Favorite Lessons from James Nestor’s book Breath
Controlling the breath can have a huge impact on stress and anxiety. It’s the most effective tool I use to manage my own anxiety, and one I teach my wellness coaching clients to use regularly. Here are five fundamentals to get you started.
Video: Five Breathing Fundamentals For Stress & Anxiety Management
Transcript: Five Breathing Fundamentals For Stress & Anxiety Management
Are you looking for a quick and easy way to reduce your stress and anxiety? I know I was, and that’s why I founded Working On Calm.
I was desperate for something that would make me feel better, make me happier and more present in my life, and decrease that horrible, anxious feeling that I had a lot. I spent quite a bit of time researching it and writing about it on the blog.
I found a number of techniques that are helpful when it comes to building resiliency, which is really what we need when we want to manage stress and decrease anxiety. But the number one thing I found to help me was connecting with my breath.
This doesn’t require a formal meditation practice, although those are great. It doesn’t require anything overwhelming. It’s simply learning to pay attention to your breath for a few minutes a day. It made me into a sort of breathing practice nerd.
I’m always on the lookout for information and research on breathing techniques, and that’s why I loved James Nestor’s book Breath. Those who have been following along on the blog know that’s the case. This is the sixth and final in the series I’m doing on my favorite lessons from his book.
If you like this content, check out the previous five posts:
Lesson #1: The Perfect Breath: How to Use Coherent Breathing to Calm Down
Lesson #2: How Humming Improves Wellness
Lesson #3: Nasal Breathing to Improve Wellness
Lesson #4: How to Use Alternate Nostril Breathing to Feel Calm & Invigorated
The idea here with this post is to give you some fundamentals about breathing so that you, too can have something. This is a tool in your toolbox to help you manage your stress and anxiety.
The thing I love about breathing is that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you can stop and practice your breathing. People don’t even have to know that you’re feeling anxious or you’re managing your stress in that moment. It’s that simple and easy to implement.
So let’s talk about the core messages from the book, those that anyone who is interested in controlling stress and anxiety through breathing should know.
Fundamental #1: Don’t breathe through your mouth.
The first lesson is that mouth breathing is bad, which we know from research. It does things like increase blood pressure and decrease heart rate variability. It can be related with sleep apnea and lead to bacterial growth in the nose. So in general, mouth breathing is bad.
Fundamental #2: Breathe through your nose.
If you’re looking for just basic breathing techniques, simply focus on the opposite, which is nasal breathing. And that’s the second lesson that I want to take away from the book Breath, to really focus on the power of nasal breathing.
It’s the opposite of all those bad aspects of mouth breathing. It decreases your blood pressure, increases heart rate variability, makes it so that you are breathing more efficiently and able to perform activities, which is particularly relevant if you are an athlete. It also decreases things like sleep apnea, which we know can lead to all kinds of problems including earlier death rates.
Here are a couple of techniques if you’re trying to focus on nasal breathing. I previously made two posts from the book Breath. One is just on the simple technique of practicing breathing through your nose.
See More: Nasal Breathing
The second is alternate nostril breathing, which is a great way to walk away feeling invigorated. I highly recommend this technique when you are practicing your breathing and want to feel good and decrease your stress before something like a meeting or giving a performance. It’s really good for that. I wouldn’t necessarily try this right before bed.
See More: Alternate Nostril Breathing
Fundamental #3: Exhale slowly and completely.
Alright, so we’ve learned mouth breathing’s bad, nasal breathing’s good. And another lesson that’s great in the book is about exhaling and learning to exhale for a longer amount of time.
This is a practice which research has shown about a two-to-one ratio is really good for calming anxiety and stress. So what that means is that if you simply count as you inhale and then count as you exhale, aim for an exhalation that is twice the length of your inhalation.
We know that exhaling longer is really good for activating that parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest-and-digest function. It counters the fight-or-flight mode.
A couple of ways to help improve your exhalation and breathing is diaphragmatic breathing. Getting into a deeper belly breath is really important here. There’s two relevant posts I did from the book Breath.
One was about three-part-breathing. This is a technique that helps you to learn to breathe into the different areas: the upper chest, the mid heart range, and then down into the belly. Practicing this three-part, or yogic, breathing, is really helpful in teaching you to breathe deeper and to exhale slowly. I’m still working on it, practicing that technique myself.
