The question: Why doesn't taking a deep breath calm me down?
The short answer: A deep breath does work, but only when you take it on purpose. A short, sharp, reactive breath that lifts your shoulders keeps you in an activated, stressed state. James Stewart teaches that the same amount of air, taken low, slow, through the nose and in a balanced way, sends your body a relaxing message instead.
What James explains
Most deep breaths happen in response to something: a scare, a tense moment in a game, a stressful day. In those moments the breath is unstructured. We gasp, lift our shoulders and recruit the arms and other non-breathing muscles, and that only pushes us further into a sympathetic, activated state. James compares it to an object in motion staying in motion: if you are already wound up, a couple of unplanned big breaths keep you there or even raise the level.
Depth is only one part of the message a breath sends. James points to four other things that shape it: whether you breathe through your nose or mouth, how long the breath is, how much air you take in, and where in your body you breathe into. When the goal is to relax, you want the diaphragm doing the work, the belly moving forward and the shoulders staying down.
That is the difference between simply taking deep breaths and breathwork. Breathwork means knowing the message you want to send your body, why you want to send it, and sending it on purpose. A conscious deep breath tells your body it is safe, which helps it shift toward a calmer, parasympathetic state.
Try it: a low, slow nasal deep breath
- Sit up tall and take a couple of quick, sharp deep breaths so you can feel how activating they are.
- Now breathe in slowly through your nose, making the inhale long rather than sharp.
- Let your belly come forward as you breathe in, and keep your shoulders from rising.
- Breathe out through your nose or your mouth, letting the breath leave in a balanced, unhurried way.
- Notice that you took in a similar amount of air, but your body received a very different message.
What to watch for
The most common mistake is the reactive gasp: a short, sharp inhale with the shoulders lifting and the arms and upper chest doing the work. It is still a deep breath, but it signals stress. Keep the breath low in the belly, slow and through the nose, and stay curious about the message it is sending rather than how much air you can pull in.
Key points
- A deep breath calms you only when it is low, slow, through the nose and balanced.
- Reactive, shoulder-lifting deep breaths keep you in an activated, stressed state.
- Breathwork is about choosing the message your breath sends to your body and sending it on purpose.
Common questions
Does this mean breathing exercises don't work?
No. James is clear that deep breathing absolutely works. What tends not to work is the unplanned, reactive big breath taken in the middle of stress. A structured breath, low, slow and through the nose, is exactly what helps your body relax.
Do I have to breathe out through my nose too?
James says you can breathe out through your nose or your mouth. The key parts of a calming deep breath are the slow nasal inhale, the belly moving forward and the shoulders staying relaxed.
Why does a sharp deep breath make me feel more wound up?
A short, sharp inhale that lifts the shoulders recruits muscles we use when we are under stress, so it reinforces an activated, sympathetic state. If you are already activated, a few of these breaths keep you there or raise it.
Read the full transcript
Auto-generated from the video captions, so expect small errors.
So, here's a question I got recently. James, why doesn't taking a deep breath work for me? Such a good question and to be honest, the first time I've ever got that question. Absolutely, taking a deep breath works. And it doesn't. So, in today's conversation, we're going to talk not only about why it works and why it doesn't, but I'll teach you how to make a deep breath work for you. So, most of the time when you take a deep breath, it's usually in response to a stimulus. Halloween recently, right? So, when you get shocked or scared, you go or when something happens on a sporting
event, it's a and usually we're in an activated situation or a stress situation and we take a deep breath. But, when you think about the depth of your breath when you take a deep breath, it's not only depth alone that comes together that orchestrates to send that message to your body. It's which hole do you use to breathe, the length of that breath, the volume of that breath and where you're breathing into. So, that deep breath can work as long as you're conscious about how to make it work for you. So, the idea of of just taking a deep breath has been around for a
long time. Your grandma may have told you at some point in time, "Hey, just take a deep breath and calm down." Why doesn't it calm you down? When a deep breath is unstructured or it's in response to a stimulus, you're often not thinking about what message you're sending, what physiology am I recruiting to taking that breath. We talked, I think, in episode two, which you can check out up here, why it is important to understand how your physiology when you're breathing works, what muscles and parts of your body you are recruiting when you're taking a breath and what not to. And a lot of the
time when we're in response to a stimulus, we elevate our shoulders, we get all like this and we go and that only extends us into a more activated or sympathetic dominant state. And usually what we're trying to do when we take a deep breath is to relax, to reduce that effect of stress, and to get into a more calm and relaxed state. When we think about that from a physiological standpoint, raising our shoulders, using our arms, and a lot of these external non-breathing muscles aren't something we want to recruit when we're taking a deep breath. If our goal in taking a deep breath is to
relax, we want to think about our diaphragm and pulling that down, using our breath low, slow, and through the nose, and bringing balance to that breath. So, the way that a deep breath can work for you is to think about taking that deep breath longer. So, instead of a short, sharp inhale, which is a deep breath for sure, but that will send an activating message. We want that breath to be I can end up with the same amount of air in my lungs, but doing it low, slow, through the nose, and in a balanced way sends a more relaxing message to your body. So, sit
yourself up here and try it real quick. Take a couple of deep breaths where you're going [gasps] and then you go You know, then you go You may even feel like a little bit light-headed. You certainly feel a little bit more activated. And then if you take a second and you go [sighs] breathing in through your nose, you can breathe out your nose or your mouth, but you're just going allowing that belly to come forward, feeling our shoulders not raise as we're taking that breath. So, just breathing in That deep breath will work for you to relax your body, to send that message of safety,
that I'm okay, right? And when we want to be in that parasympathetic dominant state, we want our body to feel safe. And then that allows us to reduce a lot of [snorts] those effects of stress and and what probably stimulated us taking that deep breath in the first place. So, when you're thinking about taking a deep breath and the difference between simply taking deep breaths and using deep breath in a conscious way, that's really what breath work is about is understanding the message you want to send, why you want to send it, and kind of doing it on purpose, right? So, hopefully you understand that
yes, a deep breath can work for you if you do it consciously and on purpose. And often when you take a couple of unregulated or unplanned deep breaths, you know that was that Newton's law, an an object in motion stays in motion. So, if you're already activated and you take a couple of deep breaths, you're going to stay and even elevate that activated state. So, remember deep breaths need to be low, slow, through the nose in a balanced way, and that will get you a more relaxed outcome. Talking about relaxed outcomes, the next time we talk, I'm going to talk about breath work for bedtime.
So, how to use our breath consciously in order to enhance not only while we're asleep, but in lead up to sleep. So, join us then. I'll be in bed and we can do some breathing together.