Sometimes anxiety comes without warning. Suddenly you notice a tight feeling in your chest. You feel dizzy or nauseated. Your heart races. Your abdomen contracts and you feel short of breath, so you are overcome by the need to breathe deeply.
In that situation, the normal thing is that you try to take in more air. You breathe in as deeply as you can to fill your lungs. But the harder you try to catch that breath of oxygen, the faster and more labored your breathing becomes. And the more you get overwhelmed.
It’s time to stop. Before the situation gets worse.
Anxiety crisis on the horizon?
Catastrophic thoughts, fear, and apprehension can generate a level of physiological activation that causes you to go into “survival mode.” Stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, invade your bloodstream and your emotional brain takes over by sending an alarm signal. As a result, your heart rate speeds up and breathing becomes shallower.
The good news is that it is an anxiety crisis. It’s not a real threat.
The bad news is that it can be a very unpleasant experience and, if not controlled in time, it can turn into a full-blown panic attack that leaves a deep mark on your brain, contributing to generating a conditioned anxiety response when something comes to distress you. You need to break that vicious cycle before it closes.
A matter of deep breathing
The shortness of breath associated with anxiety attacks is due to hyperventilation. In fact, you should keep in mind that, in a panic attack, the maximum difficulty breathing usually occurs in about 10 minutes, which is when the anxiety reaches its peak, as noted by researchers from Stanford University. However, the acute anxiety condition usually lasts up to approximately 47 minutes.
However, difficulty breathing deeply does not only occur in panic attacks. They can also accompany you for much of the day if you suffer from anxiety. In that case, you will feel the need to breathe deeply all the time, but even if you try to fill your lungs with air, you can’t. You need it but, at the same time, you find it difficult to breathe deeply, which ends up generating more tension.
How to breathe well to stop anxiety? The 3-2-3 method
To contain a panic attack or anxiety crisis, it is essential that you counteract your first impulse: breathe deeply. Every time you breathe, you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, but when you try to take in as much air as possible, there is simply too much oxygen entering your system, relative to the amount of carbon dioxide.
And when the level of carbon dioxide in the blood drops, it causes symptoms such as dizziness and lightheadedness, which will only serve to reinforce the distress and feeling of shortness of breath, according to psychologists at Southern Methodist University.
Furthermore, those intense, fast and deep breaths activate the sympathetic nervous system, which is exactly what prepares you for action and is already activated due to the action of adrenaline and cortisol. In other words, you are adding more fuel to the fire.
What to do then?
Maintain a slower and more rhythmic breathing rate.
In fact, you’ve probably seen movies where people who are having a panic attack are given a paper bag to breathe into. It is a simple and useful tool that helps balance oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
Slower breathing works as a decelerator. It will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is like the “handbrake,” to relax you. In this way, neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine will be released, which will “deactivate” the vagus nerve and reduce heart rate and blood pressure to gradually return your body to normal.
In addition, an experiment carried out at the University of Hong Kong found that slow breathing reduces heart rate and relieves negative emotions. Therefore, when you feel anxious, just try to breathe more naturally. Forget about breathing deeply!
You can also try the 3-2-3 method. It consists of inhaling air for 3 seconds, holding your breath for 2 seconds and then exhaling for 3 seconds. In fact, focusing on time and trying to maintain that pace will also keep your mind busy and help you calm down.
It is important that while you breathe, you make sure that your abdomen expands and contracts because that movement will help you guide the air to the lower part of your lungs and prevent you from breathing too shallowly.
Another alternative is to get up and move. Physical effort of moderate intensity will force you to breathe better and helps you reconnect with the world around you. It’s like running a ground wire, so you can get out of the terrifying scenario that your mind has drawn and has triggered those symptoms.
References:
Shao, R. Man, I.S.C. & Lee, T.M.C. (2024) The Effect of Slow-Paced Breathing on Cardiovascular and Emotion Functions: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review. Mindfulness; 15: 1–18.
Meuret, A. E. (2011) Do Unexpected Panic Attacks Occur Spontaneously? Biol Psychiatry; 70(10): 985–991.
Meuret, A. E. et. Al. (2010) Respiratory and cognitive mediators of treatment change in panic disorder: evidence for intervention specificity. J Consult Clin Psychol; 78(5):691-704.
Leave a Reply