How you breathe influences all sorts of things in your body. Most significantly, how you breathe directly influences your nervous system, which is responsible for how you feel and interpret the world around you.
Calm Clinic, a psychiatric clinic specialized in overcoming anxiety, explains how anxiety can cause hyperventilation (fast breathing leading to low CO2 levels in the blood). Conversely, hyperventilation can also cause the body to create “distressing symptoms associated with anxiety.”
So while certain types of breathing can cause the body and mind to enter a state of panic, others can help it calm down.
“Box breathing” is a technique used by U.S. Navy SEALs to help them stay calm and alert through any sort of situation.
Author and former Navy SEAL Mark Divine explained to Time magazine how he practices box breathing often and anywhere.
He wrote, “I practice it in the morning, before a workout, while standing in line, while I’m stuck in traffic and whenever else I can. It helps me slow down my breathing rate and deepen my concentration.”
What is Navy SEAL box breathing?
Box breathing is a repetitive breathing pattern of four equal length intervals.
An easy way to do it is to close your eyes and imagine a square.
Breathe in for four seconds and start from the bottom left corner, moving vertically. Hold your breath with your lungs inflated for the next four seconds as you move to the right. From the top right corner moving downwards, breathe out for the next four seconds. Finally, move left along the bottom line of the square as you hold your breath with your lungs deflated for the final four seconds.
Divine said, “I have found that the best approach is to do one practice session for 10 to 20 minutes a day, then do a few one- or two-minute ‘spot drills’ as opportunities present themselves during the day.”
Fine tune box breathing to fit your lungs
The four second count that people typically use for box breathing is a general measurement designed to fit everyone. However, for the best effect, you can figure out what interval works best for your own lungs.
This is called the CO2 tolerance test. Here’s how to do it:
- Take four breaths in a row through the nose. Next, breathe in until your lungs are completely full. Begin to exhale as slowly as you can either through the nose or mouth.
- The time it takes to exhale completely is your CO2 discard duration.
- If your CO2 discard duration is between 0 and 20 seconds, each box breathing segment should be 3 to 4 seconds.
- If your CO2 discard duration is between 25 and 45 seconds, each segment should be 5 to 6 seconds.
- Finally, if your discard duration is between 50 and 75 seconds, breathe in, hold and exhale for 8 to 10 seconds for each box breathing cycle.
How can box breathing help you sleep?
Recent research from three universities in Indonesia and Malaysia concluded, “Box breathing has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, both of which are known to interfere with sleep.”
The study followed elderly residents of a care facility. Twice a day for a month, residents were led through box breathing techniques, and researchers measured their sleep.
Box breathing twice daily led to “statistically significant” sleep improvements compared to the same sized control group.
The Mayo Clinic explains how this type of breathing can reduce anxiety. “Deep breathing is a great way to reduce the activation of your sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s response of fight or flight to a perceived threat,” they wrote.
Box breathing can also lower blood pressure by allowing CO2 to “build up in the blood,” according to Healthline. The site adds that box breathing has also been used as a treatment for insomnia by “allowing you to calm your nervous system at night before bed.”
Other benefits to box breathing include pain management, improved mood and calmed anxiety.
How can box breathing regulate your mood?
A recent study conducted by Stanford and published to the National Library of Medicine found that controlled breathing can “directly influence the cortical structures regulating emotion and mood and arousal.”
The body perceives states of breathlessness or the anticipation of breathlessness as “threatening.” Further, people with anxiety and panic disorders have “less tolerance for breathlessness” and have “heightened activity” in areas of the brain that process emotions, bodily senses and pain.
Controlled breathing exercises like Navy SEAL box breathing can decrease activity in these areas of the brain that trigger anxiety. The study drew on research conducted on mice, which showed how “slowing down the breathing rhythm with sighs can signal higher-order brain structures associated with behavioral arousal and promote a sense of calm.”
So when you feel anxiety or stress rising in your body, remember there are things that can be done to calm down those areas of the brain. Picture the box, trace the edges, inhale, hold and exhale.