# Do breathing techniques really work?



## Reni (Nov 25, 2009)

I look online for ways to handle my anxiety and every website I've gone to says that deep breathing really helps you. It use to help me when I was 17 when I went to bio feedback but now when I do it, I just feel bad. These sites always say to lay down on a soft surface and relax while breathing in and out slowly but I only feel this way when i'm around people, not when I'm by myself in my room. I cant lay down on a comfortable surface if im standing waiting at the bus stop around people, or at school, while Im giving a presentation etc. 

It just doesn't work for me when I'm around people. I I try the breathing slowly but I'm still tensed and nervous. I do it so much that I become light headed. Am I doing it wrong?


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

it does help.

you need to practice techniques like this when you are alone and relaxed first. It is necessary to practice them until they become automatic, like second nature. 

along with the breathing, practice a progressive relaxation technique. You can google it and probably come up with several. listen to them all, and choose one which feels best to you. one method is to tense one muscle group at a time for several seconds, then relax, travelling from one end of the body to the other. Then you choose a word, such as calm, or relax, or "om" or some symbolic word that means something calming to you, and repeat it when you have finished tensing, to fix the relaxed feeling and associate that word with feeling relaxed. Then, the trick is to practice this so much that when you are out in public, all you have to do is repeat the word to yourself and you will relax, and breathe.


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## accesshypnotherapy (Apr 1, 2010)

*Hypnotherapy might help*

Deep breathing is a technique used by most hypnotherapist to get a person into a nice relaxed state. However, your anxiety feelings come from your subconscious mind - in other words, they happen automatically. I would suggest going to see a properly qualified hypnotherapist and seeing if he/she can help you to find the root cause of your anxiety.


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## Lacuna (Mar 31, 2010)

I would say yes and no. It is not the end-all be-all to cure your SA. But it is a tool that can help you in certain situations.

For example, if I find I am experiencing anticipatory anxiety of some situation or if I am having obsessive thoughts after a situation, I use deep breathing and visualization of some kind of relaxing environment (a beach, the forest, etc). Sometimes, it will take me down a notch. Other times, it won't. But it's better than doing nothing.

In terms of using it IN the moment of anxiety, I find it less effective. It's tough to focus on your breathing when the rest of your body is freaking out! But, maybe with time and practice, it will come. I don't know.


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## arth98 (Nov 30, 2009)

deep slow breathing helps me a lot, needs to be done in a relaxed way


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