Extremely powerful breathing exercise to combat anxiety

[framu]

I stumbled upon the classical "box breathing" technique that is used by NAVY seals that is supposed to stimulate the vagus nerve. What I noticed was that when I was breathing out and holding my breath, I got the most relaxation while using this technique. This spiraled me into experimenting with breath work.

What I figured out was that when I sat on a chair bending my chest towards my feet while I emptied my lungs of air, before I sat up and held my breath, I could feel the anxiety in my solar plexus chakra expanding down to my root chakra to the point where it felt like I was going to pee my pants. I did this 10 times every day. For each time I held my breath, I sat with this uncomfortable feeling (like I was going to drown) for longer periods of time. 20 secs, 25 secs, 30x2 secs, 35x2secs etc (these time limits are for me personally and should be adapted to every individual person - the point is that the feeling should become so uncomfortable that it is really hard to stay with the anxiety). You can feel the heartbeat pace dropping down while doing so. What happens is that the threshold limit for activation in the autonomous nervous system starts becomes higher. Its kind of a exposure therapy.

This has helped me a lot. Its like a staircase, where you sleep better at night, do the exercise the next day, and sleep even better the day after. In daily life, anxiety just disappears in all kinds of situations. I used to be a nerve wreck sometimes doing while psychedelics, but since I have implemented this I haven't had any bad trips ever since. It's like being totally zen in a war zone. The exercise could be analogous to the free divers that dosen´t feel the drowning sensation when they are pushing themselves while diving and just passing out in an blink of an eye.

A friend of mine have had really hard struggle with crippling social anxiety, and this exercise has transformed his life.

Has anybody tried this?

[Raze]

Interesting. Thank you.

[Sandhu]

I've somewhat social anxiety. I wanna try this. It's very simple actually

[PurpleTree]

Is there a video?

 

[Norbert Somogyi]

@framu Could you please share a step-by-step guide about how to do it correctly? I've been practicing and feel some kinds of results, but I just want to make sure I am not missing out on anything. Thanks!

[Vinni84aa]

@framu what is the reasoning behind bending down your chest against your feet while exhaling? 
One would think you would get the same effect by just exhaling then holding your breath?