Breathe For Relaxation
When I’m dealing with stress, my breathing becomes shallow. It’s a common human response to both chronic daily stress and acute stress. The mind becomes consumed with something that has to be dealt with. The sympathetic nervous system kicks in. And often times the muscles in our midsection tense up and we don’t breathe deeply like we should. The first step is to develop an awareness when this happens. Then it’s important to change breathing patterns to regain a state of homeostasis so the stress can be dealth with appropriately and released. And also to prevent continued shallow breathing which could exacerbate the stress further and create health problems. After all, oxygen is a nutrient we can’t live without for very long. In case it helps somebody I wanted to share a simple breathing pattern I’ve discovered when I need to breathe for relaxation and maintain a sense of well being.
Bad Habits During Times Of Stress
I’ve noticed a few things I do subconsciously when I’m dealing with something stressful.
-I have a tendency to hold my breath at the top of my inhalatioon.
-Then I often force the air all the way out of my lungs when I exhale by squeezing with the muscles of my rib cage. This builds tension through my breathing muscles.
-I’m also more likely to breathe into my upper chest instead of my stomach.
-And at times I’ll even breathe out through my mouth.
-As my breathing devolves into this pattern I’ll also start to fidget more and pay less attention to my posture. This can result in racing throughts, etc.
As we’ll see next, there’s nothing relaxed or relaxing about breathing this way. If you notice yourself doing any of these things I’d recommend being more aware of your breath so you can make corrections and feel better. You’ll find some suggestions below.
The Way A Dog Breathes While Asleep
One day I was watching a friend’s dog breathe while it was sleeping. The first observation was that he was breathing through his nose. We’re supposed to breathe through our noses and not our mouths. It paces our breathing a bit and the nose is designed to clean, warm. and moisturize the air coming into our bodies among other things. Those nose hairs are there for a reason.
He also breathed into his belly which indicates deep breathing. Deep breathing means breathing into the bottom part of the lungs more so than simply taking in as much air volume as possible. And breathing into the lower part of the lungs keeps the body and mind in a more parasympathetic state of relaxation and recovery by stimulating the vagus nerve.
I also noticed the dog’s breathing was fairly rapid. I’ve read a fair amount about the Buteyko Breathing method which suggests that the cause for many chronic health issues like asthma could be overbreathing. A certain level of overbreathing can diminish carbon dioxide levels in the body which has negative health impacts and can actually reduce oxygenation of the body’s tissues and cause constriction of blood vessels and airways.
Therefore one of the tenets of the Buteyko approach is to slow down the rate of breathing. But this dog was actually breathing pretty quickly. It was just relaxed and effortless, and I think that’s the key more than the pace. It occurred to me that I may have inadvertently been practicing Buteyko breathing incorrectly and had been holding my exhales back to some extent as a way to slow down my breath. The more I’ve paid attention , the slight restriction of my exhale actually makes me feel more tense.
I digress, but the dog’s breaths in were relatively quick. However they were deep. As into his stomach. And his exhales were quite rapid as well. The exhale almost had the sound and cadence of a sigh. But it wasn’t a true sigh given the dog was sleeping. It was more of a simple letting go. There was no resistance of the air on the way out. His whole rib cage just relaxed and the air flowed out quickly and easily. There was no pause between the inhale and exhale. As soon as his inhale was complate he exhaled immediately. And it also wasn’t a full forced exhale. Just letting it out easily.
In contrast to the inhale, there was a short pause at the end of his exhale. While holding at the top of my inhale doesn’t feel right to me, I’ve noticed that a quick pause after I exhale does feel relaxed and natural. Perhaps this is the way to achieve the Buteyko goal of fewer breaths per minute without creating any tension in the breathing muscles.
Sleeping Humans Breathe The Same Way
Shortly thereafter I noticed that a sleeping girlfriend was breathing the same way. Quick, deep nose breath in that immediately treansitioned into an easy and audible “letting go” through the nose on the exhale. With the same brief pause before inhaling again.
If mammals breathe this way when the conscious mind is turned off and at rest, I have to think this is a natural breathing pattern we should pay attention to.
I also began to notice that any time I was having trouble falling asleep there was something off with my breathing pattern. So I began to consciously breath like I was already sleep. And I found that it usually put me to sleep rather quickly.
So I decided to use this breathing pattern in my day to day life to see what would happen.
And I learned that it helps me stay more calm and focused when I feel stress and tension building. I don’t hold tension when I breathe this way. I feel more in control of my mind and I feel sharper. And my sense of well being is greater overall.
Technique Cues
To distill this down to some actionable bullet points, here are the main things I focus on:
-An easy breath into my stomach. Not particularly slow or fast, just easy and “deep”. Meaning breathing into my stomach as opposed to shallow chest breathing.
-No pause at the end of my inhale. This helps avoid any sort of tension in my rib cage that might feel like I’m holding my breath. I just transition to my exhale immediately.
-My exhale is simply a letting go. If I don’t fight the exhale, the weight of my shoulders, chest, and back just push the air out naturally and easily. It’s a quick exhale, and it’s audible. I can hear the air coming out through my nose. It also doesn’t feel like a full exhale as I mentioned above. Maybe 2/3 of an exhale. In my experience, unless the muscles of my rib cage and diaphragm contract and clamp down hard enough to push all of the air out of my lungs, a relaxed exhale never expels all of the air in my lungs. I believe this helps retain some of the carbon dioxide that creates the Bohr Effect in the body. Higher levels of CO2 in the blood actually facilitate the release of oxygen from hemoglobin to the tissues of the body. This increases oxygenation and aligns with the objectives of Buteyko Breathing.
-I naturally pause briefly at the end of my exhale, but there isn’t any tension or constriction on the rib cage at all. It feels natural and unstrained in any way.
-I don’t count my inhale/exhale/pause. And I don’t concern myself with how quick or slow my breathing pace is. It changes from situation to situation. It might increase during stress or when I’m walking. Maybe it slows down when relaxed. The body’s need for oxygen changes and I just roll with what it wants.
Watch A Dog When It Breathes
Give these cues a try if you feel you could use some help learning to breathe for relaxation. And pay attention to your dog or your loved ones sometime while they’re sleeping and see if you can pick up on the pattern. Ultimately that’s a better way to understand what I’m trying to describe with words.
Is it appropriate to breathe like we’re asleep when we’re awake? I don’t have any data at my fingertips to say definitively, but it has been beneficial for me. There are so many breathing techniques out there, and many of them require certain counts and cadences. But I’ve ultimately never found them to feel natural or particularly beneficial. For me, focusing on the breathing patterns we use subconsciously when we’re at rest has proven to work best. They seem to be hardwired into our genetics.
Give it a try and please leave a comment if you have any particular outcomes, good or bad.