4-7-8 Breathing for Anxiety

Summary:

One of the things that bothers most breast cancer patients at some point in their journey is a feeling of anxiety.  For some this is pretty persistent and can interfere with relationships, sleep, the ability to focus, and most importantly the ability to just feel well.  Here's a simple technique to fix all of that.

Transcript:

Hi there! One of the things that bothers most breast cancer patients at some point in their journey is a feeling of anxiety.  For some this is pretty persistent and can interfere with relationships, sleep, the ability to focus, and most importantly the ability to just feel well.

In the program that I’m going to be introducing in a few weeks, I will give you a detailed plan of many techniques that you can use to get over your anxiety.  For now though I wanted to give you something simple that you can use today and use many times a day.  And that is a simple breathing exercise.

I can hear some of you already...I’ve got real problems, what is breathing going to do for me?  How can that help with the side effects I’m having, the sleeplessness, the worry, the pain?

Well, you don’t have to believe me.  There’s plenty of research out there that breathing exercises can help with pain and anxiety.  Even people having full blown panic attacks can get relief by breathing.

Even those of you who say you can’t slow your mind down enough to relax, this is for you.

This is a part of a mindfulness practice that you can do in just a few moments without needing to find that quiet space to meditate.  Use this at least twice a day.  Maybe as soon as you sit down at work or right after you drop the kids at school.  When you wake up at night and can’t get back to sleep (like that never happens, right?).  Or (this may be especially helpful) before you attempt to tackle your daily email.  What if …you let this replace your evening cocktail?  It could happen.

I am going to teach you a very quick and effective breathing exercise that I learned from Dr. Andrew Weil when I was in his fellowship program.  He has written about it in many of his books if you want to learn more, but it’s called 4-7-8 breathing.

So let’s get right to it…

1.     First, sit up straight or stand up straight lengthening your back.

2.     Place the tip of your tongue on the back of your front teeth.

3.     Exhale fully through your mouth, blowing the air out.

4.     Take a quiet breath in through your nose to a count of 4 in your head.

5.     Hold the breath for a count of 7.

6.     Exhale fully through your mouth, blowing the air out to a count of 8.

That is one breath cycle and you should repeat it four more times.

So, anxiety is a huge problem… whether you’ve had breast cancer or not.  You can’t get rid of the fact that you have had breast cancer.  

But you can know that you have had the best treatment that you had access to. 

You can know that you’ve done all that you have been told to do.

And you can know that there are some things you can do that are completely within your control that can keep you from getting breast cancer again. 

Having a mindfulness practice is just one of those things.  I promise over the coming weeks I will continue to introduce you to many more.  And soon I will have an all-encompassing program for you that will cover all of the things that you can do that will keep you healthy.  Stay tuned.

That’s is for 4-7-8 breathing.   If you are interested in more information about breast cancer, nutrition, and healthy lifestyle changes, be sure to visit my website and blog at LisaSchwartzMD.com or subscribe to my You Tube channel at Lisa Schwartz, MD.  Thanks for your time and attention.  See you next week.