There are very few people who are unable to relate to the concept of anxiety. It is an experience familiar to almost everyone, as we navigate the busyness and complexities of modern life. Magnified by the relentless digital accessibility that most of the world have adopted, it is no surprise that more and more people are seeking help for increasing anxiety. Anxiety is a serious problem for around 25% of the adult population at some time in their lives. Of even more concern is the increasing level of anxiety in our younger people - currently around 30% of Australian teenagers report anxiety as a serious concern for them.

These statistics are alarming..... another statistic that is on the rise, is the number of people turning to Breathing Retraining to manage and resolve their anxiety - an alternative to traditional management. Traditionally anxiety has been managed with medication and cognitive therapy. These strategies have mixed rates of success and are not significantly successful at preventing recurrent episodes. The course of treatment is lengthy and in many cases difficult to access, particularly for our young people. Once commenced, medication for anxiety tends to be taken for months if not years, despite significant side effects.

What is the link between breathing and anxiety?

Research has clearly shown that anxiety and dysfunctional breathing go hand in hand…. We know that more than 80% of anxiety sufferers breathe predominantly through their mouth. When you breathe through your mouth, your breathing is definitely dysfunctional and is definitely affecting your nervous system in a negative way. An important point to understand is that the way that we breathe throughout the day and night is what has a major effect on how stimulated and overloaded our nervous system is, and how anxious we feel. It's not just the way you breathe once you start feeling anxious. 

Most anxiety sufferers will be familiar with their breathing being rapid, shallow, unfulfilling and uneven when they are feeling anxious. As anxiety increases, their breathing becomes more erratic. Most anxiety sufferers will not be aware that the way they breathe all the time, even when they are feeling mild or minimal anxiety is leaving their nervous system in a state of elevation, vulnerable to being escalated very quickly. 

What does dysfunctional breathing mean?

Dysfunctional breathing is how we describe a breathing pattern that is different from the ideal, the way our bodies were designed to breathe. It is breathing in a way that affects many of your body systems negatively (think nerves, heart, brain, digestion, lungs etc) and has a big impact on the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. Tell-tale signs of breathing dysfunction include:

• Breathing through your mouth
• Breathing quickly (more than 10 times/minute)
• Upper chest breathing
• Irregular breathing (yawning, sighing, sneezing, breath holding etc)
• Snoring 

 For more detail on how to tell if your breathing is dysfunctional, read 5 most common breathing mistakes

How does breathing this way impact my anxiety?

The balance of gases in our blood stream has an impact throughout our body - it is this relationship that actually dictates how much oxygen is available to all of our cells throughout the day and night. When we breathe well, we retain carbon dioxide in our blood, which works to increase the amount of oxygen circulating to our body systems. Higher levels of carbon dioxide dilate our airways, enhance digestion, improve our immune response, balances pH, winds down our nervous system and calms our breathing further. 

When we breathe poorly, the opposite happens, we breathe most of our carbon dioxide out of our system, making less oxygen available for our cells to use. This in effect causes constriction of our airways, interrupts digestion, increases inflammatory responses, interferes with pH balance and activates our nervous system.

In a nutshell, this abnormal breathing switches on the “fight or flight” centre in your brain and keeps it activated, winding up your nervous system and escalating feelings of anxiety.

Carbon Dioxide - the modern answer to anxiety

The role of carbon dioxide is significant - it is not just a waste gas, to be ignored….it is actually your best ally if you are wanting to calm and regulate your nervous system and bring some long-term control to your anxiety. Changing your breathing to retain more carbon dioxide in your system has a wide spread impact, significantly affecting many of the typical anxiety symptoms (heart rate, breathing rate, sweating, digestion, blood pressure). The dampening effect it has on our sympathetic nervous system is one of the best tools you can have in your toolkit.

When carbon dioxide is low, our sympathetic nervous system is stimulated - nerve cells become excitable and agitated. You find yourself in a state of nervousness and tenseness. We have activated our fight or flight mode….

When carbon dioxide is high, our parasympatheic nervous system is in charge - nerve cells are latent. You find yourself in a calm and relaxed state. We have now activated our rest, digest, chill out mode…..

Why doesn’t anyone talk about breathing and anxiety?

Great question….. We don't really know! What we do know is that somewhere along the line of progress towards pharmaceutical significance, many front line medical professionals have become disconnected from awareness and consideration of the contributing factors to many illnesses and disease. Sometimes prescription is easy, quick and acceptable to the sufferer. 

What we do know is that breathing retraining works. Sometimes it works best when combined with pharmaceutical and psychological management, often it works very effectively on its own. What we also know is that anxiety sufferers who do work on their breathing wonder why it took them so long to find this treatment, and wish they tried it sooner….

So what does changing your breathing look like?

As mentioned earlier, to truly wind down that nervous system and move away from those regular tummy flutters that signal things are starting to come unstuck, we need to work on the way you breathe all day, and night…. This will mean that there is a MUCH bigger buffer between feeling great, and feeling a bit overwhelmed, and then another big buffer before things start to really get out of hand. It is unrealistic to think that there won’t be times when you do start to feel a bit overwhelmed - for these times, we have several simple, effective and quick strategies that can easily be implemented anywhere, without anyone else ever knowing, that will see you regather control of that nervous system and allow you to get on with your day. 

Changing your breathing involves working on how we breathe, activating our diaphragm, creating a regular, calm, smooth breathing pattern and making sure we breathe in a way that gives our bodies maximal oxygen while retaining high levels of carbon dioxide. 

The BreatheWell Program is a unique course that combines education with input and support every step of the way to ensure we work at a pace that is perfect for you, to bring your breathing and your anxiety under control. The BreatheWell Program guides you through the steps to change your breathing permanently and allow you to step away from anxiety and overwhelm.

Breathing well allows your body to run efficiently and to thrive.  Breathing well is a pleasure and will allow you to achieve so much more with your life.  Breathing well will bring calm to your nervous system and give you the tools to stop anxiety from ruling your life.

If you suffer from anxiety and overwhelm, let’s talk about how we can turn it around.  If you are ready to take control of your breathing and take control of your life, let’s get started!