How Deep Breathing Can Help Reduce Anxiety, Stress and Panic

August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Along with food and water, giving your body a supply of air is essential for maintaining your heath and well being. If you’re not breathing properly then this can cause imbalances in your blood and affect the way your body behaves.

Poor breathing can cause dizziness, shortness of breath and shaking, which are all too familiar symptoms if you suffer from anxiety or panic.

The key is to learn how to breathe deeply in a natural manner that fills your stomach and rib cage, as well as the top part of your chest, and it can be practiced using simple exercises throughout the day.

Why is breathing properly so important?

Breathing regulates the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your blood. Too much oxygen can cause you to feel agitated and nervous, whilst too much carbon dioxide might calm you temporarily but it can make you feel light headed and distort your responses.

Instead you should practice being able to breath deeply and naturally so that your body can maintain a healthy balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide and behave healthily.

Deep breathing is practiced as part of Tai Chi, Yoga and other forms of meditation due to its effectiveness in helping you think and behave in a clear, healthy manner.

The benefits of breathing properly include:

•    Release tension in your neck, chest and diaphragm
•    Reduce anxiety and panic by having a healthier balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your blood so you can think and behave in a calmer, clearer manner
•    Reduce build up of stress and tension throughout the day
•    When practicing as part of a meditation exercise, breathing can divert your attention from stressful, unhelpful thoughts
•    Exhaling for longer than you inhale will help you to relax

Why ‘just take a deep breath’ is bad advice

We’ve all heard the advice to ‘take a deep breath’ when we’re feeling stressed or anxious. However, the problem is that most people interpret this as taking rapid breaths, rather than deep, natural breathing that fills our stomach, as well as our upper chest.

Rapid breathing can simply imbalance the oxygen in your blood, causing you to feel more agitated and nervous. Deep natural breathing is slow and calm, rather than rapidly gulping down oxygen.

So how do I practice deep breathing?

Here are a few breathing exercises you can practice to train your body to keep a healthy balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, as well as help to reduce stress, panic and anxiety:

Sigh Breath

-   Take a moderate breathe through your nose and then slowly exhale, prolonging your exhale for longer than your inhale.
-    As you exhale try and relax the muscles in your face and shoulders to release any built up tension.
-    When you next inhale, try and divert your attention to the sights and sounds around you without passing judgement on your thoughts but just letting them flow
-    This breathing technique works well with mindfulness meditation because it focuses your thoughts away from whatever stresses you’re feeling that day.
-    Sigh breathing can be practiced whenever you’ve got a spare minute or two throughout the day, and can help you learn to regulate your breathing.

Easy Breathing

-    focus on only your breathing for 3-4 minutes.
-    Ignore everything around you other than your breathing
-    move your chest and diaphragm in harmony so that you’re breathing naturally, rather than forced
-    concentrating on your breathing in this way will divert your thoughts from your anxiety and stress

4-7-8 Breathing

-    inhale for four seconds, hold it in for seven seconds then slowly release your breath for eight seconds
-    As you exhale release the anxiety , stress and tension from your muscles, shoulder and face
-    this exercise helps you to exhale for longer than you inhale, which can help your body relax if you’re feeling nervous
-    you could practice this at any time, whether on public transport, waiting in a cue or when you’re just at home to help calm your breathing

There are plenty of other breathing exercises you can practice which you can learn more about from books and other resources on the net.

Healthy breathing is an important part of coping with and reducing anxiety, so try a few different breathing exercises to find which ones work best for you and in which situations.

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, anxiety treatment, breathing, meditation, social anxiety disorder

How Mindfulness Meditation Can Reduce Your Anxiety

July 15, 2008 | 4 Comments

[Photo courtesy Gerry K.]

Along with being more active and regular exercise, mindfulness meditation is highly recommended for overcoming social anxiety. Its popularity amongst psychotherapists has grown tremendously in recent years, because of its effectiveness in treating depression, anxiety and chronic pain.

Mindfulness helps you learn to let troubling thoughts pass through your mind without causing you to feel upset. When meditating, you simply suspend your judgement on whether something is good or bad. This can help you make more realistic assessments of the people and situations that would otherwise make you feel anxious.

Anxiety is driven by painful memories of the past and unhelpful predictions of the future. Mindfulness meditation helps you to break out of these modes of thinking, and focus more objectively on the present.

What is mindfulness meditation?

Mindfulness meditation originates in Zen Buddhism. Its success in helping those suffering from depression or anxiety has led to its popularity as a self help technique.

Mindfulness is a state in which you focus on the present: the sounds in the trees, the softness of your cushions and the feelings in your body. Whilst meditating, you observe your thoughts as they arrive and then simply allow them to pass by, without passing judgement on whether they’re true or not.

With practice (and patience) mindfulness meditation teaches you to treat thoughts as just temporary pulses in your mind. This can help to reduce your tendency to automatically assume your thoughts are facts, which in turn can reduce how they make you feel.

The ability to accept thoughts and feelings as temporary sensations can help you to control how you respond. If they’re unhelpful or inaccurate then you’ll be able to let them pass by without them making you feel upset.

How do I practice mindfulness?

Take ten minutes out of your day. Find somewhere quiet. Sit or lie in a comfortable position, and slowly relax your breathing.

