Breathing Methods

Habitual shallow breathing lowers your vitality, reduces your resistance to disease, and
can lead to a negative frame of mind.

You need to breathe better!

Your brain needs a constant supply of clean, oxygen-rich blood for clear thinking. Your
muscles need it for vitality. And your digestive system needs it to utilise the food you eat
and to get rid of waste products.
All of your blood goes through your lungs many times a day to get rid of excess carbon
dioxide and to take in refreshing oxygen. So the air in your lungs must be clean and fresh
otherwise stale blood is re-cycled and toxins build up.

Better breathing - your route to calmness

Altering your breathing instantly alters your state! When you become skilled at changing
your state through altering your breathing this will boost your confidence in your state-
management ability. So that unwelcome moods become just that - unwelcome. Not fearful,
or threatening, nor in same way indicative of personal weakness or inadequacy.
Having the breathing skills to alter such unwelcome moods puts you in charge of yourself.
Incidentally, while you can very quickly change your state using breathing methods you
also need to change your thinking patterns to ensure that the change of state continues. If
you only alter your breathing but continue with the same old thoughts the unwelcome
moods will quickly return

The 'Instant Tranquilliser'

The Sigh Breath is a very simple breathing method for releasing tension in your chest,
diaphragm and neck areas.

It is an excellent way of reducing the symptoms of anxiety or panic.

It is a moderate (rather than very deep) inhale through the nose followed by a fairly
prolonged exhale through the nose or mouth.

Why use the Sigh Breath?

The Sigh Breath can become your 'instant tranquilliser'. It is a deceptively simple little
technique which has many benefits.
It enables you to:
• Instantly reduce your tension level through temporarily raising your blood carbon
dioxide level
• The See Clearly - Hear Clearly part of the method directs your attention outside of
yourself. This interrupts the common and quite un-useful tendency that most of us
have, when anxious or upset, to ruminate - to become very absorbed with our
thoughts and feelings.
• Engages your attention for a few moments. When you use it regularly you
momentarily interrupt your internal stress-building loop in which your stressful thoughts
result in stressful feelings which, in turn, exacerbate the stressful thoughts.of negative
thoughts - negative feelings - negative thoughts. This takes you out of the loop and
 into practical action.
• Interrupt any tendency to hold or restrict your breath
• Begin reducing accumulated physical tension throughout your body - and especially in
the throat, chest, and abdomen.
• DO something, when you feel anxious or panicky, rather than simply remain a passive
victim of your moods.
• Makes you aware of and interrupts the common tendency, in anxiety states, to hold or
restrict your breath.

How to use the Sigh Breath

1. Mentally think or say to yourself Stop!
2. Then breathe in through nose and, pausing only briefly, let the air out quite slowly through
your nose. This inhale is a moderate (rather than very deep) in-breath. The outbreath is the
key to the method. Be sure to prolong - to l-e-n-g-t-h-e-n - your exhale.
3. As you let the air out let go! Relax your muscles, especially your shoulders. Let go of
tension in your chest and stomach. Let your arms and legs relax. Let your jaw relax. Let
your forehead relax, and....
4. ...direct your attention outside yourself to what is happening in the outside world - `See
clearly' and `Hear clearly'. Silently pay attention to what you can see and hear. Without listing
or naming them.
(Although the method involves four steps the whole cycle of inbreath - pause - outbreath
takes only a few seconds.)

When to use this

If you are going through a 'bad patch' use it quite a lot - at least one or two every 15-30
minutes.
It's best used to 'nip things in the bud' - before the anxiety state escalates. Take one or two
Sigh Breaths whenever you feel yourself beginning to become agitated or tense.

Easy Breathing
Maintaining an easy breathing pattern, where your chest and diaphragm are relaxed and
moving naturally in harmony with each inhale and exhale helps re-develop and maintain a
comfortable physical state with a clear and alert mind.

How to use Easy Breathing

1. Pay attention to the natural, effortless movement of your breathing cycle. Feel the
movements and sensations.
2. Pay attention to the inhale, then the slight pause, followed by the natural exhale, and
then another slight pause.
3. Do this for three or four minutes - paying attention to nothing else.
(In the beginning it is likely that accumulated tensions and poor breathing habits may
have produced an uneven breathing pattern. If this is the case you may find it helpful to
first use the Sigh Breath method a few times to calm and regularise your breathing.)
Through practise you may discover ways of utilising Easy Breathing as a Quick Relaxer - a
way of relaxing quickly for a few moments. As you encounter these experiment to discover
which methods you find most suitable for the different situations in your life.

