Introduction

If you are reading this post, you are, of course, breathing. But are you breathing in a way that supports your mental health?

It turns out that physiological coherence breathing (PCB) can magnify the mental health skills of mindfulness, distress tolerance, and emotional regulation. So, what is a technique for breathing?

Technique

A respiration set is 12 respiration cycles, each lasting 10 seconds for a total of 2 minutes.

A respiration cycle lasts 10 seconds: one inhalation for 5 seconds and one exhalation for 5 seconds.

The timing reminder of the five second intervals can be visual, auditory, or tactile depending on the sensory pathways available to you.

For beginners I recommend one set in the morning and another in the evening.

What to Expect

• The skills of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness increase gradually along with your competence in PCB.
• Mental health functioning requires much more than PCB, but PCB is an effective way to start.
• Many people are skilled in PCB without ever having heard of it because PCB develops naturally in tai chi, yoga, religious prayer especially antiphonal, athletic pursuits, and similar activities.
• Once you have achieved some competence in PCB, you will find yourself using it often without awareness.

Why Physiological Coherence Breathing Works

Our brains do not have an off switch; they are always on. Even when we sleep. Instead, our brains operate in different functional states governed by different neural networks. The first of these to be named was the default mode network (DMN). When the DMN is operating we are thinking of ourselves in relationship to others, to the past, and to the future.

The DMN is critical to our surviving, but getting stuck in it can have had adverse consequences. Two of these are getting stuck in the past, rumination, and getting stuck in the future, catastrophizing. Rumination is a core cause of depression, and catastrophizing  is a core cause of anxiety. ((Anxiety and depression are normal and useful conditions that contribute to the quality of life.  Both can become pathological, but that is the subject of a future post.))

Physiological coherence breathing switches off the DMN and switches on the rest and digest network (RDN). This latter network allows the renewal of our physical and psychological systems and is mediated by the vagus or tenth cranial nerves. The pair of vagus nerves originate at the bottom of the brainstem and coordinate the heart, lungs, internal organs, and many muscles of the face. Physiological coherence breathing is associated with the coordination of brain and organ functioning along with facial expressions.

We humans may have a brain center that monitors respiration rate. Rapid respiration alerts the sympathetic nervous system for the classic fight, flight, freeze, or fawn defensive activities. Slow respiration energizes the parasympathetic nervous system and the RDN.

Endnotes

• A school of thought says that physical and mental health rests on four things:
  1. Healthy air
  2. Healthy water
  3. Nutritious food
  4. Physical movement
• This post supplements the two-part post on emotional intelligence and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).
• An easy add-on to PCB is to allow the muscles of the face, especially around the eyes and cheekbones, to relax while doing the breath work. Recall that the vagus nerve regulates some muscles of the face.

Good mental health,

Dr. Michael DeCaria

(The featured photo is sunrise through Millcreek Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains with Grandeur Peak on the left. Photograph by the author.)