I recently started using breathing exercises for the first time in a few years when I’m feeling anxious, and they’ve been helping a lot. I hadn’t quite realized how big of a difference actually going by time could make as opposed to just generally trying to slow my breathing - if you’ve never tried it I’d highly recommend it.
I’m having trouble finding the pattern(s) that work best, though. It seems to vary so much; one day one will feel claustrophobically slow and another day it’s anxiety-inducingly fast, kinda defeating the purpose. But I don’t want to abandon timing it altogether when my gut is apparently pretty bad at figuring out what is the right pace.
Maybe I’m just overthinking this, but I’d love to hear your opinions and experiences. Also, do you use any other physical strategies, like belly breathing?
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In general things like yoga, meditating and breathing exercises can help a lot. I think it’s the mix.
I doubt that doing an exercise as reaction to hitting anxiety does not work so easily - at least it doesn’t for me. But that may be depending on individual people.
I find breathing exercises, yoga and walking very helpful. Both meditative and not. I like 5-4-5 breathing I think it is? This guy… James Nestor I think went on Joe rogan and talked about breathing. I would never watch Joe now, but it is wild to think about how much cool stuff I did learn from JRE.
Really. Have you tried jumping on one leg, closing your eyes, twirling and praying to your token deity. You can point to the confused research, but these techniques don’t work. You’re better of learning a skill than wasting your time trying calm yourself by controlling your breath. Go diving if you’re abnormally attached to breath control. You’ll at least see things from another perspective.