When to use Easy Breathing

1. Whenever you wish to pace yourself and maintain a calmer and more centred internal
state - at work, in sport, socially, etc.
2. When you wish to clear your thinking in order to give your full attention to an important
matter.
3. As a Quick Relaxer- especially when it is inappropriate to relax with eyes closed, or to
fully stop what you are doing.
4. To develop the habit of maintaining a clear mind and calm body. Use Easy Breathing in
odd spare moments: in lifts, in queues, in waiting rooms, at traffic lights, during the TV
`adverts', while listening to someone, waiting on the phone, or when you are being
delayed. In this way you can turn what might otherwise been a frustrating or irritating event
into a beneficial and centering experience.
5. To develop an on-going natural awareness of your physical state - so that any chest
tightness or breathing unevenness alerts you to take action to clear your thinking and calm
your body.
6. To train yourself to feel mentally and physically comfortable even when under pressure.

Benefits of Easy Breathing

• Helps defuse the physical effects of the stress response
• Provides an instant break and reduces frantic mental activity by centring your
attention on a single issue rather than having it scattered
• Enables you to take a mental and physical break without stopping what you are
doing
• Enables you to maintain physical comfort while being mentally active.

Feet Breathing'
This is a method of dealing with anxiety by taking a short relaxation break in which you link
slower and more even breathing with mental imagery.

Why use Feet Breathing

Using Feet Breathing enables you to take a short relaxation break whenever and wherever
you wish.
Relaxation/meditation is not a mysterious or mystical experience available only to a select
few adepts. It is a natural and valuable ability which we all possess, even though we may
not have practised the skill for many years.
Relaxation is the bed-rock of effective anxiety management and with a little persistence
you can quickly become skilled at it once again.
You can use Feet Breathing with eyes closed or open. In company or alone. At work, at
home, while travelling on public transport. You can use it to take a break on long car
journeys (although it is not suitable for use whilst driving).
Regular relaxation breaks even if only for a couple of minutes at a time interrupt the daily
accumulation of tension. They also remind you how it feels to be calm and, in doing so,
create a desire to feel like this more of the time.
Temporarily attaining this calmer state reminds you that you can manage your own state
and do not have to be a victim of daily pressures.
You can also use this method to help you get to sleep or, if you awake during the night, to
get back to sleep.

How to use Feet Breathing

1. Let you body relax. Use Easy Breathing - in which you simply pay attention to your
natural in- and out-breath. As you do this imagine that with each in-breath you are
drawing the air in though the soles of your feet, up through your legs, and into your torso.
2. As you let go and exhale imagine the reverse happening. The air leaving your torso,
flowing down through your legs and out through the soles of your feet.
3. Then add whichever additional refinements you personally find work best for you:
• On the in-breath silently think I am... and on the outbreath think ...taking a break or
...letting go or ...becoming calmer or use any other calming phrase that suits you.
• On the inbreath feel your body tensing slightly and on the outbreath feel it letting go
more and more with each breathing cycle.
• On the in-breath imagine the colour of calmness flowing into your body. On the
outbreath imagine the colour of tension flowing down through your body and out
through your feet.

The out-breath is the key!

Beware of advice to take deep breaths to calm yourself when experiencing an anxiety
state. This is ambiguous and is often mis-interpreted.
Lots of prolonged in-breaths will tense you! So will breathing in and holding your breath.

The golden rule is:

• Prolong your out-breath to calm yourself
• Prolong your in-breath to alert or stimulate yourself
So when you wish to calm yourself breathe in fairly fully (but not so that you tense up in
the process) and then, without pausing, allow the air out again in a long, slow, controlled
manner. Breathe normally a few times and repeat the process.
If you know that you are going to be encountering one of your phobic situations, such
as taking a plane journey, practice this breathing process for a few weeks to build your
confidence in the process.

Better Breathing Tips

• When they first begin using breathing exercises some people can experience
dizziness. This usually indicates that your body not being accustomed to the richer
supply of oxygen (in much the same way as someone who has lived on a
subsistence diet for many months would be unable to cope with the quantity and
 richness of a normal daily diet).

• So for the first few weeks, as your body becomes re-acquainted with what it is like
to have a normal ‘diet’ of oxygen, you may wish to practise your breathing exercises
while lying or sitting.

• Become skilled at being able to use your entire breathing apparatus! This means
activating the diaphragm and the mid-chest, and the upper chest - in this order. This
is known in yoga as the Complete Breath.

• For the most part concentrate on breathing out the stale air. You look after the
emptying and the lungs will look after the re-filling. (You may wish to consider using
the Slow Out-breath and/or Buteyko Breathing as a way of normalising the supply of
carbon dioxide and oxygen in your system.)

• Prolonging and deepening the out-breath calms and sedates. Do this when you
wish to calm and centre yourself.

