Breathwork for Anxiety: When Meditation and Therapy Weren’t Enough
I accidentally stumbled on breathwork and found it relieved my anxiety and irritability more than mindfulness and therapy alone.
You know those blogger bundles that pop up in your inbox every so often? I have had to put a hard stop to buying them a few years ago because I would get them and then never take any of the courses. They are just so alluring to me.
A few years ago, I bought one that had a course on manifestation through breathwork. I started it (and completed it). The habit of using breath to manifest never really stuck. During the course, I noticed I felt different. More at ease, lighter.
Around this time, I started becoming aware of somatics. I hadn’t even intellectually understood it before and even when I got a better idea of what it is, I’m not sure I really bought into it.
I was firmly in the “top-down approach to mental wellbeing” camp. My own meditation practice bringing me more peace than anything else in my life and therapy getting me through the most difficult times.
I had been thinking my way out of stress and anxiety. But my body was still holding it all. Every time my nervous system got activated (when my kids bickered, when I forgot something important, when we were running late, almost every moment after about 7:30 pm), I physically felt it. Tight chest. Hot face. Wanting to crawl out of my skin.
Yet, I hadn’t considered what I could do to release this physical stress.
A Big Aha! Moment
I’d been doing all this top-down work, trying to think my way out of stress and anxiety. And it was helpful, but there was still some lingering tightness. Sometimes heaviness. I’d feel it creeping up every night around 7, that feeling that I was about to snap, just because my little one was grinding his teeth too close to my ear during storytime.
Within a few weeks of this manifestation course, I made the connection. I could feel what breathwork was doing for me, physically. I could feel my hands and feet tingling, the stress of the holds pushing me, and the lightness that would come when it was over.
I could feel the tightness that I had so often carried in my chest loosening. In minutes. Something meditation couldn’t quite reach. At least not nearly as quickly or as well. What was breathwork giving me that meditation wasn’t?
What Meditation Couldn’t Touch
I love meditation. It has gotten me out of my own head, quieting the constant chatter, giving me the ability to stop any thought spirals, and creating space for stillness. I am more able to objectively observe my thoughts and sit with them, question them, and let them go. I can often pinpoint where I’m feeling my stress, and be present with it.
Meditation has given me the clarity of understanding that my thoughts aren’t always true, that my feelings are fleeting, and that I can sit with it all in relative peace. I’m better at responding, rather than reacting.
But breathwork hits differently.
Breathwork has helped me move that same stress, those same feelings through and out of my body.
Meditation gives me awareness. Breathwork gives me release.
The Body Keeps the Score (I Was Ignoring It)
(I’m slowly working through this book, btw. It’s dense! And the concepts in it are making sense physically, not just intellectually.)
My body was storing everything. Every moment of overwhelm, every time I swallowed frustration to stay “calm,” every instance of pushing through when I was already depleted.
I thought I was managing it by thinking about it differently. But I was just piling more stress on top of stress, trying to convince myself I was fine while my nervous system screamed otherwise.
Breathwork gave me a way to process and release what I was carrying physically. Not just mentally acknowledge it. Not just reframe it. Actually move it out.
It also gave me the awareness to actually listen to my body. My body often knows I’m stressed before I do. I feel my jaws clench, that familiar chest tightness. I’ve been hit by waves of nausea and light-headedness before I felt grief. Breathwork has taught me to listen to these feelings and address them before they take over my emotions.
Where This Journey Is Taking Me
To say this realization led me down a rabbithole of breathwork techniques is an understatement. I started exploring different breathwork techniques—some for calm, some for energy, some for releasing stuck emotions. Many for expanding my window of tolerance so I can stay calm when it matters (morning carpool when three boys are punching each other in the backseat, for example).
I’ve learned that our breath is the one thing we can control that influences the things we can’t: our heart rates, stress responses, sweat.
Breath is the best, easiest, cheapest tool that we have that we can use to manage our emotions, including anger, anxiety, and impatience.
All the breathwork in the world isn’t going to alleviate the frustration that comes when our little ones start whining or refuse to put on their shoes. It does however increase our tolerance for this type of frustration, even when we’re not practicing.
The breathwork that you’ve done in the morning influences your ability to deal with the whining in the afternoon. By purposefully pushing our bodies and giving them a bit of controlled stress, we increase our abilities to handle the stress that is put on us later.
For me, this has been everything.
I love having tools that work with my body and mind to help when I’m feeling triggered. In my next few posts, I’ll share a few techniques. If you want to learn more about how I’m bringing breathwork into my daily motherhood or for a few practices sent directly to your inbox, click here.
