Deep breathing: Mistakes to avoid when taking a deep breath

Suggesting to someone who is anxious or stressed that they take a deep breath to help calm themselves is a universally recognised technique. It is also (almost) universally delivered with the intention of being helpful. The problem? There’s are good ways and bad ways to take a deep breath.

Ask someone to take a deep breath and watch what they do. 

They will probably puff their chest and raise their shoulders. This limits how deep they can breathe because they are focusing on their intercostal muscles (bands of muscles between the ribs) rather than the diaphragm (the dome-shaped muscle at the bottom of the rib cage) to inhale. The diaphragm is responsible for drawing in about 75% of the air we breathe. If we don’t use it, we are greatly diminishing our lung capacity.

A second common action is to gasp for air. Sounds like a great way to fill the lungs, right? Unfortunately, theis can lead to repeated fast inhalations that trigger our sympathetic nervous system—the fight or flight response. Combine fast breathing with upper chest breathing and you have a recipe for disaster. When the fight or flight system is triggered, we release the stress hormone cortisol into the bloodstream. This can increase stress and anxiety–not what we need when we are already stressed and anxious.

Once cortisol is released into the blood it takes 1-2 hours for us to return to baseline levels. That’s a long time, especially if your response to a cortisol hit is dysfunctional breathing because that can potentially lead you into a repeating cycle of stress and anxiety.

The third thing people tend to do when taking a deep breath is focus on the inhalation. Inhalations don’t promote relaxation. Rather, our parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) is engaged by long, slow exhalations. Those exhalations stimulate the vagus nerves and release feel-good neurotransmitters and hormones. The result? Relaxation

So, if telling someone to take a deep breath isn’t helpful, what should we say?

Ideally, get the person to sit down. This reduces the load on the diaphragm (its secondary job is to stabilise your core). Ask them to take a light, slow breath in through the nose and to exhale slowly through the nose. You could even suggest they put their hand on the abdomen so they can feel the inhalation. It’s not about using the belly to breathe. Rather, the hand will draw the focus away from the upper chest and encourage the body to use the diaphragm. Do this for at least a minute but the longer the better.

This kind of exercise can help reduce stress and anxiety. However, if we practice this technique every day, it can keep our baseline cortisol levels low. It can also train our parasympathetic nervous system to respond faster and more effectively to cortisol spikes.

So, the next time you’re helping someone who’s stressed, a light, slow, deep breath is a great response. That, and of course, a nice cup of tea!