See More: Three-Part Breath
The other post that can help with full exhalations is on humming. This is an effective way to get all of the oxygen or all of the air out of the lungs. Both of those posts will help you with exhaling longer and more completely.
See More: Humming
Fundamental #4: Chew more.
The fourth lesson discussed in the book, which is interesting, is the idea that we need to chew more. If you go back in history, there weren’t nearly as many breathing problems. The theory is that it’s related to the size of our mouth and the structure of our faces, which is changing over time. This is probably due to all of the soft, processed foods we’re eating nowadays.
There are things you can do, such as incorporate more whole foods. Things that require more chewing, like more carrots versus mashed potatoes or chips or crackers, can help to strengthen the bones and structures. These structures actually continue to mold and change shapes well into older age.
By simply making sure you’re using those muscles, you can influence the structures and help to encourage more proper breathing, more open airways.
Fundamental #5: Find a breathing practice.
The last idea, the fifth lesson to take away from the book Breath, is that the way we breathe matters. So it’s important to find breathing practices, practice or practices, that work for you.
That’s why I’m always posting about different breathing techniques on the blog, and when I meet with my wellness coaching clients, we always begin with a different breathing practice. This helps them learn to do the same thing, to calm themselves down or to transition into a new task, like a meeting. When I do my workshops, I always start with a mindful breathing practice.
Start to pay attention to the way that you breathe. The book discusses the “perfect breath.” I also posted on this to teach readers how to use what’s called coherent breathing. It’s simply a five to six second inhale and a five to six second exhale.
See More: The Perfect Breath
All you need to do is simply practice. Get into that belly breathing and you’ll be surprised at how effective it can be for dealing with stress and anxiety.
Personal Examples
Like I said, this is the number one way I have found, personally, to instantly keep my anxiety in check. As soon as I notice I’m starting to feel anxious or those anxious thoughts are creeping up for me, I do a check and I think, “How am I breathing? How am I feeling?” It’s usually this shallow breathing up into my chest. I can simply stop, practice one of the many different techniques that I’ve talked about and posted about, and it will calm me down.
I hope that you’ll give it a try too.
I’ve had a number of clients who have tried it and been successful. There are so many different techniques out there that it’s not so much that you have to get wrapped up in finding the right one. It’s asking, “What’s the right one for you?”
I have one client who started practicing and he does it in the shower. It’s a helpful time for him to calm down. It’s where he knows he won’t be disturbed by other people. He found that by doing that, he was less reactive to stressful events at work. He recounted a meeting in which he got pissed off at what was happening. He went back to his office, practiced breathing for a few minutes, and was able to transition and not be as reactive as he might’ve been in the past.
Similarly, I had another client who worked on a breathing practice and developing one that she could use. It took her a while to find the one that worked for her. So, I encourage you to not be discouraged if that happens to you, too.
What she found is that as she practiced more consistently, she became a much more mindful parent, meaning she was present in the moment. She was able to enjoy these little moments that popped up that in the past she would’ve been distracted by anxious thoughts. Plus, she was less reactive. When her son would be emotional, she would find herself being able to be there for him and be supportive, but not get completely stressed out and burned out by it.
Those are just two examples of how breathing can affect us differently, but ultimately help us to build resilience, to deal with stress, and to decrease anxiety.
Sign up!
For more tips like this, check out the other posts that I made in the Breath series, and consider signing up for Take Five. It’s my newsletter where I deliver these messages straight to your inbox. Those who subscribe to my newsletter, will get my free guide, which contains five very simple techniques to decrease stress and boost resilience. Each of the techniques takes five minutes or less. These are really great practices to have in your back pocket or to build your “toolbox” as I like to refer to it.
Tip: Start Small
Healthy habits don’t have to feel overwhelming. My goal for you in seeing this video is that you’ll walk away thinking about your breathing and just being more aware of it. You can simply practice for two minutes a day.
Maybe consider doing what’s called habit stacking, adding it to something you already do consistently. For example, if you stand at the coffee pot and brew yourself a cup of coffee, try it. Breathe for just one or two minutes while it’s brewing, or try it when you’re stopped at a stoplight, or try it when you’re stretching after your workout.
Stack it onto these things that you’re already doing throughout the day so it doesn’t feel like one more thing to do. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You can feel calm, be well, and build your resilience in just a few minutes a day. I hope this helps. Let me know!
