Meditation or Breathing for Anxiety?

There's a tendency to assume that feeling anxious is due to external circumstances. And in all fairness, they can play a big part …sometimes a very big part. I probably don't need to mention current international conflicts, climate change or significant political shifts. But what if you just feel a little bit anxious most of the time when others in similar situations don't? Is it a result of living in a world that's at odds with our nature? 

We have indeed been born into societies with rules and agreements to which we must adhere as well as those to which we feel we must adhere. Agreements? Any time there’s a widely accepted ‘should’, we're abiding by an agreement that has no legal basis nor is it based on truth. As a former teacher I'm a little uneasy knowing that I was part of the perpetuated and potentially stress-inducing ‘agreement’ that those students who didn't get the grades were heading for a life of hardship. Of course this is untrue. There's far more to life than the narrow channels of education. Another agreement relates to the world of ‘health’. I use the term loosely as we've clearly been successfully persuaded that pharmaceutical-based medicine is the gold standard for maintaining good health which, of course it isn't. Our medical system typically responds to symptoms without looking at the whole person or the potential root cause of an illness. In other words, the problem has already manifested. Living healthily needs a far more integrated approach than our doctors are trained for or can possibly manage. And of course there are other ‘agreements’ such as our sense of self worth, or lack of it, depending on our level of busyness.

Rules and agreements of one sort or another have been with us for centuries but the pace of change is now faster than we've ever known it. Just in my lifetime, (historically at least a microscopically short time), I've witnessed black and white television, colour came later, video recorders, DVD players, through to on-demand viewing of media thanks to Internet technology. And that's just screen-related entertainment.

There were also cabled telephones with dials which, followed by push button dials, lasted a while until the introduction of mobile telephony which swiftly became the smart phone enabling us to shop, do our banking, have access to more media including 24 hour news and, of course, relentless, unlimited social media. Our attention has become a commodity and it's happened so quickly, we've barely had time to notice.

Doesn't this scream for the urgent need for meditation to slow us down, allow us to regain at least some of our attention and see who we really are when the noise and activity subsides? I believe it does. Meditation is a practice, training the mind to return to stillness every time it wanders, which it will. The practice is noticing that the mind has got lost in thought and bringing it back again and again and again. The effects of sustained practice are likely to extend into everyday life as this brain training, which it is, strengthens areas of the brain involved in focus and attention whilst dampening those that have become over-responsive to perceived problems, threats, dangers, and unwelcome challenges. 

There are many more positive consequences of a meditation practice than those described above, more compassion, creativity and freedom from compulsive judgements along with their associated emotional responses to name just a few. But it was specifically the over-responsiveness that meditation didn't seem to help me with. I assumed my tendency to be constantly on the alert must be a character trait, part of who I was.

It's only in the last year or two that I've noticed something that was almost certainly happening sooner, gradually and subtly. I'm happier. That state of being always-on-the-look-out for danger, for reasons to worry about what might happen, that feeling isn't there anymore. I'm not suggesting that I'm impervious to feeling anxious should a situation arise that does give me cause for alarm, but I am saying that my brain is no longer on the constant look out for something to happen. It's no longer creating a background hum of anxiety that ensures I'm further up the spiral of overreaction when something challenging does occur. So what's changed?

The answer is my breathing. After goodness knows how many years of moderate overwhelm from life in the modern world coupled with some bigger challenges my breathing had become habitually shallow and a little bit too fast for my body's needs. Nobody knew I was breathing too fast and that included me! How do you notice something that feels so normal? Quite simply, you don't. It's remarkably common. Specific figures vary, but there's consensus that there's been a noteworthy increase in the average rate of breaths per minute in as little as the last 40 years. But why does it matter? 

Our breathing rate increases in response to a threat. It's part of the preparedness that enables us to either fight or flee from the situation. It served our ancestors well. Their ‘threats’ may well have killed them and eaten them for dinner. Most of today's threats pose no such life-or-death danger but the response is the same and with so many recurrent stressors a pattern of unsupportive breathing can take hold without us noticing. And it's bi-directional. A structure in the brain called the Locus Coeruleus effectively spies on our breathing. On getting the message that breathing is faster than (natural) normal the brain feeds back to the body that it needs to respond as there must be a danger. The nervous system goes on the alert and thus a sense of stress and anxiety starts to be part of our every day experience. 

I can't get this message out widely enough! How many of us experience this added layer of anxiety without even knowing? A BOLT or Control Pause test (they're the same thing) would give an indication of how your brain's respiratory centre is currently managing your breathing. There's a description at the bottom of the page if you want to try it. 

This doesn't mean I favour breathing over meditation. It may need to be prioritised, but a meditation sitting can incorporate breathing retraining. This is a little different from simply observing one's breathing and coming back to it when the mind wanders. That approach, whilst formerly an ideal way to practise, has lost some of its value due to the way so many of us now breathe. Once optimal breathing is restored, however, breath observation can be a thoroughly relaxing and highly portable meditation. 

Do we need both? My answer is a resounding yes! This is not simply about the restoration of functional breathing to reduce anxiety, improve sleep and all the other associated mind and body health benefits. I frequently extol the virtues of healthy breathing patterns since my own experience has been so remarkable. But progress would almost certainly have been slower and more challenging without my 15 years of meditation and all the learning that's come with it. I would have missed out on the brain training enabling me to shift my attention away from the rumination in my mind, the ability to allow a situation to be as it is when I can't change it, the realisation that my thoughts trigger emotions and that emotional energy is experienced in the body for better or worse. 

These are just a few of the reasons that some of the Mind Calm and Body Calm meditation teachings are now making their way into our workshops such as those we delivered recently at the Town Hall in Spandau. If now isn't the ideal time to develop calm awareness of ourselves and the world we inhabit, when will the time be right?

~Annette Henry 

Buteyko Breathing Instructor 

Mind Calm and Body Calm Coach 

The BOLT / Control Pause 

If you want to check your breathing efficiency, here are the instructions. 

1. Before you start, know that this is not a test of your willpower, it's a response to what your body's telling you. At the end of the test your breathing should continue at the same speed and volume as just before the test, no bigger or faster breaths.

2. Ensure you have a second counter to hand (a mobile phone or watch) and that you're in a relaxed state.

3. Breathe normally through your nose and at the end of a normal exhale pinch your nose and start counting the seconds. 

4. Let go and stop the count at the point where your body says you need to breathe again. Some people feel this as a diaphragm twitch in the abdomen. Some feel it in the throat, others just feel that breathing needs to recommence. 

If you feel the need to have another go, just wait a minute before retesting. If you feel it would be helpful to be taken through the process, you're absolutely welcome to get in touch and arrange a 10 minute Zoom call so that either Graham or I can walk you through the test and give you more detailed result information. You will not be charged for this.

The Result 

First of all, your result is only a guide and is subject to modest fluctuations even within the same day. 89% of study participants who had a score of 25 seconds or more had functional breathing. If your result is lower than this, your breathing may be holding you back. There are two things you need to know: 1) the overwhelming majority of people I test have a score lower than 25 because our breathing has fallen victim to the seen and unseen pressures of modern life as well as recurrent respiratory infections. 2) retraining breathing is not only possible but also fairly simple. By going through the training and doing the practice to improve your score, you WILL feel better. Dysfunctional breathing does not become functional without some corresponding improvements in mental and / physical health. 

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