Breathwork Practices for Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Sooner or later, most of us feel a little depressed or anxious. And certainly all of us know what it’s like to feel tired. There are many different ways of coping with these responses to life, ranging from exercise to medication. What you may not realize, however, is that you have access to a complementary treatment whenever you need it—your breath.

As yoga practitioners have known for centuries—and as medical science is beginning to understand—the breath has amazing recuperative powers. By controlling the breath (a practice called pranayama), these ancient stressed-out humans found that they could heighten their awareness, calm anxiety, and alter their state of mind in a matter of minutes.

How Slowing the Breath Can Help Calm You

Of course, you can’t “breathe away” chronic anxiety, fatigue, or depression. None of these conditions is easily or safely self-diagnosed or treated. In fact, tackling them by yourself, without professional supervision, could make them worse. But your breath can be a powerful ally in coping with temporary physical and emotional states—whether you’re despondent about an argument with a close friend, apprehensive about an upcoming job interview, or exhausted after a tough day at work.

In stressful times, we typically breathe too rapidly. Most of us do this on occasion, if not every day, and there may be no noticeable side effects. In some cases, however, excessive breathing results in hyperventilation, which can cause symptoms including lightheadedness, confusion, chest pain, and trouble sleeping.

In severe cases, rapid breathing can lead to a buildup of oxygen in the bloodstream and a corresponding decrease in the relative amount of carbon dioxide, which in turn upsets the ideal acid-alkaline balance—the pH level—of the blood. In contrast, slowing the breath raises the carbon dioxide level in the blood, which nudges the pH level back to a less alkaline state. As the blood’s pH changes, the parasympathetic nervous system calms us in a variety of ways, including telling the vagus nerve to secrete acetylcholine, a substance that lowers the heart rate.

As with any treatment, breathwork must be implemented intelligently and judiciously to be fully effective. Each condition responds best to its own special breath. To calm anxiety, for example, you can purposely lengthen your exhalations; to alleviate dullness and fatigue, you can lengthen your inhalations. And to lift yourself out of an emotional pit, it’s most effective to equalize the lengths of your inhalations and exhalations.

Get to Know Your Typical Breathing Pattern

If you want your breath to work as an extra-strength remedy, it’s a good idea to practice it in any given moment before you try to apply these techniques in a tense and challenging situation. First, spend some time with your breath. Become aware of its movements and tendencies.

When you first try to detail the nature of your breath, the experience may feel akin to that of a fish attempting to describe water. Your breathing is so habitual that you’ve probably never given it much attention. You may have little sense of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways it can change. But if you continue to observe, you will probably notice many different dimensions, physical and emotional, to the feeling of your breath.

You’ll also become aware that paying attention to the breath immediately initiates a chain of changes in it. First, it slows down. As it slows, its sometimes ragged movements smooth out. And as the breath smooths out, the space it occupies in the body increases.

When we breathe, most of us usually expand only a limited portion of the torso, generally in the front around the lower ribs and upper belly. Often, our breathing is restricted and shallow and limited to the upper chest; ideally, it should be deep and full, so each breath cycle expands and contracts the height, width, and depth of the whole torso.

Practice This Breathing Test

To experiment with consciously expanding your breath, try the following.

1. Sit tall in a chair or lie on your back on the floor.
2. Place your fingertips lightly on your lower belly and try to direct a few inhalations toward this space, expanding your belly each time.
3. Then place your fingertips underneath your collarbones with your pinkies close to your sternum and your thumbs close to your shoulders. Spread your fingers wide. Inhale, seeing if you can gently expand the space underneath your hands. Be careful to keep your throat as soft as possible as you do this. There can be a counterproductive tendency to tense it as you inhale into your upper chest.
4. Once you can move the breath into your lower belly and upper chest, try to awaken your entire back torso, an area that is terra incognita for many people. As much as you can, breathe into your back body, feeling how it balloons and then deflates with each breath cycle. Once you can feel this, experiment with filling all of your newfound spaces with every breath.

Identifying Your Personal Pranayama Practice

Sometimes just watching and expanding your breath for several minutes can have a surprisingly positive influence on your energy level or mood. You can multiply this effect significantly by using pranayama, or breathing exercises tailored to elicit an effect on specific moods. Based on knowledge cultivated and refined by the yogis over thousands of years, these exercises intentionally alter the speed, rhythm, and space of the breath.

