Beyond "Just Breathe": Effective Breathwork for Stress & Anxiety

You're already breathing, but HOW are you breathing?

Breathwork Is The Answer For Anxiety. (Just Breathe is NOT.)

Recently, I talked about the new “little black dress” of life for working adults around the world. Unfortunately, The Infinite Workday is not sexy or a staple. Quite the opposite in fact: It’s a mental, physical and emotional nightmare in the making.

Increasing rates of stress, anxiety, and depression aren’t just residual effects of a pandemic or from TikTok, they’re also because most adults don’t know how to regulate their nervous systems.

Some don’t even believe it’s possible.

In this week’s episode of More than Anxiety, I’m sharing my conversation with Cathy Eads. Cathy is a yoga therapist who teaches breathwork and meditation for anxiety to help you get out of fight or flight, slow down, and stop overthinking. In this week’s episode, she shares practical tools for anxiety management and unshakable inner calm.

Are You Reacting or Responding? 

Whether you’re like me with a long history of anxiety or like Cathy, where navigating major life transitions kicked your nervous system into overdrive, the feeling and the thoughts that follow can keep you trapped and terrified. 

Overthinking, trying to be perfect and right, always checking to be sure no one is upset with you, or that there isn’t another catastrophe or trigger right around the corner, are all anxious reactions. 

You don’t want to be freaked out and on edge; it feels terrible. 

You don’t want to snap at your spouse and kids,

You don't want to freak out every time your boss asks you a question.

And you're really not into typing the same text reply 10 different ways to make sure you’re not upsetting anyone.

But until you address the anxiety in your body, you’ll keep doing those things because your brain thinks it’s keeping you safe. 

Breathing Doesn’t Work For Me

I’ve heard this from clients, and honestly, I thought it was garbage too back in the day. In college, I was seeing a therapist to help me with my health anxiety. God bless her sweet Boilermaker heart, I don’t know if she knew what she got into when she agreed to work with me. 

Without explanation of what was happening inside my body and mind, or letting me know why I “couldn’t breathe” the way she wanted me to, I had 2 thoughts.

1. She can't help me.

2. This is impossible.

Long story short, if you’re anxious about how you feel and one of your triggers is feeling like you can’t breathe, having someone guide you through a breath practice while moving all of that anxiety out of your body is life-changing!

Having someone telling you to "just breathe" is not.

What Works And How To Get Started

For me, it started with taking walks and daydreaming about leaving my teaching job while trying NOT to go into a tail-spin that threw me back into anxiety about my health.  

For Cathy, yoga, breathwork, and meditation helped her through the empty nest process, and a marriage that was on the rocks. 

If you’re going to breathe, you might as well do it in a way that calms your body and gives you energy and that starts with focusing on your exhale more than your inhale. 

TRY THIS. Inhale for 4 seconds. Hold your breath for 4 seconds. Exhale for 6 seconds. (Repeat this for 1 minute.) If you’re paying attention you’ll probably notice that your shoulders dropped, your teeth aren’t clinched, and you might even feel a little bit sleepy. Bonus points if you're doing yoga or taking a walk while you focus on your breath.

In both cases and in very different ways, Cathy and I both came back to the simplest and most effective way of flipping the switch on your nervous system so you can stop reacting, calm your body, stop overthinking, and respond to the situations life throws at you.

Why You Want A Guide

I won’t tell you that you can’t feel better going it alone because it’s not true. You can. 

I will tell you that having someone who understands how it feels to be anxious and recover to walk you through the process will help you feel better faster and give you the tools to calm your body and mind the next time life decides to throw you a curve ball. 

Whether you’re looking for an ayurvedic approach to managing anxiety that Cathy uses or a more holistic approach that I use, the foundation is the same. 

🌟 Breathwork flips the switch on your nervous system, moving you out of fight or flight so you can pause, think, and respond without anxiety running the show. 🌟

Breathwork allows you to think clearly and creatively so you can respond instead of reacting to:

• The glance you got from your coworker

• The email that you’ve been avoiding, or 

• The conversation you need to have with your spouse without flipping out.

Let Us Make It Simple.

Start by checking out my new 5-Day audio course, Less Overwhelm - More Life. 

The first lesson is all about using breathwork to pause before you believe what you think.

Each day you’ll get a short 8-10 minute audio lesson that you can listen to on your commute, in the shower, or while you're chopping veggies for dinner, an action step that removes things from your to-do list, and optional journal responses to take things to the next level.  

This audio course is perfect for you if you have absolutely NO time for an audio course but know you need something to help you feel calm, set boundaries, and create a values-based plan that works for you and your life. It's simple, impactful, and literally takes things OFF your list!

Be sure to connect with Cathy Eads on LinkedIn and check out her website where you can learn more about her yoga therapy practice and how she can help you calm your body and mind through yoga, meditation and breathwork.