Compassionate Breathing: Helping You Feel Calmer and More Relaxed

You can use this practice any time you feel triggered and either ‘hyperaroused’ (high-energy states like being stressed, agitated, angry, upset, anxious) or ‘hypoaroused’ (low-energy states like being sad, ashamed, depressed or dissociated). If you are a trauma survivor, you may experience one or both of these states on a daily basis, perhaps cycling between them – so having some simple, effective techniques to help manage that is crucial.

You can be guided by the video, but it’s helpful to read these guidelines first, to give you some idea of when to use the practice and what you are trying to achieve. These two stages of the practice focus on calming and regulating your nervous system by adjusting the speed and depth of your breathing.

It’s helpful to understand a little about the nervous system first. If you feel threatened and your brain decides that fight or flight are the best survival options, you feel either angry (signalling fight) or anxious (telling you that flight is the best option), your sympathetic nervous system is activated, you start ‘chest breathing’ (fast, shallow breaths from the top part of your lungs), your muscles tense up, heart rate increases and you get a bit shot of adrenaline/cortisol into your bloodstream.

All of this gives you strength and energy to either fight or flee – great news if you are faced with a hungry predator, not so good if you are on a busy Tube train. And if you can’t fight or flee, your brain triggers the freeze response, which can make you feel collapsed, exhausted, paralysed, spacey or numb.

This technique help you breathe deeply and abdominally, which is the opposite of fast, shallow chest breathing. And breathing abdominally stimulates the vagus nerve, which also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and the ‘rest and digest’ response to help you feel calmer, safer and more at peace – helpful whether you’re in a high- or low-energy state.

Warm wishes,

Dan

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