What do Yoga teachers, meditation leaders, mindfulness practitioners, Navy SEALs, firefighters, paramedics, and elite athletes all have in common? Take a moment to think about the relaxed state many of these different categories of people can be in. Even in high-stress situation soldiers, firefighters and paramedics can keep their shit together and get the job done.
“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breathe ”
During moments of stress, your thoughts are often drawn toward past regrets and worries about the future. Thankfully, you possess a free tool that can be used to manage stress — your breath.
Often undervalued, breathing is one of the most important things you can do to control your anxiety and stress. The military has been using tactical breathing techniques for years. Soldiers rely on these techniques to reduce stress and calm themselves down in crises. The exact breathing techniques have been adopted by elite athletes to gain focus and control in the heat of competition. Tactical breathing has been shown to help control anxiety and nervousness in high stress situations.
During stressful moments conscious breathing allows you to shift and release negative energy, instead of storing it in your body. This is important because stored-up energy often manifests as muscle tension and other physical ailments.
When nervous, stressed, angry, or anxious, most people tend to alter their natural breathing pattern – some people breathe shallowly, and others hold their breath. Research done in 2007 found that “paying attention to breathing significantly reduced respiratory rate and decreased tidal volume instability, and that shallow breathing made all groups more anxious than the other breathing methods” [1]. To understand the results of breathing instructions for stress and anxiety management, respiration needs to be monitored physiologically.
A 1-day breathing exercise was found to relieve the emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation induced by job burnout. [4]
Tactical Breathing/ Combat Breathing/ Square Breathing/ Box Breathing/ Yogic Breathing
Inhale deeply through your nose, expanding your stomach for the count of 4seconds
Hold that breath in for a count of 4seconds
Slowly exhale all the air out through your mouth, contracting your stomach for the count of 4seconds
Hold the empty breath for the count of 4seconds
TIPS:
Finding a relaxing, quiet space to do the breathing exercise is important for maintaining focus.
Get comfortable, sit in a relaxing chair or bed, and be focused on your breath.
Experts suggest that you “scan your body” for any signs of stress or tension.
While breathing, try to keep your legs, arms, shoulders, neck, and head as loose as possible.
If you need some extra guidance, think of a positive thought or mental image – that should help give you something to focus on.
You can even repeat the popular meditation chant “Ohmmm” like a Buddhist monk if you need to.
In India, breath work called Pranayama is a regular part of yoga practice. Yoga practitioners have used Pranayama, which means control of the life force, as a tool for affecting both the mind and body for thousands of years.
Benefits of Box Breathing (when done correctly):
Regulates autonomic nervous system (ANS)
Lowers blood pressure
Provides a sense of calm
Enhances the cardio-inhibitory response of the vagus nerve
Stimulates your parasympathetic system
Gives a relaxed feeling in the mind and body
Improves your mood
Reduces stress
Treats insomnia
Helps manage pain
All involuntary processes, controlled by autonomic nervous system (ANS), like the digestion of food or beating of our heart, continue to occur, without considering our will, can be in one of two states, "rest-and-digest" or "fight-or-flight". When the body goes into the “fight-or-flight” mode, it experiences threat and accordingly reacts to allow the person to avoid or come out of that stressful situation. Various changes take place inside our body at the physiological level when it is into the “flight-or-flight” state, including release of hormones that lead to faster beating of heart, elevated blood sugar levels and quick breathing. Restoring your normal breathing pattern or utilising it to get out of the "flight-or-fight" state is equally advantageous to physical and mental health.
Exposing the body to stressful situations too frequently or for a longer duration (chronic stress) can be deleterious to our health. This may result in damage to our various bodily systems. Chronic stress may enhance risk of several conditions, including headaches, high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke.
Research from a randomised controlled trial suggested that a 7-days intensive residential Yoga programme that included Pranayama reduced anxiety and depression in patients with chronic low back pain. [5]. A growing number of clinical studies have demonstrated that breathing meditation may represent a new non-pharmacological approach for improving specific aspects of attention. Three months of intensive focused attention meditation have been found to reduce variability in attentional processing of target tones and to enhance attentional task performance. [6]. Further studies have investigated cognitive and emotional improvement simultaneously, and have indicated that brief mental training sessions can enhance sustained attention as well as reduce fatigue and anxiety. [7] Some researchers believe that the relaxation generated by peaceful breathing helped to manage inattention symptoms among children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). [8]
Physiological evidence has indicated that even a single breathing practice significantly reduces blood pressure, increases heart rate variability (HRV) [9,10] and oxygenation [11], enhances pulmonary function [12], and improves cardio-respiratory fitness and respiratory muscle strength. [12]
“Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment. Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them - without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune in to what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.”
How does breathing deeply control stress and anxiety?
Breathing techniques, such as box breathing, work because of the physiological effect breathing has on the nervous system. Breathing slowly and deeply activates the hypothalamus in the barain, which is connected to the pituitary gland in the brain and lowers the release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This triggers a relaxing response from the body.
Breathing deeply and slowly also triggers the para-sympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) to secrete hormones that decrease blood pressure and heart rate, which also induces a relaxation response in the body. Research has shown that enhanced attention and reduced levels of cortisol in participants, who performed breathing exercise. [3]
Harvard researcher Herbert Benson coined the term "The Relaxation Response" in 1975 with a book of the same name. In it, Benson used scientific research to show that short periods of meditation, using breathing as a focus, could alter the body's stress response. In his book, Relaxation Revolution, Benson claims his research shows that breathing can even change the expression of genes. He says that by using your breath, you can alter the basic activity of your cells with your mind. [2]
Of course, breathing is not the answer to every medical problem. But Benson and others agree: breath work isn't something Western medicine should blow off, it's a powerful tool for influencing individual health and well-being. And the best part is all the ingredients are free and right under your nose.
Summary
Unarguably, box breathing is a great way to enhance your attention and concentration and lower stress and anxiety in tour daily lives. Like many breathing techniques, box breathing has been shown to bring short- as well as long-term health benefits to its practitioners. While more research is required, the current findings are enough to regard box breathing as an extremely effective way to boost focus, deal with stress, boost mood and mental state.
References:
Psychophysiological Effects of Breathing Instructions for Stress Management, Ansgar Conrad, et al. 2007
Relaxation Revolution, The Science and Genetics of Mind-Body Healing, Benson, Herbert. Proctor, William. 2010
The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults, Xiao Ma, et al, 2017
BREATHE: a pilot study of a one-day retreat to reduce burnout among mental health professionals. Salyers MP, et al, 2011
A comprehensive yoga programs improves pain, anxiety and depression in chronic low back pain patients more than exercise: an RCT. Tekur, P. et al. 2012
Mental training enhances attentional stability: neural and behavioral evidence. Lutz, A. Et al. 2009
Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: evidence of brief mental training. Zedan, F. et al 2010
Biofeedback video games to teach ADHD children relaxation skills to help manage symptoms. Amon, K. et al. 2011
Effect of slow abdominal breathing combined with biofeedback on blood pressure and heart rate variability in prehypertension. Wang, SZ. et al 2010
Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? Lehrer, PM. et al. 2014
Effect of breathing rate on oxygen saturation and exercise performance in chronic heart failure. Bernardi, L. et al. 1998
Role of diaphragmatic breathing and aerobic exercise in improving pulmonary function and maximal oxygen consumption in asthmatics. Shaw, I. et al. 2010