When Stress Took My Breath Away

Six years ago, I would have told you I was doing quite well, even though internally I was feeling uneasy with high levels of anxiety. On the surface, everything seemed steady. I was showing up to work, living life, and staying productive, and if someone had asked me how I was doing, I probably would have said, “I’m good.” 

But something underneath was not actually “good”.

My mind felt scattered, constantly scanning, jumping from one thought to the next. My body carried a subtle but constant tension. I was very easily triggered, rooted in past trauma, and returning to a settled state often cost me days of unease.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my breathing was also impacted in a subtle way that didn't catch my attention.

It had become:

• Slightly faster

• Shallower

• Higher up in my chest

• Irregular 

Undetected, this way of breathing had become my new norm. 

The Pattern I Couldn’t See

As a data scientist, I find that published research speaks to me. 

Here is a mind-blowing stat I came across:

83% of individuals with anxiety show dysfunctional breathing patterns (Courtney, 2009).

This is only one of the statistics that reveal something deeper:

The connection between anxiety and altered breathing isn’t subtle—it’s systemic.

As most of the participants in those studies, my breath was reflecting systemic stress and anxiety, moment by moment.

Stress Doesn’t Just Live in the Mind

One of the biggest shifts for me was realizing this:

Stress wasn’t just something I was thinking about—it was something my body was doing, and one of the first places it showed up (and stayed) was my breathing.

Research shows that emotional and stress states directly influence breathing patterns. Shifting them toward faster, more irregular, and more chest-dominant rhythms, while calmer states are associated with slower, more stable, diaphragmatic breathing (Homma & Masaoka, 2008; Jerath et al., 2006).

Physical responses to emotional situations are ideally temporary coping mechanisms. However, when the body remains in an emotional state, such as stress, it can enter a perpetual feedback loop in which physical and psychological responses continuously trigger each other. 

This aligns with a growing body of research showing that breathing is part of a bidirectional feedback loop; both reflecting and influencing autonomic nervous system activity and emotional state (Jerath et al., 2006).

This constant loop can turn the temporary physical response to stress into a more permanent condition, and that’s what happened to me. 

I wasn’t consciously choosing to breathe fast and shallow. My system had simply adapted to the constant influence of stress.

The Moment Everything Became Clear

Six years ago, I decided to participate in a 21-day breath challenge by Lucas Rockwood, founder of YogaBody, using short-form breath practices. He advertised it as a way to relax my nervous system, and I was willing to give it a try because his stretching program was already working for me.

Each day was a different breath pattern for 7 days. Then we would cycle through the different patterns two more times to complete the 21-day challenge. Within a few minutes, during each breath practice, something shifted:

My mind naturally calmed down without any effort, and it was a sustained calm that stayed with me after the breath practice. Breathwork was able to accomplish what I was unable to do through mental exercises. For the first time in a long time, I felt settled, at peace, and grounded.

What I Came to Understand

The experience led me into a deeper exploration that motivated me to become a breath coach and eventually partner with Nadine Tlili to start Breath Alkemē.

What I came to understand is that breath is not separate from stress. It is one of the primary ways stress expresses and perpetuates itself in the body.

And just as importantly:

Breath is one of the most direct ways to influence our nervous system. It is a real-life superpower we can use as a bio-hack to reset our system. 

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References

Boulding, R., Stacey, R., Niven, R., & Fowler, S. J. (2016). Dysfunctional breathing: a review of the literature and proposal for classification. European Respiratory Review, 25(141), 287–294.https://doi.org/10.1183/16000617.0088-2015

Courtney, R. (2009). The functions of breathing, its dysfunctions, and their relationship to breathing therapy. International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, 12(3), 78–85.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijosm.2009.04.002

Ichiro Homma & Yasushi Masaoka (2008). Breathing rhythms and emotions. Experimental Physiology, 93(9), 1011–1021.https://doi.org/10.1113/expphysiol.2008.042424

Ravi Jerath, Edry, J. W., Barnes, V. A., & Jerath, V. (2006). Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: neural respiratory elements may provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system. Medical Hypotheses, 67(3), 566–571.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2006.02.042