It feels, especially lately, that the world is releasing a emotional sigh. A COVID-weary, climate-anxious, war-distressed sigh.
But a sigh is really just an out-breath, an exhale, the companion to breathing in. “When we inhale, it’s a very active process,” says Dr. Ni-Cheng Liang, a pulmonary physician, podcast host, and mindfulness teacher who gets to see the process play out in her students. “The diaphragm actually has to pull itself down and flatten in order for us to invoke an inhaled breath.” The exhalation, on the other hand, is much more passive, and consequently, says Dr. Liang, doesn’t get as much attention. But what’s important, she explains, “is that we can actually control the out-breath and harness our own physiology to help exhale out all of our residual breath.” In other words, only when we deeply exhale will we be able to deeply inhale. That out-breath, that sigh, matters.
A strong outbreath is a chance to connect our thoughts around anxiety or stress or worry and make them real in the breath, with the aim of giving those feelings room to shift, instead of keeping them stuck inside.
An exasperated out breath, for example, may signal that we’re experiencing stress or processing trauma. Jasmine Marie is founder of Black Girls Breathing, which aims to create a safe space for Black women to manage their mental health through breathwork and community. She often includes a strong out-breath, “a forced sigh,” as part of the breathwork she teaches. A sigh is how we communicate to others that something’s off or wrong, she says. It’s a chance for those doing the work to acknowledge their thoughts around anxiety or stress or worry and make them real in the breath with the aim to give those feelings room to shift, instead of keeping them stuck inside—a chance “to release what’s no longer serving us,” she says.
A key part of Black Girls Breathing is addressing trauma, says Marie. “Individual trauma, collective trauma, generational trauma…” Using breathwork to process trauma is like cleaning out our closets. We go in and get rid of a bunch of stuff, and then, the next time we go in we discover there’s still more to get rid of.
“It’s like a constant reminder that this is a process,” she says. “Breathwork is a tool to help us navigate the hard things in life.”
Yet, in times of stress or anxiety, our body often does the opposite of what’s helpful. Instead of deep, slow breaths, our breathing quickens, becoming more shallow, which helps short-term when our options are to fight or flee. It’s a response that might have served when there was a literal tiger at our door, but it doesn’t serve us when our stress is caused by an overdue work project or a pandemic or nothing we can exactly put our finger on. What can an exhale teach us about that?
