Today (3rd November 2021) is national stress awareness day in the UK. Over the years I’ve suffered, both chronically and acutely, from stress and anxiety and I’m all too aware of the profoundly negative impact that stress can have on our day to day lives….so in this post I share 3 simple tips for breathing your way to better stress management.
Management and treatment of stress is multi-faceted and yoga certainly doesn’t have all of the answers. However, many yoga techniques can have a profound effect on how we manage stress - and one of the most powerful (and free!) tools at our disposal is the breath!
It also doesn’t have to be complicated...simple is often (and usually!) best. So, below are 3 simple tips for breathing in a way that will help you to manage your stress response and bring your nervous system back into balance…
1. Breath through the nose
‘Noses are for breathing, mouths are for eating’, so the saying goes. Yet despite this, many of us are habitual ‘mouth breathers’ which can contribute to the level of stress and anxiety we experience by stimulating our ‘fight, flight, freeze’ response.
On the other hand, when we breathe through the nose it helps to stimulate the diaphragm (our primary muscle of breathing) which in turn helps to stimulate the vagus nerve (the vagus nerve passes through the diaphragm).
Stimulation of the vagus nerve has a major impact on triggering our parasympathetic ‘rest and digest’ response - leading to decreased heart rate, decreased blood pressure, improved digestion and sleep etc.
So simply bringing attention to your breath several times a day, and consciously ensuring that you’re inhaling and exhaling through the nose can really help us to rebalance our chronically stressed nervous system.
2. Take light, slow, deep breaths
When we’re feeling stressed we’re often encouraged to ‘take a big breath’. However, ‘big’ breaths tend to move up into our chest and require activation of our accessory muscles of respiration - which can once again trigger the fight, flight freeze response.
Instead, think about establishing a light, slow and deep breath at a rate of 5.5 - 6.5 breaths per minute.
Observe your lower ribs expanding outwards on the inhalation and returning to centre on the exhalation and feel as though you’re gently drawing the breath down towards the bottom of your lungs.
This will further help to regulate our nervous system (as well as other systems in the body such as the circulatory system) meaning that we’re better able to deal with stressors and change as and when they arise.
3. Lengthen the exhalation
When we exhale our heart rate naturally decreases (it increases on the inhalation).
Therefore when we consciously extend our exhalation we’re also exacerbating this effect and sending signals to our nervous system that all is well...once again encouraging activation of the rest and digest response.
So as you establish your ‘light, slow, deep’ breathing rate of 5.5 - 6.5 breaths per minute, can you also establish a rhythm in which the outbreath is 1.5 - 2 x as long as the inhalation.
This can have a profoundly relaxing effect on the nervous system - and focusing our awareness on counting the breath can also help to shift the mind’s attention away from ruminating on anxieties and concerns.
So there you have it - 3 simple tips to breathe your way to better stress management.
You can also watch the video above for a short guided exploration of the techniques outlined above - and if you’d like further help in managing stress or improving your breathing then please do get in touch today to book up an initial 30 minute chat.
Much of the information in this post is taken from, or inspired by, the work of Patrick McKeown - if the breath is something that interests you, I’d highly recommend checking out his books The Oxygen Advantage and The Breathing Cure (I’m currently working my way through the latter).