528: The benefits of a daily breathing practice for calming anxiety
This week on the Anxiety Slayer Podcast, we're talking about the benefits of a daily breathing practice for calming general anxiety and sharing a guided practice from our Transition to Calm album.
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Points covered in this week’s episode:
Following on from last week’s podcast, this week we’re going to be talking about the benefits of a daily breathing practice for calming general anxiety.
The ancient sciences of Yoga and Ayurveda both teach that our mind is affected by our breath. When our breathing is fast and shallow it stirs up our thoughts.
A calm mind is like a still lake, it’s clear and peaceful. When our thoughts get stirred up by anxiety, our mind is like a lake that’s churned up and has mud and weeds mixed up in the water. When our mind gets pushed around by anxiety it drags up unwanted thoughts and our thoughts become mixed up and turbulent.
The breathing practices of Yoga and Ayurveda help calm a stirred up mind. The help our thoughts settle and bring peace and clarity back to the mind.
These practices are called pranayama. Pranayama is an ancient yogic practice for healing the body and calming and balancing the mind.
The Meaning of Pranayama
Pranayama means controlling the prana, or life force. They are practices that direct or control the breath in different ways for different healing results.
Why breathing practices can be challenging for anxiety sufferers
Sometimes anxiety goes to concerns around breathing. If our breathing is affected by anxiety attacks we can feel triggered or anxious when focusing on our breath. If our mind tends to fixate on the sensations of breathing, it will zoom in on any feelings one constriction or discomfort and that can trigger anxiety.
If focusing on breathing causes you anxiety we recommend starting with EFT Tapping to clear those anxious thoughts before moving on to using breathing exercises.
We have a Guided Tapping Session available in Episode 463: Health Anxiety and the Fear of not being able to breathe
How to get the best from Breathing Practices
Make working with your breath a daily practice, try practicing in the morning morning for 5-10 minutes, like a morning meditation.
The two kinds of practices for working with anxiety:
1. The fire fighting practices The things you can do to stop anxiety escalating, or help yourself feel back in control when anxiety spikes. For example, learning how to use EFT Tapping to stop an anxiety attack.
2. The recovery or healing practices The things you can do every day that support your nervous system and help reduce anxiety and its impact on your life. These are the breathing practices, walking, yoga etc that help calm general anxiety and rebuild your resilience.
Benefits of Pranayama Breathing
The practice we’ll be sharing in this episode is called alternate nostril breathing.
This practice is widely shared as it promotes physical and mental health benefits
- it calms stress and anxiety
- increases focus and clarity
- is good for respiratory, and cardiovascular health
- and brings an overall sense of peace and wellbeing
In the second half of this episode, we're be sharing our guided pranayama breathing practice from our Transition to Calm Album.
Anxiety Slayer Extras on Patreon
We’ve uploaded the music from our Alternate Nostril breathing practice to our Patreon. We hope you enjoy using this piece to support your personal meditation or breathing practice.