Chances are you’ve felt anxiety at some point in your life. It’s a natural reaction to uncertainty, and—let’s face it—all of life is uncertain. So, given this indisputable uncertainty, plus a pandemic that makes every day something to be uncertain of (what will happen next?), here lies the perfect little playground for anxiety to come out to play.

A little anxiousness here and there can be tolerable. But sometimes it’s overwhelming. All-consuming. When anxiety has your head spinning with “what ifs” or uncomfortable thoughts, and your body starts to react (e.g., heart rate increases, breathing gets heavy, palms get sweaty), one trick is to focus on your breathing. It sounds simple, but your breath is a tool, and it can be used against the anxious beast.

Bear with me as I talk a bit of neurology here. There are two routes to the amygdala (i.e., the part of your brain that activates the fight, flight, or freeze response) from the thalamus (i.e., the brain’s control center for triggers). The fast route is the direct way, straight from the amygdala to the thalamus. The slow route is the route through the cortex (i.e., the thinking part of the brain), which determines whether the trigger is a threat or not. The fast route is fast because the amygdala wants to protect the body from potential danger. The slow route—the thinking route, if you will—is slow (about one-half of a second slower) because there ain’t no time for thinking if the threat is real!

That’s all to say the brain is developed to treat a potential threat (even just a scary thought, for example) as a real threat and will thus initiate the fight, flight, or freeze response before the thinking part of the brain can kick in. This is inconvenient when the triggers are just thoughts rummaging around and wreaking havoc in your head. Just the idea of something—scary, violent, repulsive, and so on—can trigger a whoosh of fear because of that initial alarm response. Only when we learn that the threat is not real will the alarm subside. But if the threat feels real (“God, I must be really sick for thinking that thought”) or increases uncertainty of a situation (“Oh no…what if that horrible thing I just pictured actually happens?!”), the alarm keeps sounding, the fear persists, and the body still feels like it needs to flee, fight, or freeze. This anxious experience following a thought establishes a pathway from thought to fear. And this means that the brain gets conditioned to react anxiously and automatically to that thought (Winston & Seif, 2017). And then the thought sticks. Great.

Okay, neurology lesson over. The point is that we can’t control the fact that the fast route to the amygdala is, by definition and nature, faster than the slow, thinking route. So, that whoosh of fear is bound to happen when we think something that feels threatening. But the whoosh can be wooed. It can be enticed to come back down and keep the brain from incorrectly labeling the thought as a threat. This, in turn, prevents the fear-increasing cycle that is characteristic of anxious thinking.

So what can woo the whoosh? Your breath, for one. Focusing on your breath can help tamp down that natural fear response to a thought or series of thoughts that feels threatening. Taking note of your breath can help you come back to the present—the world outside your brain, I mean. The breath is proof that life still goes on, no matter what junk is happening up there in the brain. I say “junk” because that’s how I’ve referred to my intrusive, anxiety-provoking thoughts: junk thoughts. When the junk is in the trunk (of my brain), putting my hand on my chest, feeling the rise and fall of my chest reminds me that I’m right here. In the world. Wherever my head is—like where rainbows and butterflies dare not enter—my breath keeps chugging along.

The breath is so easily taken for granted. Paying attention to it when you’re in that anxious state (i.e., “oh God, oh God, oh God…”) will help bring down the whoosh and reassure the all-too-trigger-happy amygdala that there is no need to worry. Intentionally slowing the breath by taking slow, deep breaths will help you stay calm as the thinking route, a half-second too late, says, “Oh, sorry I’m late. Yeah, that was a false alarm.” Those intentional breaths will interrupt the conditioning response that fuses false threats with an anxious response.

The brain is complicated and can be made more complicated when life gets more complicated, like in a pandemic. The breath is simple. It’s always there for you like a longtime friend. When the beast we call anxiety has your head spinning, take deep breaths with your hand on your chest, and remind yourself you are outside of your head, in the world, exactly where you need to be. You’re doing okay.

Reference

Winston, S. M., & Seif, M. N. (2017). How the Brain Creates Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts. Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-based guide for getting over frightening, obsessive, or disturbing thoughts (pp. 74–90). Hew Harbinger Publications, Inc.