(Note: if you have chronic health issues that impact breathing, this post may not apply to you. Vagus nerve approaches might be more helpful when you are trying to practice meditation or mindfulness).
Most of us breathe way too shallow all day , every day. Taking a deep breath won’t help until we train our bodies to access the calming effect. After breathing shallow all day long, you are holding too much oxygen in your body already. So if someone notices you are anxious, and says, “take a deep breath,” you may notice that you feel even worse! A deep breath pushes more oxygen into your body. If you already have a bunch of air sitting in your lungs, this can activate the sympathetic nervous system, telling your body to get ready to fight or flee. This can cause your anxiety to rise! It takes practice to really understand how to do it when you need it. Here are two breathing exercises that you can try, to see how it feels for you.
Square or Box Breathing
Square breathing is just a way to envision or count your in breath and out breath. You picture a box with equal sides. Here is a video that teaches you how to do it:
Here is another video explaining how we end up developing unhelpful breathing patterns, and how to change them:
I enjoy working with my clients on breathing because its something we can all use reminders and support doing more of, including myself. Once you get the feel of how it helps your body shift out of fight/flight/freeze, it can be such a helpful tool. But it might take a bit of practice to feel that happen. It can be really important to be flexible and patient about how we are learning to use breathing to help our nervous system. Mild discomfort may be just fine but practice adjusting how you are sitting, laying, standing when you breathe, and try to find the most comfortable pattern and position possible as you practice.