Take a deep breath against anxiety – 10/02/2023 – Suzana Herculano-Houzel

I suffer from chronic anxiety. My hippocampus, full of interesting problems to be solved, is hyperactive, ringing all kinds of alarms, reminding me of all the things I haven’t done yet, telling my hypothalamus to release energy, get excited, tense all the muscles and let them go. ready for the next task. My anxiety is not the negative type, which dwells on problems that don’t even exist yet. My anxiety is proactive. I want to do what I haven’t done yet, and I want to do it now so I can move on to the next task.

The problem is that since cognitively my brain is excited and ready to make it happen, instead of bored and anguished, I don’t usually realize that the pain in my head that constantly visits me is very likely to be an anxiety attack — and worse, caused by my own thoughts.

Or I didn’t realize it until last month. In the midst of juggling selling a house, buying another, managing furniture, books, clothes, cats, dogs and boyfriend at three different addresses, and still trying to work, I found myself sitting in front of the computer feeling my face hurt. I got up to go to the bathroom… And the pain went away as soon as I reached the hallway. I came back, and there was my face hurting again. What the hell?

It was then that the Neuroscientist on Duty, who luckily is using breathing control as a case study in the neuroanatomy course this semester, noticed that, sitting at the computer, she was breathing only through her chest, or through her shoulders — and not through her diaphragm, as it should, and as non-distressed people breathe. Walking down the hall forced me to breathe properly, and in addition it resolved the pain. Sitting down would start all over again, and the pain would return.

I stopped to consult my mental alphabets and inform myself. In fact, there it is: a common finding of anxiety attacks is short, shallow breathing, accompanied by pain. The problem can start with pain from other causes, which makes breathing shallow and rapid, which poisons the body with carbon dioxide and suffocates the muscles, which then hurt even more. But it can also start with anxiety, which, if breathing becomes shallow and rapid, results in the same thing: pain, which generates more pain, which is self-sustaining.

The beauty, however, is that the second situation is easily fixable because breathing, even though it is automatically generated by the brain, also accepts conscious interventions. When pain is entirely caused by anxiety, taking control of your breathing and forcing a slow, deep breath through your diaphragm can change everything. It’s not difficult: think about your belly button, and think about lowering it while you fill your chest with air, through your nose. Do this slowly, then spend at least as long releasing the air slowly through your mouth — and repeat. The part of the brain that makes the body tense immediately relaxes. And if that’s not enough, there’s a pharmacy on the corner, and a doctor on the other end of your phone. The solution is within your reach.

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