{"id":49240,"date":"2022-02-18T09:08:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T15:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/?p=49240"},"modified":"2024-04-06T06:30:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T06:30:24","slug":"the-biggest-lie-youve-been-told-about-stress-relief","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/the-biggest-lie-youve-been-told-about-stress-relief\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Lie You&#8217;ve Been Told About Stress Relief"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"blog-entry__subtitle--full\">The myth of over-breathing and how it hurts, not helps.<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-49245 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/fabian-moller-gI7zgb80QWY-unsplash-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/h2>\n<div class=\"blog_entry__key-points\">\n<h3 class=\"blog_entry__key-points-title\">KEY POINTS<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"blog_entry__key-points-item-list\">\n<li class=\"blog_entry__key-points-item\">Contrary to the common advice to &#8220;take a deep breath,&#8221; patterns of chronic hyperventilation (aka over-breathing) contribute to greater stress.<\/li>\n<li class=\"blog_entry__key-points-item\">Increases in stress and processed food consumption are causing widespread patterns of over-breathing, contributing to health problems.<\/li>\n<li class=\"blog_entry__key-points-item\">The Buteyko Breathing Method helps train the body to break the over-breathing habit and breathe a healthy amount of air.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field-name-body\">\n<p>\u201cTake a deep breath.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve all heard those four words. In fact, they\u2019re undoubtedly the most common advice we hear on how to calm down in moments of\u00a0<a class=\"basics-link\" title=\"Psychology Today looks at stress\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/basics\/stress\" hreflang=\"en\">stress<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a class=\"basics-link\" title=\"Psychology Today looks at anxiety\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/basics\/anxiety\" hreflang=\"en\">anxiety<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, science tells us, deep breathing is the biggest lie we\u2019ve been told about how to relieve stress in the long term. What we\u2019ve been using as a method to help ourselves is actually leading to chronic hyperventilation, a pattern of over-breathing that exasperates stress and anxiety.<\/p>\n<div class=\"markup-replacement-slot markup-replacement-slot-0\" data-slot-position=\"0\"><\/div>\n<p>It seems to be common knowledge that quick, labored breathing (what we all know as hyperventilation, aka \u201ctoo much breathing\u201d) is a result of and a contributor to stress and anxiety. When the \u201cfight-or-flight\u201d response is activated, our sympathetic\u00a0<a class=\"basics-link\" title=\"Psychology Today looks at nervous system\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/basics\/neuroscience\" hreflang=\"en\">nervous system<\/a>\u00a0quickens and deepens our breathing, making us breathe in more air; in this way, stress causes hyperventilation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"markup-replacement-slot markup-replacement-slot-1\" data-slot-position=\"1\"><\/div>\n<p>However, hyperventilation also causes stress. If you were to make yourself breath quickly, deeply, and heavily right now, you would activate your body\u2019s fight-or-flight response, creating feelings of anxiety and panic, an\u00a0<em>ironic<\/em>\u00a0feeling of shortness of breath, tingling sensations in your hands, and possibly even feelings of derealization. There is a feedback loop whereby stress activates hyperventilation, and hyperventilation activates the stress response.<\/p>\n<div class=\"markup-replacement-slot markup-replacement-slot-2\" data-slot-position=\"2\"><\/div>\n<h3>The destructive feedback loop that is panic<\/h3>\n<p>So, the common advice told is to interrupt this feedback loop with slower, deeper breathing.<\/p>\n<p>It is, in fact, good advice to slow down your breath, which reduces the volume of air that you take into your lungs (as opposed to quick, repetitive breaths) and takes you out of the hyperventilation cycle. It can also be helpful to take a deep breath in if it is done very slowly, with a longer exhale, and leads to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the lungs (rather than oxygen, contrary to proper belief), as is done in pranayama breathing.<\/p>\n<p>However, when we take deep breaths to breathe in more air, we\u2019re just using another form of hyperventilation. Using this advice, you stay stuck in a panic loop and, over the long term, end up teaching your body to over-breathe or hyperventilate, leading the body to stay chronically in a state of fight or flight.<\/p>\n<div class=\"markup-replacement-slot markup-replacement-slot-4\" data-slot-position=\"4\"><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cJust as we\u2019ve become a culture of overeaters, we\u2019ve also become a culture of overbreathers. Most of us breathe too much, and up to a quarter of the modern population suffers from more serious chronic over-breathing.