Why does taking deep breaths help ease stress and anxiety?
In: Biology
Anything that takes your mind off of whatever’s frightening you will help.
While you’re thinking about your breathing, you’re not thinking so much about that other thing, whatever it is.
There is even a technique that some therapists use when a person is having a panic attack: “Name five things you see in this room.” Just taking the time to say: “Chair. Table. Lamp. Picture. Book.” will sometimes be enough to help you get control of yourself. If not, they’ll ask you to name five more things.
The body’s responses sometimes work via a feedback loop. When you’re going into fight or flight, hormones are released, causing things like fasting breathing, and a faster heart rate, which in turn can cause more hormones to be released.
Deep breaths can help to reverse that feedback loop, and to return to a homeostasis. Our physiology and physical actions are connected.
I don’t know scientifically but I believe that other than chemical effects, that concentrating on breathing helps you think think less about whatever is stressful
The changes in our body from stress and anxiety are caused by the fight-or-flight response. During this response, chemicals are pushed into the blood that cause increased blood flow to our muscles and brain and we end up breathing quicker to maintain this high energy state. When we expended the energy or are able to breathe slowly again, the body starts to tune the response down.
The response is great for physical stressors like a large predator chasing us or running away from a natural disaster. Once you’ve expended the energy and are able to breathe normally again, the stressor is gone and your body can relax.
However, in our complicated world today, most stressors are often not physical. Anxiety about money, relationships, or even just purpose in life can trigger this fight-or-flight response. Physically fighting against it typically goes against the law. Running away ends up making it worse. Therefore, we have to manage this stress response in other ways.
Forcing ourselves to breathe slower tricks the body to thinking that we’re more relaxed and will turn down the stress response. Another way is to exercise and expend the extra energy in the body caused by stress. Once we’re able to control our biological response, it’s a lot easier to deal with the actual stressor with a clear mind.
Inside your brain there is a collection of small whoopie cushions, taking deep breaths helps to inflate these cushions which upon exhaling will make them go ‘PPPBBBBFTTTTTPPPRRFART’
Thusly being fucking hilarious and cheering up all your brain cells a little bit.
One reason is because deep breathing increases carbon dioxide levels in the blood, which quiets down parts of the brain, like the amygdala, that handle your anxiety response. It also helps synchronize your heartbeat and breathing. [Source](https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/mind/stress/why-deep-breathing-makes-you-feel-so-chill#:~:text=Deep%20breathing%20(sometimes%20called%20diaphragmatic,span%20and%20lower%20pain%20levels.) for more info on that.
Other reasons can generally be described as reversing the cause/effect chain of the sympathetic nervous system, but that’s an oversimplification. Think of it this way, if stress causes things like increased heartrate, dilated blood vessels in skeletal muscle, and whatnot, diaphragmatic breathing uses all sorts of mechanisms (cellular, mechanical, etc.) to reverse that flow. It would be like if stress caused the head of a drum to vibrate faster and faster, and diaphragmatic breathing was essentially you placing your hand on the drum to reduce those vibrations. [Here is a pretty good article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7602530/#:~:text=Diaphragmatic%20motion%20in%20breathing%20directly,by%20modulating%20intra%2Dabdominal%20pressure.) on some of that.
The Vagus Nerve would be a good place to begin your investigations before you even think about the blood analytics mentioned in the thread – try this for a lighter understanding https://www.healthline.com/human-body-maps/vagus-nerve
I was always told that it gives my brain something to focus on that’s right here and now that I can control. I can’t think about whatever I’m anxious about if I’m focusing on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. It always helped me so much when my anxiety flared into a panic attack.
When we are anxious, our sympathetic or “fight or flight” nervous system kicks in causing our heart rate to rise, adrenaline to be secreted, the digestive system to halt, our pupils to dilate, blood to be rushed to our extremities, etc. Deep breathing triggers our parasympathetic or “calming” nervous system, which is responsible for reversing the effects of the sympathetic nervous system.
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