Paced Breathing

Paced breathing, deep breathing, box breathing, slow breathing… if you’ve ever read any resources on reducing your anxiety, you’ve probably heard about one of these skills. At their core, these skills work through the same mechanism – to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to lower your heart rate, and resultantly, your anxiety. This means that you don’t really need to worry about whether you’re breathing in for 4 versus 7 seconds. What really matters is that you’re taking slow breaths (breathing in through your nose and breathing out through your mouth), and that you’re taking more time when breathing out than when breathing in.

This is because when you breathe out, you slightly activate the parasympathetic nervous system – frequently thought of as our “rest and digest” system. In contrast, when you breathe in, you slightly activate the sympathetic nervous system – frequently thought of as our “fight or flight” system. Taking longer out-breaths thus tips the balance toward activating your parasympathetic system.

---

Let's Practice!

Let’s take 5 to 10 slow breaths, taking care to spend more time breathing out than in. Remember to breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth.

Note: you may not notice any changes until breath number 3, or even number 5. That’s normal and exactly why we take several breaths! Additionally, for some people, focusing on their breath can sometimes feel more anxiety provoking. If this is you, rest assured, you are not alone. This can sometimes happen if you tend to be very sensitive to your internal experiences (e.g. experience panic attacks). In these cases, breathing exercises may not be for you and that’s okay. Go ahead and choose a different TIPP skill instead!

Go ahead and practice the Paced Breathing Skill now (or when you can) so that you know what to do in the future. Practicing skills before you need them is important, since it can be really hard to learn new skills during an anxiety spiral!

Over the next few days, try using the Paced Breathing skill when your anxiety is high, then use your notebook or text editor to reflect on any changes you experience in your body or with your anxiety. What changes did you notice after trying the Paced Breathing skill? How did it feel?