Deep Breathing to Reduce Stress and Depression

There is increasing medical evidence that deep breathing can relax the mind, relieve stress, and reduce muscular tension. According to Dr. Dean Ornish, the director of the Lifestyle Heart Trial, a study that showed that heart disease could be reversed using diet, exercise, and stress reduction (including daily deep-breathing exercises), the breath is the bridge between your mind and body. When your body feels stress, your breathing tends to become more rapid and shallow. It is this stress response that also causes the heart to beat more rapidly and the muscles in your body to become tense. This chronic stress and tension can have a negative effect on brain chemistry, increasing the symptoms of depression.

Deep breathing stimulates your central nervous system to relax. It starts a process that slows the heart rate, dilates your blood vessels, and causes your muscles to relax. It also has a relaxing effect on the mind, which, as a result, is thought to improve symptoms of depression.

Unfortunately, when a person breathes too shallowly for a long time, muscles and other connective tissues in the body adjust to that type of breathing, making deep breathing more difficult. Chest breathing is rapid, shallow, and irregular. This chronic shallow breathing, or chest breathing, has the following effects:

• This type of breathing is similar to the breathing induced in the “fight or flight” stress response. When we breathe this way, our body can create the stressful feelings associated with that response.
• The lower lobes of the lungs receive the most blood, but in chest breathing, the blood is not well oxygenated.

To see if you are a chest breather, put one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen. When you take a deep breath, which hand rises more, the one on your chest, or on your abdomen? If the hand on your chest moves more, you are probably a chest breather.

To improve your breathing and experience the benefits of deep breathing exercises, many experts suggest performing breathing exercises for a few minutes every day. Here are a few breathing exercises that are recommended.

From Dr. Dean Ornish:

Deep Breathing

Deep breathing helps to prevent and relieve harmful reactions to stress. Practicing deep breathing daily will help to reduce your reactions to stressful events. If you are feeling upset, a few deep breaths will help to calm you.

1. Exhale completely through your nose.
2. Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen.
3. Fill your abdominal area with air, breathing through your nose. Your abdomen should rise initially, then your chest will expand as your chest cavity fills with air.
4. Keep inhaling until you feel your collar bone begin to rise (be careful not to let your abdomen draw inward).
5. To exhale, perform the same process in reverse. Feel your collar bone lower, followed by your chest and abdomen.
6. Finally, push out any remaining air with your abdominal muscles.
7. The time to exhale should take twice as long as it took to inhale.
8. If you feel dizzy or lightheaded, resume normal breathing.

From Dr. Andrew Weil:

The Stimulating Breath

When you feel tired or foggy, this exercise will help you to increase your level of energy.

1. Sit with your back straight and your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
2. Breathe rapidly in and out through your nose, three cycles per second. Use the abdominal breathing technique.
3. Do this for 15 seconds initially, working up to one minute.
4. If you feel dizzy or lightheaded, resume normal breathing.

ANTIDEPRESSANTS

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