Pace Yourself to Take the Edge of Anxiety

Paced Breathing

This is an adaptation from a breathing technique taught be the military. What works for soldiers in combat can work for civilians in Brooklyn's urban jungle as well... 

Here's how four-count paced breathing works:

1. Inhale through your nose, expanding your stomach for a count of four — one, two, three, four.
2. Hold that breath in for a count of four — one, two, three, four.
3. Slowly exhale through your mouth, contracting your stomach for a count of four — one, two, three, four.
4. Hold the empty breath for a count of four — one, two, three, four.

A few pointers to make this work well:

• Abdominal breathing: check you’re doing it by placing one palm of your hand on your belly and one on your chest. The one on your belly is the one that should rise and fall with your breathing.
• Pacing: you can gently tap with your index finger. As you go on breather, tap slower to get to a slow, paced breathing.
• 5-10 min is a good time, for practice or for any situation where slow diaphragmatic (belly) breathing is advantageous. Start with twice a day, use an anchor to make sure you do practice daily. An anchor could be after waking up while still lying in bed and after you go to bed before going to sleep. 
• Try it with the idea that it will help you to "embrace" the anxiety. It's to take the edge of and keep it manageable. It is not about controlling the anxiety pushing it away. 

Theoretical Background:

• What this breathing does is activating the “relaxation response”. In contrast to the fight-or-flight response, the relaxation response the body moves from a state of physiological arousal - e.g. increased heart rate and blood pressure, decreased blood flow to the extremities, slowed digestive function, increase release of adrenaline and cortisol - to a physiological state of relaxation, where the functions above return to “normal”. 
• Chronic stress leads to a chronic activation of the the fight-or-flight response. A panic attack is a false alarm. It’s your body going into fight-or-flight mode without any “real” danger - and for most of us, that doesn’t feel good at all. By activating the relaxation response, you help your body got out of this state and return to a calm, “no-threat” state. Herbert Benson is a Harvard physician who coined the term “relaxation response” for the observations he made when he was studying people who practice meditation in the 70s.