Diaphragmatic Breathing to Reduce Stress

One of the key steps in conquering your stress is learning how to breathe properly. Breathing is the basis of all relaxation activities. The simple practice of being more mindful of your breathing will help you relax. When you practice mindful breathing, your thinking slows down. This will help you stop overthinking about past and future potential stressors.

The parts of your brain that control breathing are intimately related to the parts that control the stress response. Controlled, deep, even breathing facilitates relaxation. Rapid, shallow, irregular breathing disrupts relaxation. One of the main cues for understanding whether you are stressed is the pace and depth of your breathing. If it is rapid and shallow, chances are that you are stressed.

Becoming aware of your breathing pattern is the first step in learning how to slow your breathing down and reduce stress. Learning to control your breathing will provide immediate stress-reducing benefits. By breathing correctly, you can strengthen and train your lung functioning, increase your cardiovascular response, increase oxygenation of your blood, calm your nerves, and increase restfulness.

There are many different ways to breathe to help offset the effects of stress. I use two breathing techniques to help people manage their stress: Diaphragmatic Breathing and Diaphragmatic Breath Meditation. In this column we’ll focus on the first technique.

Diaphragmatic Breathing to Reduce Stress

Most of us use only a portion of our lungs when we breathe. We tend to breathe with the top third of the lungs. To receive the stress-reducing benefits of breathing, you must learn how to get your entire lungs involved. You need to learn how to fill your lungs completely from the bottom up. Learning how to breathe this way takes practice but you can master it if you spend time each day doing so. I've found that knowing a little about the lungs and how the diaphragm works will help you master these two activities.

A Short Overview of the Diaphragm and Breathing

The diaphragm is a large band of muscle tissue that is attached to the lower portion of your rib cage. It separates the contents of your chest cavity (the lungs, heart, etc.) from the contents of your abdominal cavity (stomach, intestines, etc.). Contracting and relaxing the diaphragm affects the volume of your chest cavity and the air pressure in your lungs.

When you breathe in, your diaphragm contracts and pulls downward, increasing the volume of your chest cavity and allowing air from outside your body to flow in. If you put your hands on your belly, just below your rib cage, when you breathe you can feel your belly push out as your diaphragm contracts and pulls downward. Some people call diaphragmatic breathing belly breathing because of this phenomenon. When you breathe out, your diaphragm relaxes, gets looser, and moves back to its normal position higher in your chest.

When you are stressed, the muscles in your abdomen tighten up and work against your diaphragm’s natural downward push. This keeps the diaphragm from fully contracting and allows maximum air to enter your lungs. One of the goals of diaphragmatic breathing is to help you relax your belly so you can deepen your breathing and get more life-giving air into your lungs. Remember, a hallmark of relaxation is a slow, deep, even breathing pattern.

The following exercise will teach you how to perform diaphragmatic breathing. You can use diaphragmatic breathing by itself to put your body into a relaxed state and short-circuit the stress response. It also sets the stage for breath meditation and all of the other classic relaxation techniques that I will cover in the coming weeks.

Breathing Exercise: Diaphragmatic Breathing

1. Focus your attention on your current breathing pattern.
2. Make a mental note of the depth, pace, and regularity of your breathing.
3. Visualize a picture of your lungs and your diaphragm.
4. Slowly breathe in through your nose.
5. Rest your hands on your belly, just under your ribs.
6. Feel your belly move out as your diaphragm pushes down against it.
7. As you breathe in through your nose, visualize your lungs inflating completely, starting from the bottom (the part closest to your diaphragm) and moving upward.
8. Let your ribs expand and shoulders gently rise as your lungs inflate.
9. When you have filled your lungs, slowly exhale through your nose.
10. Feel your belly push back and your diaphragm rise back into place.
11. As you feel the movements in your belly, visualize your lungs emptying.
12. Imagine all of the air leaving your lungs as they deflate (sometimes visualizing a balloon losing air can be helpful in understanding the emptying process).
13. Continue to breathe in and out this way for a couple of minutes, paying attention to the movement of your belly and diaphragm and the visual picture of your lungs filling from the bottom up and completely emptying.

A Few Hints About Practicing Diaphragmatic Breathing:

• Accept that you will lose your focus during your practice.
• Accept that your runaway mind will need to be redirected back to your breathing.
• Give yourself time to adjust to this new practice.

I have been practicing diaphragmatic breathing and breath meditation for over 30 years and I still get distracted. Some days it seems that my mind is all over the place. Other days, I easily and gracefully fall into a deep state of relaxation and my mind is calm. I've learned to accept this and co-exist with my discomfort related to my runaway mind.

Relax, it will take time and practice to feel fully comfortable doing diaphragmatic breathing. As you become more comfortable with the practice you will be able to switch into this type of breathing on demand whenever you feel stressed. This is a very valuable first line of defense against stress when you find yourself in potentially stressful situations.

In my next column, I'll discuss Breath, Meditation. In the meantime, remember to stress less and live more.