Four Easy Breathing Techniques To Improve Performance & Manage Anxiety

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of various breathing techniques to explore that focus on different aspects of our biology. Practitioners of Yoga have experimented with breathing exercises for centuries, to great effect. Some techniques get a bit spiritual, which isn’t a negative criticism, but I favor techniques backed by hard science and have been ‘battle tested’ for success. The following techniques are what I’ve used to help with stress, anxiety, recovery, and a lot more. Let’s take a look…

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading my Optimal Breathing article for a rundown on the biological effects at play during inhalation and exhalation. There’s a lot of stuff going on, and to fully appreciate the effectiveness of these techniques, it may benefit you to have that foundational knowledge.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff.

In This Article…

Incremental Breathing
Combat Breathing
478 Breathing
Wim Hof Method
Which Breathing Technique Is Best?

Incremental Breathing

I’ve talked about incremental breathing before, but let’s look at it again.

Essentially, when out of breath (like being eight minutes into your absolute division sub-only finals match), it’s difficult to focus on breathing in a way that both steadies our resolve and feeds our muscles with oxygen. The brain power to do any of the other techniques listed here just isn’t available. We’re in a high-stress situation and exerting energy rapidly. What do we do?

Inhale several sharp breaths in through the nose, filling our lungs.
Exhale one or two big breaths through the nose or mouth.
Repeat.

The idea is we quickly fill our lungs with oxygen followed by quickly releasing built up CO₂, then repeat as needed using our diaphragm as much as possible. Because we’re exercising, and thus creating more CO₂ than our body can expel normally, we speed up the process of cycling oxygen and carbon dioxide more efficiently.

One of my coaches describes this as breathing like a horse. We all know how horses snort big breaths that sound like their lips are flapping. It’s a noisy, forceful process, but I like it as an example for our recovery breaths.

Though he didn’t invent the technique, Pavel Tsatsouline coined the term ‘Incremental Breathing’ (as far as I’m aware) and I’ve been a huge proponent for most of my martial arts career.

This is similar to Rickson Gracie’s percussive breathing techniques.

Combat Breathing

Military and first responder branches call this ‘combat breathing’, but you may have heard it called ‘tactical breathing’, ‘box breathing’ or ‘4444 breathing’. The idea here is that you’re in a stressful situation (such as life or death combat or petting your cat) that triggers an anxiety response forcing our breath to become irregular. You may have even lost control entirely and are hyperventilating.

Combat breathing works as follows:

Breathe in deep through the nose for four seconds.
Hold your breath for four seconds.
Exhale through your nose or mouth for four seconds.
Hold your breath for four seconds (don’t inhale yet).
Repeat.

There are a few reasons this works.

First, it gives our brain something besides life or death to focus on. Often, anxiety is a spiral effect and the longer our brain focuses on the cause of stress, the worse it gets. Cortisol runs rampant in our brain and we need to shut it down. By overriding this spiral and focusing on something else (counting to four over and over) we effectively create a kill switch for the anxiety response.

Second, we ensure a steady supply of oxygen at a consistent rate, like when we breathe into a paper bag to stop an anxiety attack. By controlling the speed of our breath, we wrest control of the anxiety itself. We inhale and exhale at the same rate, creating an even flow of oxygen and carbon dioxide, which helps steady our nerves and get our brain back to the present where it can focus on the task at hand.

Finally, the part that is maybe the strangest, holding our breath at four second intervals at the top and bottom of the breath gives our body time to process the oxygen, convert it to CO2, and create new red blood cells which then increase our oxygen absorption efficiency.

It’s pretty dope.

478 Breathing

Also known as ‘relaxing breathing’, this technique is primarily for (as the name implies) relaxation. Mixed with body scans, this can be an effective way to calm our mind and get some sleep after a tough day. In fact, many combat veterans use these techniques to sleep in active war zones, the last place anyone wants to be.

Here’s the process…

Inhale through your nose for four seconds.
Hold your breath for seven seconds.
Exhale through your nose or mouth for eight seconds.
Repeat.

This works in much the same way as combat breathing, but is more suited to chilling out rather than regaining control. Ideally, we’re out of immediate danger or stress and are trying to recover from it. This is a slower form of combat breathing, with similar results.

It’s unlikely we’ll be able to use this technique while exerting ourselves (sparring) because of the breath-holding aspect and long exhale. Instead, reserve this for after the match or before bed.

Wim Hof Method

If you haven’t heard of Wim ‘The Iceman’ Hof, click that link because he’s a pretty interesting guy. Not only that, but he’s systematized a form of breathing that has some promising science backing it up as a fantastic recovery exercise and a way to improve our overall cardiovascular endurance. His app can help guide you, but the basic steps are as follows:

Inhale deeply into the stomach until it fills into your chest (diaphragmatic breathing) over and over.
Once you’ve reached your desired breath reps (they recommended 30 for beginners) exhale and hold your breath for a minute or more. This is your ‘retaining period’.
Once you can no longer hold your breath, inhale deeply and hold for fifteen seconds. This is your ‘recovery breath’.
Exhale the recovery breath, start back at step one, and repeat for the desired number of sets (at least three).

You’re encouraged to log your retention period and monitor its progress because, as you practice, it will definitely increase. This is a measurable indication of our body becoming more efficient at processing oxygen and carbon dioxide. In fact, that’s one of my favorite things about this method, the emphasis on recording data to measure our progress.

He has a bunch of other exercises and metrics to experiment with, and I’d encourage you to do so. Like the other techniques we’ve discussed so far, the Wim Hof Method helps increase red blood cell count, lung capacity, oxygen efficiency, and a lot more. While it sounds awesome, there are a few considerations.

First, never do this while driving or doing anything other than sitting or laying down. The rapid, deep breaths at the beginning of the exercise basically force us to hyperventilate. This will probably cause a tingling in our fingers, toes, face, or possibly our whole body.

That results from the increased oxygen in our blood not having time to convert to CO2 before we take our next breath. It’s not ‘dangerous’ per se, but some people pass out during either this or the retention phase, which would obviously be catastrophic if we were driving a car.

I know a great coach in the LA area if you’re interested in this particular style of breathing. Tell him Coach Winter sent ya.

Which Breathing Technique Is Best?

As I mentioned before, there are many breathing techniques out there. I use one or more of the above techniques daily, and have enjoyed the results. However, you may wonder which breathing technique is best.

As with anything in life, it depends.

I use incremental breathing for immediate recovery during a fight, box breathing for after a fight, 478 breathing before bed, and Wim Hof method for daily relaxation and breath practice.

Experiment with these, or any others you may find, and discover what works best for you. Everybody’s different. And remember, just like with lifting weights or training jiu-jitsu, these techniques take practice. You may not feel results immediately. You may not even understand how to fully do them properly, or figure out how to manipulate your diaphragm at all.

That’s okay.

Practice, be patient, and try to have fun. In time, the results may surprise you.