Here's what happens when you get really anxious your breathing gets really shallow.
It looks like this.
I'm getting a little light headed there.
This triggers the sympathetic nervous system blood rushes to your muscles maybe you feel
some butterflies in your stomach your pupils dilate your focus becomes really fine.
That's what the sympathetic nervous system does it's changing what's going on in your
body to prepare yourself for potential dangerous situations.
But if you're someone who really struggles with anxiety all the sensations can be a bit
overwhelming.
That's where the parasympathetic nervous system comes in.
The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for calming down your body undoing all that
anxiety and there's actually a shortcut to triggering it deep diaphragmatic breathing.
Instead of taking shallow breaths from your chest when you're actually going to be doing
is taking deep breaths from your diaphragm that's the thing right behind your belly button
when you're doing deep diaphragmatic breathing your belly goes out when you inhale and then
slowly exhale lowering your belly This is really hard to learn at first.
So easy way to do it is by taking an object maybe like a book and put it on your belt.
Just practice lifting it.
And lowering it.
This will get you in the habit of just knowing what it feels like to use your diaphragm.
Then keep the object there and practice breathing in as your belly goes up and then slowly exhaling
as your belly goes down.
Probably want practices laying down on the floor or maybe your bed at first it's a little
bit easier to use your diaphragm that way once you get really good at this you can move
up to practicing it when you're sitting in a chair and then standing if you're having
trouble with your sinuses You can also do this using pursed lips almost like you're
breathing through a straw and taking a slow inhale.
As a New Yorker I often tell kids to think about this as pizza breathing.
Imagine you got a nice fresh slice of pizza in front of you and you're taking a slow inhale
like you're smelling it your belly goes out because you're so hungry and then you slowly
breathe out cooling down the slice.
There are similar forms of breathing involved in yoga and meditation.
And what they all have in common is a slow.
Breath.
When do you use diaphragmatic breathing?
Well it's recommended to do it periodically in a day.
The more you do deep diaphragmatic breathing the more calm you're going to feel.
Now I don't want you to start using this immediately when you're in very anxiety provoking situations.
If you haven't mastered it and then you try using it when you're highly anxious it's probably
not going to work and you're going to feel like a failure.
The other thing is we don't want this to become a safety behavioral safety behaviors are things
you have to do otherwise you can't go through the situation like maybe you have a fear of
being in an elevator but you're OK being in an elevator with a partner or friend if deep
diaphragmatic breathing is the only way you can be in an elevator when you haven't really
overcome your fear.
One more situation where you don't want to use deep diaphragmatic breathing if you're
at risk for fainting diaphragmatic breathing is going to calm your body lower your blood
pressure and if you're at risk for having a vasovagal fainting response diaphragmatic
breathing can make you more likely to faint.
So don't do it then check out the link in the description below for an audio file that
has a much longer guided version of deep diaphragmatic breathing.
Have you ever used diaphragmatic breathing or similar types of deep breathing?
Let me know in the comments below.
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