Self-regulation of Breathing as a Primary Treatment for Anxiety

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Citation

Jerath R, Crawford MW, Barnes VA, Harden K. Self-regulation of breathing as a primary treatment for anxiety. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2015 Jun;40(2):107-15. doi: 10.1007/s10484-015-9279-8. PMID: 25869930.

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Note: You can share anything you want from these 411s—the more sharing the better. But this is my attempt to condense the findings into a bite-sized wisdom nugget:

This 2015 paper proposes that slow deep breathing is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce negative emotions.  By quickly activating the parasympathetic nervous system, it may reduce cell excitability and thus reduce the body’s physiological capability to experience negative emotions. 

4 Fundamentals

 

1. Essential Background Material

 

  • Although emotions come from the brain, they are intricately tied to our entire body via our autonomic nervous system (ANS) and breathing.

  • Emotional states of stress, anxiety, and depression are characterized by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system and faster breathing.  In contrast, relaxed states activate the parasympathetic nervous system and result in lower heart and breath rates.

  • This is also a two-way street: the way we breathe can activate our sympathetic or parasympathetic branches, influencing our emotions.

  • However, the underlying mechanism behind these physiological aspects of emotions is not well understood.

  • This study proposes that changes in ANS state (e.g., sympathetic vs. parasympathetic) change cell membrane potentials.

  • This is a fancy way of saying that changes in ANS change the “excitability” of cells throughout the whole body.  Stressed states and sympathetic activation make cells easily excitable.  Relaxed states and parasympathetic activation make cells less excitable.  

  • From this perspective, we see that breathing (or any relaxation technique) improves emotional states by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, thus changing whole-body membrane potential and reducing emotional excitability.

  • Because pharmacological interventions typically target only one neurotransmitter system, they miss these whole-body changes accompanying emotional distress.  For this reason, these authors propose that mind-body methods (like slow deep breathing) might be the best option for dealing with negative emotions.

 

 

2. What Did this Research Do?

 

This was a hypothesis paper.  They reviewed several ideas about breathing, emotions, the nervous system, and membrane potentials to support the abovementioned hypothesis.

 

The two main topics they covered were:

  1. Possible Role of Membrane Potential in Cardiorespiratory Modulation of ANS and Emotions

  2. Breathing and Meditation Techniques for Reducing Negative Emotions

 

Let’s look at some of the neat things they discovered and hypothesized.

 

 

3. What Were the Major Findings?

 

Cardiorespiratory Synchronization

One way breathing and emotions are linked is through cardiorespiratory synchronization, where messages between the heart and breathing harmonize.  This occurs during meditation and voluntary slow breathing (usually less than 10 breaths a minute).

 

They hypothesize that this synchronization leads to “widespread hyperpolarization,” which makes cells in emotional brain regions (like the amygdala) less excitable.  This is one way in which meditation and slow breathing reduce negative emotions.

 

GABA Neurons

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) receptor neurons are crucial to the cardiorespiratory system.  These receptor neurons make cells in the amygdala less excitable.  Because practices like breathing, yoga, and chanting all increase GABA, this provides another mechanism by which they influence cell excitability and reduce negative emotions. However, contradictory results were presented, so further evidence is needed to better understand this link.

 

Stress, Anxiety, and the Amygdala

Another way to look at breathing and emotions is to look at what happens during stressed states.  In this condition, the activity of the amygdala is increased, and things like heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate all go up.  They propose that this is due to “widespread depolarization” that changes cell membrane potential and makes cells more excitable.

 

This matters because slow deep breathing reverses this trend, decreasing amygdala activity and improving overall emotional states.

 

RAPs: “Respiration-Related Anxiety Potentials”

During inhalation, we create “waves of positive potentials”—called RAPs—in emotional areas of the brain.  During faster breathing, these waves may actually “depolarize” these emotional brain regions, making them more excitable.  By being in a sympathetic state, we breathe faster, increasing RAPs and ultimately destabilizing emotional areas of the brain.

 

Conversely, breathing slowly reduces the impact of RAPs and stabilizes emotional brain regions.

 

 

4. Why Do These Results Matter?

 

Given the above findings that link the breath to the ANS and amygdala, we see how voluntary slow deep breathing could be highly beneficial for controlling our emotional state.  In fact, the authors even say, “it is apparent that individuals possess the ability to alter emotional states using the voluntary control of breathing and mindset.”

 

This is a genuinely life-changing statement.  It provides you and me with self-efficacy, with the ability to take control of our emotional ups and downs using only our breath.

 

From a more mechanistic perspective, their results are significant because they say:

  1. Stressful emotional states are associated with sympathetic activation and increased “cell excitability” in emotional regions of the brain.

  2. Slow deep breathing activates the parasympathetic branch, increases cardiorespiratory harmony, and reduces “cell excitability” in emotional regions of the brain.

 

Together, this means slow breathing may physiologically prevent (or at least reduce) negative emotions from occurring. 

 

 

1 Big Takeaway

 

Slow deep breathing is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce negative emotions.  It quickly activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing the body’s physiological capability to experience negative emotions. 

 

 

 

1 Practical Application

 

Regularly practice slow deep breathing to activate your parasympathetic nervous system and reduce your likelihood of experiencing negative emotions.  Almost any method that gets your breathing down to less than 10 breaths a minute will be helpful.  Techniques focusing on extended exhalations and/or short pauses after inhaling will likely be most beneficial.

 

They specifically mention Sudarshan Kriya yogic (SKY) breathing, which uses the 4-4-6-2 rate (we recently covered here), and ujjayi.  SKY also uses short periods of fast breathing, which the authors hypothesize could be beneficial when combined with slow breathing.  See this Science 411 for a simple approach similar to the SKY sequence.

 

Lastly, note that consistency is key here.  The breath-emotion link they’re proposing ultimately comes back to rewiring our nervous systems.  So, let’s remember Dr. Weil’s advice for breathing: “You want to do this every day without fail because you are attempting to change rhythms in your nervous system, and it's the constancy of the input, it's the regularity of the input, that is going to produce these changes over time.”