How to stop manually breathing

You read something about breathing, or felt a moment of breathlessness, and now you can’t stop noticing every single breath. It feels like you have to breathe on purpose, and the harder you try to stop thinking about it, the louder it gets.

That’s manual breathing, and it’s very common, especially with anxiety. If you want to know why it happens, read Manual breathing: why you can’t stop noticing your breath. Here’s how to stop it.

Why you can’t just stop thinking about it

Telling yourself “stop thinking about breathing” is like being told not to think about a white bear: the instruction itself brings the thought back. Each time you check whether you’re still noticing your breath, you put it back in the spotlight.

So the goal isn’t to make the awareness disappear. It’s to stop treating it as a problem. When it stops mattering, your brain lets it fade into the background on its own.

7 steps to stop manually breathing

1. Remind yourself who’s in charge

Say to yourself: “My brainstem is breathing for me.” Your breathing is automatic, controlled by your brainstem every second of your life, including while you sleep. You can’t forget to breathe. You’re just noticing it.

2. Stop trying to stop

Give yourself permission to notice your breathing. “Okay, I’m aware of my breathing right now. That’s fine.” Letting it be there takes away the struggle that keeps it stuck.

3. Let your breathing be imperfect

You don’t need to get each breath “right”. Shallow, deep, fast or slow, your body sorts it out. Resist the urge to take a big, satisfying breath. That urge usually makes things worse.

4. Widen your attention

Instead of trying to push your breath out of your mind, add other things in. Notice the sounds around you, the feeling of your feet on the floor, the colours in the room. Your breath can stay in the picture, just not the centre of it.

5. Get absorbed in something

Talk to someone, play a game, cook, walk, listen to a podcast or music. Absorbing activities naturally pull your attention away, and you’ll often realise later that you stopped noticing your breath without trying.

6. Don’t check

Every “Am I still doing it?” keeps the cycle going. When you catch yourself checking, gently turn back to what you were doing.

7. Be patient

The awareness usually fades within minutes to hours. If it’s been around for a while, it may take days of not reacting to it. That’s normal, and it does fade.

Manual breathing when you can’t sleep

Manual breathing often feels worst at bedtime, when there’s nothing to distract you and you worry about falling asleep without “doing” your breathing. If that’s you:

• Remember that sleep breathing is fully automatic. Your brainstem took care of it every night before you started noticing it.
• Stop trying to fall asleep. Lie back and rest, letting your mind wander.
• Give your attention somewhere to go, like a sleep story, calm sounds or an audiobook.
• If you’re still wide awake after 20 minutes or so, get up, do something quiet in dim light, and go back to bed when you feel sleepy.

How Breatheasy can help

Breatheasy can help you practise letting go. Follow one of its guided breathing exercises for a minute, with your phone pulsing as you breathe in, then simply stop and let your breathing carry on by itself. At bedtime, sleep sounds and bedtime stories read by Luma give your attention somewhere gentle to rest. If checking your breathing has become a habit you can’t shake, the “Ride out an urge” tool waits with you while the urge to check rises and falls. Breatheasy is coming soon to iPhone and Android.

When to get help

If manual breathing is causing you a lot of distress, keeps coming back, or is affecting your sleep or daily life, talk to a doctor. For some people, it’s part of sensorimotor OCD, which responds well to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with exposure and response prevention (ERP).

If you’re actually struggling to breathe, have chest pain, or your lips turn blue or grey, call 911.

Sources

• Russo, Santarelli and O’Rourke (2017). The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human. Breathe.
• Abramowitz, Tolin and Street (2001). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression: a meta-analysis of controlled studies. Clinical Psychology Review.
• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), NHS
• Insomnia, NHS