Focus your thoughts on the world around you: where can you feel tension in your body, what you can hear from the street or smell in the room. Allow yourself to accept the present, and that things are just the way that they are.

When you first try meditating your thoughts will probably wander. So when you start playing over things in the past or worrying about the future, allow your thoughts to pass by without making judgements. Just accept them as merely thoughts, rather than facts.

A useful technique is to imagine your thoughts as passing cars. See yourself as a pedestrian watching them as they arrive and then disappear into the distance, without you catching a lift or giving them too much attention.

Through mindfulness meditation you should notice how your mind is constantly chattering away, with thoughts constantly coming and going.

Your thoughts aren’t facts

If you suffer from depression or low self esteem then your thought processes are often inaccurate and unhelpful. By using mindfulness to suspend judgement on your thoughts, rather than assume they’re facts, you’ll be able to make more objective judgements on whether they’re accurate.

You can practice mindfulness at anytime. Try using it when you’re walking down a crowded street. Treat your negative thoughts about people looking down on you as merely temporary impulses passing through your brain. Accept your negative thinking as something that’s rooted in your past, and not something that’s a fact about your present.

I know this sounds easier than done. But with practice and patience you should find that other time mindfulness meditation can help suspend your negative automatic judgements. If they’re unhelpful or inaccurate then just let them pass by like cars on the road.

You feel the way that you think

Anxiety is caused by your brain constantly making judgements based on past memories and future predictions. Mindfulness teaches you to focus on the present.

Learning to suspend your judgements on people and situations before you’ve got evidence to form an opinion will help you respond more objectively. Over time this should help reduce your anxiety and live in the present without letting unhelpful thoughts affect how you feel.

Mindfulness meditation takes practice and patience.

However, its effectiveness and popularity for treating depression and anxiety means it’s another valuable daily exercise you should add to your strategy for overcoming social anxiety disorder.

Posted by Matt | Filed Under Blog, meditation, social anxiety disorder

How to Say ‘No’ for a Less Stressful or Anxious Life

May 12, 2008 | 1 Comment

[Image courtesy of ganessas]

Feeling that you have to say ‘yes’ to every request for help is a symptom of the ‘disease to please’. Whilst doing favours for people is just part of everyday life, sometimes running errands for friends or covering for work colleagues can be an unfair demand on your free time.

But if you suffer from social anxiety then saying ‘no’ can be difficult because of your fear of displeasing people or being rejected. It’s a mistake to think this way, and living your life running around trying to keep other people happy is not the recipe for healthy relationships in which your needs are respected.

So learning how to be more assertive and say a simple two letter word can be the magic pill to help reduce your stress levels and boost your self esteem.

In my previous post about learning to be assertive, I discussed how you have to take a step back and objectively assess the personal cost of requests before reaching a decision. But just saying ‘no’ is still fraught with hazards if you’re socially anxious or lack confidence.

You have to learn how to be assertive in turning down requests so that people respect your decision.

How to say ‘no’ assertively

Firstly, take a sledgehammer to the people pleasing thought pattern that says you ‘always have to be nice’ and not doing what people ask is selfish. Your free time is just as important as everybody else’s, and if picking up someone else’s laundry means you wont be able to go on your daily jog then say ‘no’. If a request is going to be an unfair personal cost then saying ‘no’ is just being fair to yourself rather than being selfish.

Here are a few tips on how to say ‘no’ assertively to convince others you mean it and are being fair:

If you’re asked to lend someone money and you’re worried they might not pay you back say, “I wish I could, but as a rule I don’t lend money to friends.” Unpaid debts can sour relationships, so sidestep the risk by declining in a way that doesn’t make it personal.
Be helpful by offering suggestions or alternatives to solve the problem - “I’m unavailable that week, but why don’t you ask Ted if he can feed your cat.”
Negotiate around your reasons for declining a request (negotiation is a key assertiveness skill which I’ll be discussing in my next post) - “No I can’t cover your shift this week, but how about you cover for me next Tuesday and then I’ll cover for you the following week?”
Be polite but firm. If they won’t take no for an answer simply repeat your position in different ways until they get the message, or get bored of asking - “As I already said…”
Don’t make up excuses. It’s always better to tell the truth or just say it’s inconvenient. You only have to get caught out once to damage people’s trust in you.
Place a limit on the time you can commit or specify a day. That way you can prevent helping clean out a neighbour’s garage grow into wallpapering their spare room.
Whenever possible, allow yourself time to assess what is being asked of you. Say you’ll get back to them later so you aren’t under pressure to make a rushed decision you might regret later on.
Deciding whether to give a long or short answer can vary, but don’t sound overly apologetic or make excuses. Saying your busy or don’t have time should be enough.

Whilst helping out friends, family and work colleagues can be good karma, being able to say ‘no’ when it’s an unfair drain on your own free time is what you have to be able to do for a less stressful life. Remember that spending time pursuing your goals and priorities is just as important as everyone else’s. So learn to say ‘no’ assertively without shame to overcome your social anxiety fears and cure yourself of the ‘disease to please’.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Blog, Childhood, Social anxiety news, anxiety treatment, meditation, social anxiety disorder