If someone would have told me that I’d be teaching my clients about the importance of paced breathing, I would have said they were nuts. As a student, I would have rolled my eyes and said that this kind of intervention was useless. BOY WAS I WRONG! Proper breathing technique is an extremely important addition to any treatment plan, especially when treating anxiety. Let me explain why and hopefully I’ll convince you to the degree that I was convinced that breathing is an indispensable tool in increasing general well-being.

Part of our nervous system controls automatic behavior and another part controls voluntary behavior. Within our automatic system (properly called the autonomic nervous system), we have two subsystems we need to understand in this context. The sympathetic nervous system is the very popularized “fight or flight” system. When an emergency occurs, this system will cause us to fight or flee. The parasympathetic nervous system (also part of the autonomic nervous system) on the other hand, allows us to calm down after an emergency occurs and the threat is gone.

An individual with anxiety problems has a very active sympathetic nervous system. Usually, anxiety is our friend, in that the symptoms will cause us to survive in an emergency or in a life-or-death scenario. However, individuals with anxiety trouble have an active sympathetic system, not because they are in an emergency, but because they are creating fictitious life-or-death scenarios with their fearful thoughts. As a result of these fearful thoughts, the sympathetic nervous system is triggered and symptoms of anxiety like trembling, rapid heartbeat, and shortness of breath, ensue.

Given these facts, it’s not difficult to deduce what is needed. As therapists, we need to help our clients gain more access to the parasympathetic system, to lower the frequent use of the sympathetic system. It is no secret on how we might do this: PACED BREATHING WILL TRIGGER THE USE OF THE PARASYMPATHETIC SYSTEM. When you breathe in a relaxed manner, anxiety actually cannot exist. It’s physiologically impossible to trigger the parasympathetic system yet remain anxious. I use this knowledge to light a fire of motivation among my clients and to convince them that breathing will legitimately help reduce their anxiety.

Now, commonly, my clients say that breathing helps temporarily but once paced breathing stops, their anxiety returns. OF COURSE IT DOES! When you train for a marathon or a piano recital, how often must you train? You cannot simply go to the gym once and expect to excel during the marathon. That same logic applies here. You must begin to train your parasympathetic system to be more present and accessible. You need to practice paced breathing 8-12 times per day for a few months in order to see any results. Just like everything else, reducing your anxiety will not happen overnight but it will happen once you gain control of your body once and for all.

Of course, modifying your breathing is not the be-all-end-all of anxiety treatment. Emotions also need to be expressed and thoughts need to be restructured. However, modifying your breathing is the first pivotal step to obtaining real change. I urge you to acknowledge the importance of paced breathing in reducing your anxiety and increasing your general well-being!

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