• Advice to `breathe deeply' when feeling anxious or agitated is misleading since

most people interpret this by taking deep in-breaths, which is likely to create a even
more aroused state. When feeling anxious you need to prolong and slow your
exhale.

• Deepening and prolonging the in-breath arouses and stimulates rather than calms
you. Use this whenever you wish to alert or arouse yourself and to get into an
energetic state.

• Too much oxygen, relative to carbon dioxide, creates an agitated state. When you
prolong the out-breath you conserve carbon dioxide and rebalance the system.
Follow this with mind-calming exercises.

• On the other hand too much carbon dioxide, relative to oxygen, creates a tired,
lethargic and depressed state. To begin changing such states prolong the in-breath.
This re-balances your system by taking in more oxygen. Follow this with physical
activity, ideally out of doors.

• Make the Easy Breathing habit (with Feet Breathing if you wish) part of your daily
routine. Use this whenever you have a spare moment, such as when waiting, when
delayed, between tasks, etc.

• Combine physical relaxation with Easy Breathing to create an Energy Break. Taking
a number of 1-3 minute breaks like this keeps your mental and physical energy high
- instead of allowing it to be dissipated by the gradual build-up of mental and
physical tensions.

• Because breathing is something we do without thinking about it it is very easy to slip

back into the old patterns - even though we know they are un-useful. To `wire-in' the
new habits resolve to spend a couple of weeks making sure you persist with the
new ways.
Breathe using your diaphragm
Diaphragmatic breathing is the healthiest form of breathing and is very effective in helping
you overcome anxiety or panic symptoms .
It is also the most natural - observe how a very young baby breathes. They will use their
diaphragm and full torso for each breath.
After years of poor posture, anxious thinking, tension and pressure result n may of us
breathing in a shallow and inadequate manner.
By utilising your diaphragm you activate your natural means of emptying and re-filling your
lungs effectively. You also reduce some of the un-useful effects of anxiety and tension.

Re-learn to use your diaphragm

Imagine that your chest is a somewhat conical cavity with the lungs lightly attached to the
inside. And with the floor of the cone being made up of a large muscle called the
diaphragm. It's the movements of the wall and the floor of this cone that result in the
movement of air into and out of your body.
Being more like sponges than muscles your lungs cannot get rid of the stale air on their
own. For this they must rely on the contraction of the `cone' which surrounds them - in
particular the floor of that cone - the diaphragm. This is why using your abdominal or
stomach muscles in breathing, which indirectly activate your diaphragm, ensures a better
supply of refreshing oxygen.
If you use mainly the top of the cone it's called upper-chest breathing. If you mainly
engage the lower walls and floor of the cone it is called diaphragmatic breathing.

To check how you are breathing

• Rest one hand on your upper chest and the other over your navel area.
• Notice which hand rises first when you inhale.
• If the upper hand rises first you are using upper chest breathing. If the lower hand
rises first you are breathing with your diaphragm. If both move at the same time you
are using a mix of both.

Upper-Chest Breathing
This is not wrong but it does mean that your breathing will be a lot more rapid than if you
were using your diaphragm. This is because the amount you can inhale and exhale is
considerably less - because the upper ribcage does not have the ability to expand and
contract as well as the combination of lower ribcage and diaphragm 'floor' - diaphragmatic
breathing.
Upper-chest rapid breathers do also have a tendency to be prone to hyperventilation - a
potentially distressing condition that can result in a bizarre range of symptoms. (More
about hyperventilation in a future article).

Using your Diaphragm

Diaphragmatic breathing, particularly if combined with mid- and upper-chest breathing, is
much slower and more calming that upper-chest breathing alone.
An added bonus to diaphragm breathing is that it gives a wonderful massage to your
internal organs such as the heart, liver, and digestive organs (including colon) keeping
them toned and ensuring they get a healthy blood supply.
Most better-breathing techniques rely on your ability to breathe using your diaphragm. So
if you have habitually used the mid- or upper-chest it is worthwhile to first develop your
ability to use your diaphragm. That way, if you need to use a special technique you will
have the diaphragm-breathing skill ready.

Practise using your diaphragm

Spend a few minutes a couple of times a day practising using your diaphragm:
1. Lie flat on the floor. Raise your knees. (You can put a cushion under them if you wish.)
2. Put one palm on your upper chest and the other over your navel. (Your objective is to
have the lower hand rise first when you breathe in.)
3. Breathe out fully - and then a little bit more. With practise you will find you can do this by
drawing in your abdomen. Pause for 2-4 seconds.
4. Allow the air to naturally flow in again.
Slowly and calmly repeat this cycle a few times.
http://www.pe2000.com/