Day 1 - Resting and Breathing for Anxiety
Day 1 of 10
Welcome to Day 1, this is the first full day of the course.
Each day is divided into prereadings, practices, journals, and homeworks. This course will walk you through each activity. Simply follow along each day.
Prereading
Start Healing Anxiety by Resting and Breathing
An athlete takes rest before the next competition. Students perform better when well-rested before an exam. And our work here with anxiety will be more fruitful if we first rest.
That said, resting is a foreign skill to many of us in this productivity driven culture. In my case, I had to spend many years learning how to really rest. I was constantly tired, and, when others pointed it out, I would deny it. I denied it because I was so used to being tired that I didn’t know I was tired!
The insidiousness of anxiety is that it makes us tired - and being tired makes it easier for anxiety to take over - creating a self-destructive cycle for us to exist in. Learning the basics of why rest matters for healing anxiety, and how to rest, is a great start to healing and managing anxiety.
For deeper, more durable benefits, there's more to learn about the root of anxiety (see reading for Day 5 and Day 6 of this course)
Resting as a Skill
Resting is a natural skill we have, though many of us today have forgotten this. Working long hours, coming home to a stressful life, being constantly engaged with electronics - there are many reasons we may have trouble resting
Relearning how to rest is not simply a matter of sleeping longer over the weekend. Instead, we can think of it like training your body for a technical skill - like typing.
Learning to type, we have to learn to move our fingers the right way. Our fingers move thanks to our nervous system, so we are really training our nervous system to control things how we want.
Resting is no different - our body has a resting mode that is controlled by a branch of the nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s often said this nervous system’s role is in “resting and digesting.” Our job, like learning how to move our fingers to type, is to learn how to engage this nervous system.
Fortunately, we have many tools to do this, we just need to learn what they are. This is why resting is a skill.
The Effects of a Life Without Rest
Having forgotten how to rest is having many impacts on our lives. We already mentioned the parasympathetic nervous system as the body's “rest and digest” system. There is another system, the sympathetic nervous system, that acts as the “fight or flight” system.
In a healthy life, these two systems are both used in a balance that allows us to perform actions, and then recover from the efforts. In our society, this balance has been distorted, so that we underemphasize the resting mode.
This is like driving your car without basic maintenance - changing the oil, replacing the tires, etc. Over time, many things can go wrong. The difference with the body is that it is even more complex than a car.
Our resting mode supports many aspects of our existence, so we can have problems from ranging from high blood pressure, indigestion, addiction, also to anxiety itself. If we neglect our rest and digest system, we take our body out of balance causing a wide variety of problems.
With such a broad array of health symptoms, it isn’t always obvious that a lack of rest is really the cause.
With such a broad array of health problems from this, it isn’t always obvious that a lack of rest is really the cause.
The Breathe as the Gateway to Rest
The challenge, then, is how do we rest. For some of us, anxiety is so strong it keeps us from our most essential resting time, sleep. Insomnia is a common symptom of anxiety. For others of us, we can sleep and rest, though the quality is not as high as it could be. Through the breath, we can learn to sleep better and also to experience more rest throughout the day. Learning to rest is a mental phenomena as much as a physical one.
Fortunately, practices for resting have been transmitted over millenia based on many people’s experiences. As a scientist myself, I was at first skeptical of these practices - wanting to know how and why they worked. Fortunately, there are many researchers studying them, validating their efficacy and explaining more details.
If we place trust in scientific knowledge, this is reassuring. We can also place trust in the experience of the individuals who passed down the knowledge over time. We may consider this experience-based, ancestral knowledge as anecdotal - though much of this knowledge comes from cultures that placed a strong emphasis on a scientific approach to studying the body and mind internally.
Our “inner technology” to observe the body and mind has been with us for millenia, and this is what people used. Detailed observations came through practices that quiet the thinking mind, such as meditation. Thanks to these practitioners, yoga, Buddhism, and other traditions are informing our society today about how to live a healthy life.
From these traditions, we know that the breath is a gateway to controlling our nervous system - allowing us to impact what are otherwise automated functions of the body and mind.
This knowledge is perhaps most dramatically on display by the the famous “Ice Man” — Wim Hof — through controlling the breath, he has been able to hike Mt. Everest in his underwear!
Both science and ancient tradition show the power of breath. Abdominal breathing is known to activate rest and release stress. Chest breathing is known to be energizing and increase stress.
More complex techniques, like alternate nostril breathing (anuloma viloma), can further help decrease stress responses.
In a stressful situation, this is why we are always encouraged to breathe. Breathing does two things - first, it brings us back into the moment. Second, the breath itself can activate our relaxation mode.
Through breathing, we really can influence the automated functions of the body, relearning how to rest. We will have an opportunity to learn these techniques in videos over the next few days.
Other Pathways to Resting Mode
Many of our “relaxing” activities are not activating our resting mode. Watching movies, social media, spending time with friends — all of these offer a poor quality of “rest” when compared to an other options. This isn’t to say these activities are bad, they are just different from rest.
The breath gives us one way to rest. Meditation is becoming popular, and can give another way to rest — though that largely depends on the state of mind we bring to the meditation. Yoga poses can also activate our resting mode — Savasana, a supine resting pose, being among the most praised poses!
The trick, however, is the same as the trick to sleeping. The harder we try to rest, the less rest we get. We can rest in many moments, we just need to learn to let go.
Other factors that can help us let go and relax include: spending time with loved ones, being in a safe environment, cozying up in bed, going into nature (with preparations), and anything that brings us into the moment. Many of these likely sound familiar, even obvious, but it’s good to have a reminder to prioritize the mundane activities that help us truly rest.
There are many pathways to resting, some easier and some harder for each of us. The important thing is that we begin to value the rest - and this will happen through experiencing the benefits. As we get better at not only resting, but recognizing when we need rest, we can boost our energy levels. This alone will reduce our anxiety, though not get rid of it all together.
Conclusion
Anxiety can put us in a cycle of poor rest that is hard to break. Learning strategies to rest can give us tools to break this anxiety—opening the doors to transforming our lives.
Any of us can start this journey. The techniques are not complex or difficult to implement. They do, however, require a commitment and trust in the practice. Start taking your journey today to improved resting — allowing you to fully embrace your life.
Practices - Takes about 20 minutes
Each day there will be 2 or more practices for you to follow along. Simply follow along the course to access any audio or video files needed.
You can email us any time at [email protected] for any comments or questions.
Practice 1 - Abdominal Breathing
As part of today’s exercise, we will be learning abdominal breathing. Follow the video below to learn.
After watching the video, continue observing what type of breathing you’re doing. If you feel a lot of stress, try abdominal breathing to help relax.
Practice 2 - Metta/Loving-Kindness
The foundation of this course is transforming anxiety into love and compassion. We will discuss details of this process later in the 10-day course. For now, we introduce a simple practice to try. As you follow along, we recommend being in a comfortable environment, either sitting upright or lying on your back. Even an office chair will do.
Listen to the audio file below
Homework
One more time
- Practice the abdominal breathing for 5 minutes
- Practice metta for 5 minutes
Throughout the day
- Notice when you are breathing through your abdomen vs your chest. If you are trying to relax, but are not using your abdomen, then do abdominal breathing
- When anxiety gets strong, remember to breathe deeply through the abdomen and use your affirmation
End of Day 1
Congratulations! You finished Day 1 of 10. Your journey has just begun. The next three days you will continue to release anxiety and to recover our energy. This work will prepare you well for Part 2 of the course, where you will need all your energy to face your anxiety. Good luck as you continue to Day 2!