The effect of slow breathing in regulating anxiety

Summary & key facts

Researchers tested how changing breathing speed affects anxiety and brain activity. They had 27 people do slow and fast paced breathing while facing either a certain or an uncertain threat. The team measured self-reported feelings and recorded brain waves with EEG. They found that slow breathing lowered anxiety and made people feel less stirred up. The brain-wave patterns changed with breathing speed, especially a faster brain rhythm called beta during uncertain threat. The study is small, so the findings are interesting but not final.

Key facts:

• 27 people took part. Each person tried both slow breathing and fast breathing while facing two kinds of situations: one where the threat was certain and one where it was uncertain.
• When people breathed slowly they reported lower anxiety. They also reported lower valence and arousal, meaning they felt less negative and less physiologically stirred up.
• Brain activity measured with EEG showed higher overall power during slow breathing across several brain-wave frequency ranges called delta, theta, alpha and beta. These are just names for slower to faster brain rhythms.
• How breathing speed and threat certainty combined mattered most in the beta band, which is a faster brain rhythm. In uncertain situations, beta power went down with slow breathing but went up with fast breathing.
• The authors note that the psychological and brain mechanisms behind how slow breathing reduces anxiety are not fully worked out. The study used only 27 people, so more research is needed before we can draw strong conclusions.

Abstract

Anxiety is an interactive disorder of the mind and body, characterized by excessive worry about uncertain future events and a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. Previous studies have shown that slow, deep breathing can reduce physical tension, and anxiety. Although we know that slow and deep breathing techniques can effectively regulate anxiety and other emotions, the psychological and neurophysiological mechanisms of slow breathing on anxiety have not been systematically explored. In the study, we combined the paced breathing task with the threat uncertainty task for the first time to investigate the role of slow breathing in regulating anxiety. Here we investigated this question, using Spectral analysis and Time-frequency domain of EEG to assess brain activity relating respiratory rate and the mechanism of respiratory rate impact on the anxious. Twenty-seven individuals participated in the experiment, which followed a 2 (respiratory rate: fast breathing, slow breathing) × 2 (certainty: certain, uncertain) within-subjects design. The results of showed that: (1) Slow breathing effectively reduced anxiety, the valence and arousal are lower under the slow breathing. (2) The EEG of fast and slow breathing showed different characteristics. There is an overall increase in power during slow breathing in the delta, theta, alpha and beta bands.(3) The interaction of respiratory rate and certainty were closely related to beta. In the uncertain, beta power decreased with slow breathing but increased with fast breathing.

Topics

Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments

Categories

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Alternative medicine Anesthesia Anxiety Arousal Audiology Blood pressure Breathing Diaphragmatic breathing Electroencephalography Heart rate Internal medicine Medicine Neuroscience Pathology Psychiatry Psychology Respiratory rate Worry

Conditions & symptoms

Anxiety Anxiety or worry