Breathing Exercises for Anxiety

Breathing techniques are often used to help people deal with stress or avoid a panic attack. They can be important because people who have anxiety attacks tend to take rapid, shallow breaths from the chest. This pattern may disrupt the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels that are typically kept in balance as people breathe.

During a panic attack, rapid breaths can lead to a faster heart rate, dizziness, muscle tension, and other symptoms. These symptoms may, in turn, contribute to even more anxiety. This thoracic (chest) breathing differs from the deep, even breaths seen in diaphragmatic breathing, an abdominal pattern that happens when people are relaxed or sleeping.

This article describes how conscious changes in your breathing pattern can help you control stress and anxiety. It explains various breathing techniques and how to assess your own breathing style.

Verywell / Laura Porter

The symptoms of an anxiety attack differ from one person to the next. Some common symptoms include:

Breathing exercises can offer anxiety relief as you learn to manage and reduce these symptoms.

There's a simple way to learn your own breathing pattern. Place one hand on your upper abdomen near the waist and put the other in the middle of your chest. If you're breathing properly, the hand on your abdomen should rise and fall with each breath. This is diaphragmatic breathing. If the chest rises, it's thoracic breathing.1

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You may be familiar with breathwork from taking a yoga or fitness class. But even if you're not, you should catch on fast. There are many breathing exercises you can learn on your own or with the guidance of a healthcare provider or wellness practitioner.

Begin your breathwork journey with recommendations from The American Institute of Stress (AIS). They combine deep breathing and visualization. Practice them and find which ones work best for you.2

How to Do Deep Breathing Exercises

Before you jump (or crawl) out of bed to start your day, try a morning breathing exercise. It helps to relieve any muscle stiffness and can get your day off to a good, calm start. Repeat it during the day if you feel a bout of anxiety creeping up on you:3

This technique can be used for children. But teens and adults can do this exercise, too:

What's the difference between "zoning out" on the sofa and doing breathing exercises? A lot, says the American Institute of Stress. Breathing exercises activate the body's "relaxation response." Relaxation reduces heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension.2

This breathing technique is meant to make it easier to fall asleep. It was designed by Dr. Andrew Weil, director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Also called the relaxing breath, the 4-7-8 exercise serves as a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system.

To try the 4-7-8 method, begin by sitting with your back straight. Once you are familiar with these steps, the exercise can be performed while lying in bed, too. You'll want to:

Breathing techniques are a helpful tool for people who have anxiety or panic attacks. They can help relieve rapid breathing rates and other symptoms of anxiety. The one thing they have in common is underscoring how breath control is key to feeling calm.

Another breathing exercise to improve sleep and fight off insomnia is called mindful breathing. Breathing control is a big part of mindfulness. This is according to Dr. Herbert Benson, of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine in Boston. He recommends:

One study of people who had trouble sleeping divided 49 middle-aged and older adults into two groups. Half completed a program that taught mindfulness exercises meant to help them focus on the moment. The other half were in a sleep education class that taught them ways to improve their sleep habits.

When compared with people in the sleep habits group, those in the mindfulness group had less insomnia, fatigue, and depression at the end of six sessions.6

Mindful breathing is a form of mindfulness. This is the practice of literally living in the moment—being aware of what's going on in the present rather than dwelling on the past or future. Noticing how you breathe is part of being mindful.

Diaphragmatic, or abdominal, breathing is meant to help you use your diaphragm while breathing. It is a muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen. This allows you to use less effort and energy to breathe. It helps to slow your breathing rate and reduce the body's demand for oxygen.

The next time you need anxiety relief, try this simple breathing technique. It can be done standing, sitting, or lying down:

Breathing exercises may seem simple, but they require practice. The American Lung Association recommends doing them for about 10 minutes a day while you're calm and comfortable.8

Quick, shallow, and unfocused breathing can contribute to a host of problems, including anxiety. It may bring both mental and physical health benefits if you develop better control over your lungs.

A 2018 review of research on this topic found that slow, deep breathing can help ease the symptoms of depression and anxiety. It also appears to help relieve insomnia.9

Experts define slow breathing as any rate from four to 10 breaths per minute. The typical respiratory rate in humans is within a range of 10 to 20 breaths per minute.10

Pursed-lips breathing is meant to make your breathing more effective. This breathing technique will help make your breaths slower and more intentional. After inhaling, pucker your lips and exhale through them slowly and deliberately, often while counting.

Pursed-lips breathing has been shown to help people with anxiety associated with lung diseases. These conditions include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and emphysema. Pursed-lips breathing can be done up to five times a day.11 Here's how it's done:

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Resonance breathing, also called coherent breathing, can help you avoid an anxiety attack by putting you in a calm, relaxed state.

A study of 15 people sought to assess the effects of yoga and coherent breathing, at five breaths per minute, on symptoms of depression. It also sought to find the right yoga schedule for later research into how yoga might help people with major depressive disorder (MDD). During a 12-week program, the symptoms declined significantly in MDD patients.12

To do resonance breathing, follow these steps:

By controlling the breath through a practice called pranayama, the ancient yogis found they could alter their state of mind. The practice makes breathing slow and regular while tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system (the part of the nervous system that controls the cardiac muscles and glands) and its ability to calm and soothe.

In stressful times, people typically breathe too fast. This can lead to changes in carbon dioxide levels, which in turn upsets the chemistry of acid-alkaline balance in the blood. This may lead to symptoms that include:

When you breathe deeply, you do more than inhale and exhale air. You send a message to your brain to relax. Your brain then directs the message to your body.3

Yogic breathing can help you to achieve balance in both the body and mind.13 Mind-body practices are increasingly used when treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They have been linked to positive effects on stress-induced illness.14 To experiment, follow these steps:

Many of the breathing techniques known to reduce anxiety come from, or are similar to, practices you may know from yoga. They are designed to help you keep a healthy balance in both body and mind. They emphasize being deliberate and mindful about your breathing so you can reduce stress and anxiety, and feel calm and in control.

Alternate nostril breathing (ANB) is another breathing technique that can be done as part of a yoga or meditation practice. You can do it to help you calm your mind.15

One study of 100 people looked at how ANB affects respiratory function in healthy, young adults who lead stressful lives. The researchers found it improved notably after using this technique:16

Keep in mind that some stress is normal when you're experiencing a major life change. But you may want to see a health professional for your anxiety symptoms or if you're having frequent panic attacks.

This is especially true if your anxiety interferes with daily life. It's also the case if your stress and anxiety are related to existing health issues or if you feel that they may be the cause of new ones.

Psychotherapy (known as "talk therapy") may help you better understand the cause of your stress and alleviate its symptoms. Depending on the cause of your anxiety, a healthcare provider may prescribe medication that can help, too.

There are plenty of reasons for why people have anxiety attacks and experience stress. Every person is unique and so are their symptoms.

That said, it's common for people to be unable to sleep, to have negative thoughts, and to have physical symptoms like hyperventilation. Breathing exercises can reduce these symptoms and anxiety.

Slow, deep, deliberate breaths have been shown to offer benefits for people who deal with anxiety as well as those who have other medical conditions that contribute to their unease.

Some people have experienced years of stress or panic attacks. For others, anxiety and its alarming symptoms may be new. Breathing exercises like these can be an enormous help as you regain a sense of control over your life.