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u2015James Nestor,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0818ZZNLR\/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=tashaseiterth-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=B0818ZZNLR&amp;linkId=b4c1d11e37c6d32233cac6b6eefe97c7\"><em>Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art<\/em><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You\u2019ve probably never thought you could really breathe too much, but according to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.normalbreathing.com\/hyperventilation-overbreathing\/\">\u00a024 published studies<\/a>, over-breathing is one of the epidemics of our age. In 1929, the average person breathed 4.9 liters of air per minute. This number has been increasing rapidly with the rises in stress, processed foods, unhealthy diets, and unhealthy breathing patterns; today, that number is at a staggering 12 liters of air per minute, almost three times the amount we breathed just 93 years ago.<\/p>\n<div class=\"markup-replacement-slot markup-replacement-slot-5\" data-slot-position=\"5\"><\/div>\n<p>Such over-breathing is keeping the average person today stuck in a fight-or-flight feedback loop, creating chronic stress and anxiety.<\/p>\n<h3>Reverse unhealthy breathing patterns with the Buteyko Method<\/h3>\n<p>Konstantin Buteyko was a Russian physician who made an interesting observation. While working with people with cardiovascular disease, hypertension, asthma, and other conditions, he noticed that those who were unwell demonstrated quick, heavy, deep, labored breathing, often from the chest. He developed a method of retraining that focused on breathing less (i.e., breathing less air and slower), breathing through the mouth, and breathing with the diaphragm rather than the chest. He found remarkable results in improving many of his patients\u2019 symptoms simply from changing the way they breathed. Given the well-established<a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-bridge\/202112\/beneath-the-skin-the-problems-chronic-stress-can-cause\">\u00a0link between stress and physical health<\/a>, it\u2019s no surprise that Buteyko was able to improve many of his patients\u2019 physical health by targeting their stress response through the breath.<\/p>\n<p>The foundation of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.normalbreathing.com\/\">the Buteyko Method<\/a>\u00a0of breathing is reduced breathing, in which, slowly, your body is taught to breathe less. This resets the respiratory center of the brain to become used to breathing less air, reversing the destructive over-breathing habit that is feeding our modern stress and anxiety. The result is much less stress and anxiety and a feeling of peace that is felt deeply in the body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/mindful-relationships\/202201\/the-biggest-lie-youve-been-told-about-stress-relief\">Original post \u00a0by\u00a0<span class=\"font-weight-semi-bold\">Psychology Today<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"layout-content-left-rail\">\n<h2 class=\"block-title\">About the Author<\/h2>\n<h2 class=\"block-title\"><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Tasha Seiter, MS,\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">owns a therapy private practice providing online therapy to couples, individuals, and families throughout the state of Colorado. Her research investigates topics related to couple relationships, the benefits of mindfulness, and stress physiology.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"layout-content-main\">\n<div class=\"about-author-card\">\n<div class=\"about-author__copy\">\n<div class=\"about-author-online\">\n<h3 class=\"heading--inline\">Online:<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tashaseitertherapy.com\/\">Learn More at www.TashaSeiterTherapy.com<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/tashaseitertherapy\">Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/tasha-seiter-ms-mftc-phd-candidate\">LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TherapyTasha\">Twitter<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The myth of over-breathing and how it hurts, not helps. KEY POINTS Contrary to the common advice to &#8220;take a deep breath,&#8221; patterns of chronic hyperventilation (aka over-breathing) contribute to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":49246,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false},"categories":[139],"tags":[137,169,141,143,145,155,120,147,175,165],"class_list":["post-49240","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-life-blog","tag-american-institute-of-stress","tag-breathing","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-relaxation","tag-research","tag-stress","tag-stress-management","tag-stress-reduction","tag-stress-relief","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Biggest Lie You&#039;ve Been Told About Stress Relief - The American Institute of Stress<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stress.org\/news\/the-biggest-lie-youve-been-told-about-stress-relief\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Biggest Lie You&#039;ve Been Told About Stress Relief - The American Institute of Stress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The myth of over-breathing and how it hurts, not helps. 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