One brief caution before you begin: Never overdo it in any breathing exercise. If you begin to feel uncomfortable, dizzy, lightheaded, or otherwise unwell, go back to your everyday breath. Never force your breath to do anything it doesn’t want to do.

How will you know when your breath is telling you to stop? If the unpleasant feelings you started with become even more unpleasant, that’s your cue. Your breath, believe it or not, possesses an innate intelligence, honed over millions of years of evolution. Trust its messages.

Traditionally, pranayama is practiced while sitting on the ground, with the spine longt. But those of us who aren’t accustomed to extended sitting in such a position often find ourselves aching and fidgeting after a short while, which interferes with our concentration and the efficacy of the breathing. You can instead sit in a chair or, better still, try lying on your back on the floor.

If your floor isn’t carpeted, pad it with a folded blanket. Lie with your legs straight, heels as far apart as is comfortable, or bend your knees over a yoga bolster or pillow to help release a back tension. Rest your arms on the floor out to the sides, angled about 45 degrees, and close your eyes. Covering the eyes with an eye pillow is especially helpful. (These are widely available for purchase at yoga studios or online; you can also make your own by partially filling a sock with rice and sewing the opening shut.)

When you’re comfortably set up, begin watching your breath for a few minutes, fixing it in the foreground of your awareness. Then, for another minute or so, mentally count the length of both your inhalations and exhalations; for example, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, and so on (or “One Om, two Om, three Om,” if you prefer). Don’t be surprised if your exhalations are slightly longer than your inhalations; that’s quite common. Once you’ve settled into your breath, you’re ready to try one of the specific exercises below to counteract anxiety, fatigue, or depression.

Pranayama for Anxiety

You can work with anxiety by focusing on your exhalations and lengthening them, deliberately and gradually. For example, if your everyday exhalation lasts six counts, draw each one out to seven for a few breathing cycles, then to eight for a few cycles, and so on, until you find a length that suits you.

Once you’ve comfortably increased the length of your exhalations by a few counts, turn part of your attention to the subtle sound of them. You’ll notice that each one makes a soft “ha,” like a gentle sigh. Try to make this sound—and your exhalations—as soft and even as possible from beginning to end. Pause briefly at the end of each exhalation, resting peacefully in the stillness. Continuing like this, watch your breath as steadily as you can for 10 to 15 minutes.

Pranayama for Fatigue

To work with fatigue, settle into your everyday breath. Then, after it has slowed down and smoothed out, pause briefly after an exhalation. Rest peacefully in the stillness. After a few seconds, you’ll feel a kind of ripple; it’s the swell of your next inhalation, building like a wave approaching the shore. Don’t take the inhalation immediately; instead, allow it to gather and grow for a few more seconds. Then, without effort or resistance, gratefully receive the breath into your body.

Continue to explore lengthening your exhalation retentions for 10 or 15 breaths. Then begin to lengthen your inhalations gradually, just as you lengthened your exhalations in the previous exercise for anxiety. Finally, shift part of your focus to the sound of your inhalations, a slightly whispering sibilance the yogis think of as “sa.” Try to make this sound—and your inhalations—as soft and even as possible from beginning to end, and continue to watch your breath as steadily as you can for up to 10 minutes.

Pranayama for Depression

Check in with yourself during this breathwork practice. If it makes you feel worse, stop immediately.

Settle into a comfortable position and allow your everyday breath to slow down and smooth out. Then count the length of your next inhalation. When you release your exhalation, match its length to that of the inhalation.

Continue in this fashion for a minute or so, balancing the length of the inhalations and exhalations. Then gradually—just once out of every three or four cycles—add another count to each inhalation and each exhalation until you reach a number that suits you. The yogis call this equal ratio breathing.

The effect of the breath on your mood is the best indicator of how long you should continue the exercise. Start with a particular time in mind—say, 5 minutes. But be ready to shorten that by a few minutes if you feel your depression lifting. On the other hand, you can continue past your goal if you feel the need.

How to Practice Breathwork Daily

How often do you need to practice in order to render the breathing remedy effective when you need it? There’s no single answer. It’s a practice, like any other. The more you exercise your ability to watch your breath, the better you will become at doing it.

If you can, schedule a regular 10-minute breath-awareness practice during a quiet part of the day. (For many people, early morning is best.) If that seems like too much of a commitment, close your eyes and take 60-second conscious breathing breaks at random moments in your day. You might find that these breaks are almost as energizing as a coffee break—and they have a lot fewer side effects.

This article has been updated. Originally published August 28, 2007.