please subscribe or upgrade to paid. Thank you for being here. In the next post, I will explore practices relating to the senses, pleasure and mindfulness.

Anthony Cantin

1. This state corresponds to the alpha and theta brainwaves that I mentioned in Part I, which are inaccessible or underactivated in anxiety.

2. Under your left hand is also your stomach (towards the front) and your spleen (towards the back)—the organ pair that is related to anxiety and responsible for grounding in TCM. See Part I for more on this.