Feeling Anxious? How to Breathe your Way to Calm

In these challenging times, when anxiety can seem to hit us like a wave, it can be difficult to know where to turn for relief. The options for relief can feel overwhelming, expensive, unavailable or time-consuming. But of the most accessible and effective ways to bring calm is already within us – our breath.

Each of us takes as many as 30,000 breaths in a single day. Most of those breaths go unnoticed, but in fact, they can be a key tool to optimizing our health and wellbeing.  As one of the eight limbs of yoga, breath work, or pranayama, is itself a practice just like asana or meditation, and it can take different forms – from simply breathing deeply into the belly, to more advanced manipulations of the breath. Each pranayama practice serves a purpose – whether to calm anger, bring in more energy, or reduce anxiety.

So how does it work? Breath is tied to the nervous system. When we inhale, we activate the sympathetic nervous system, or the ”flight or fight” response. Think about when you are startled by a noise outside your home at night, and gasp. When we exhale, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, enabling us to calm and enable healing. Think about the deep sigh of relief when you realize that what startled you is just the wind.

To function optimally on a daily basis, we need both aspects of the nervous system to operate in tandem to keep us safe and well. However, when anxiety is high, we need to focus more on turning on the parasympathetic nervous system and eliciting a relaxation response to bring balance.

Here are some pranayama exercises you can try to help bring calm when anxiety is high.

1:2 Ratio Breath – Perhaps the most straightforward way to use the breath to trigger the relaxation response is to emphasize the relaxing aspect of the breath as described above – the exhale. If you feel yourself getting anxious, but don’t have the space or time to sit down for a more involved pranayama practice, you can easily welcome in calm simply by extending your exhales longer than your inhales.

For several breath cycles, try inhaling deep into the belly for a count of four, and exhaling fully for a count of eight. You can do this for as long and as often as you need to help bring a sense of calm.

Nadi shodhana – This breath, also referred to as alternate nostril breathing, works to balance the subtle energetic channels of the body – the ida and the pingala, which intertwine and spiral as they move up through the central channel of the body, representing the opposing forces of light and dark, night and day, energy and rest. Just like with the inhales and exhales, we seek to bring these two forces into balance for optimal wellbeing.

To practice nadi shodhana, bring the second and third fingers of your right hand to rest at your third eye center. Rest the right thumb on the right side of the nose, and the right fourth finger on the left side of your nose, tucking the right pinky finger in. Exhale all the air out the nose. Press your thumb against your nose, blocking the right nostril, as you inhale through the left nostril. Hold at the top of the inhale, then release the right nostril and block the left for the exhale. Hold at the bottom of the exhale. Keep the left nostril blocked as you inhale through the right, hold, then switch and exhale through the left nostril. Repeat for several minutes.

Sitali – Sitali, or the cooling breath, can help pacify some of the fiery pitta energy that largely corresponds to the sympathetic nervous system being switched on. Practice this and see if you feel more of a sense of cooling and calm. 

To begin, roll your tongue and bring it just outside of your lips, so it creates a kind of straw. If you cannot roll your tongue, bring it the roof of your mouth, where your palate meets the back of your front teeth. Inhale through the “straw”, drawing the air in through the mouth, and exhale the same way. Practice this for several minutes.

Healing Breath – This is a more advanced practice for which you’ll need a partner. One of you will take the seat of the healer, and the other, the seat of the receiver. The receiver should lie in a comfortable position to enable relaxation, while the healer sits next to them, as still as possible, maintaining a neutral mind. The healer will then gently rest their second and third fingers gently on the receiver, and mirror their breathing. Stay like this for up to 10 minutes.

This can help the receiver feel connected and supported. If the receiver works to breathe through the left nostril only, and the healer through the right nostril only, the two sides are balanced and healing can take place.

The ability to simply notice the breath and be more intentional about how it nourishes you is a hugely important step in calming your mind and body. Taking that a step further and implementing these pranayama practices can be transformative in helping manage during these anxiety-ridden times. Try them for yourself next time you feel overwhelmed or worried.

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LINKS:

Calm with Yoga – Pranayama for Anxiety: The Ancient Drug-Free Solution
Kripalu – A LifeForce Yoga Breating Practice to Ease Anxiety and Depression

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Hannah Slocum Darcy is a yoga teacher and a student at Prema Yoga Institute. She specializes in accessibility and adaptive practice for many life stages and scenarios.