Bio-Hack Your Way Out Of Momentary Anxiety In 11 Seconds
Following 4 steps
I recently read James Nestor’s highly anticipated book, Breath. The thesis of the book is that breathing through your nose has more health implications than we thought.
Recently I found myself lying in bed, unable to sleep nor calm myself down — a common occurrence for me this year given the unusual amount of uncertainty we’ve been tasked to interpret. I thought back to the third chapter of this book and decided to test out a theory. It worked faster and more palpably than I could have ever imagined.
I instantly felt calm. I felt a rush of tranquility cascade down my entire body — immediate relaxation to my muscles, slower heart rate, even a calmness over my eyelids (which sounds particularly strange, but for anyone who has suffered from insomnia or long stretches of inadequate sleep, you know the feeling of a heavy calmness to suddenly overtake your irritated eyeballs).
This is the process I found to instantly cure my momentary anxiety:
1. Breathe in for at least 5.5 seconds through both nostrils
5.5 seconds is extremely specific, but is the tried and tested optimal proportion of inhale to exhale. James takes us through a few different lenses as to how they arrived at this number. For instance, 5.5 seconds is the exact amount of time it takes to recite the Ave Maria prayer. It’s the exact timing of a Kundalini yoga chant. In fact, it’s the same amount of time of prayers and chants from Japan to African to Native Americans throughout history. James shares how there’s a perfect balance of getting enough new air into our lungs, without breathing too often to strain the functioning of different organs over time. So 5.5 seconds is the perfect balance to reach maximum health benefits.
2. Before exhaling, plug my right nostril, leaving the left nostril open
One of the most interesting parts of this book talked about the biological benefits of the nose itself. James outlines how the different glands, tissues, and pathways connect to other aspects of the body. The left and right nostrils are connected to very different functions and networks in our bodies.
Right Nostril: “The Gas Pedal of the body”. Inhaling through the right nostril will increase circulation, makes the body hotter, increases cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate. Essentially, the right nostril is your morning coffee. If you ever need to get things moving in the morning, the same principals I outlined could work in reverse, optimizing the effects of the right nostril.
Left Nostril: This is the “Brake Pedal of the body”. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system moving you out of fight or flight mode, and into rest and relaxation. This helps to lower body temperature, blood pressure, and actually shifts the blood flow to the opposite side of the prefrontal cortex. This was one of the key ingredients to my instant calmness and a breakthrough to this hack.
3. Exhale for at least 5.5 seconds through the left nostril only
Breathing less often (longer inhales and exhales) actually allows the body to work a little less strenuously. Psychologically, keeping count in our heads (ensuring the exact 5.5 seconds) distracts our monkey mind from taking us on a terror-ridden anxiety roller coaster. A helpful trick is to concentrate on how the body feels as you exhale longer than usual. If your lung capacity can do more than 5.5 seconds, concentrate on feeling like every atom of air is out of your lungs with nothing left to rid. This will trigger an automatic inhale, and you will be maximizing the detoxing effect of breathing, as your lungs will now only be full of new air molecules.
4. Imagine your stomach deflating as you exhale
Another interesting take-away from this book is the importance of the diaphragm, the muscle right under your lungs that is dedicated to the process of the inhale and exhale. When we become shallow breathers, the diaphragm is used less. And as you might imagine as it’s the case with any muscle or skill even, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
It’s important to practice really drawing your stomach in as you exhale. This helps to activate the diaphragm. By optimizing this muscle, not only does it increase the effectiveness of your breathing, but it helps your heart! The process of breathing changes the chemical composition of your blood, but it also helps to circulate it within the body, which is one of the main functions of the heart. Having a more robust and helpful diaphragm will allow your heart to strain a bit less in moving your blood around your body.
So that’s it. 11 seconds.
Every time I do this practice, my body feels instantly reset. I feel calmer, my brain clearer, and body in alignment. I know this is a simple trick and will not help those that suffer from long-term or chronic anxiety, but in moments of paralyzing stress, I’ve found this to be an actionable and tangible quick hack. Sometimes you need a real way to take action when your brain feels like it’s taking over, and this has worked wonders for me in those very moments.
