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"My natural instinct right now is when I feel it, I'll go into box breathing."
That's what Joe, one of the participants in our program, told me on one of our weekly group calls.
So I asked him: "I'm assuming you're doing that to make the anxiety go away, right? It's not something you would otherwise do."
And the answer was yes.
If you've ever wondered why breathing exercises can make your anxiety worse, or why that cold shower, ice bath or breath-work session only helped for a little while, I think you'll recognize yourself in Joe.
Maybe you've tried them all. Box breathing, meditation apps, a cold plunge first thing in the morning...
And sometimes they actually helped a bit. But then the anxiety came back, sometimes even stronger than before.
So let's talk about why that happens, because it has nothing to do with you doing the breathing wrong.
Breathing Exercises and Cold Showers Aren't Bad
Let me get one thing out of the way first: there's nothing wrong with breathing exercises, cold showers or ice baths.
A lot of people love them. And for someone with a regulated nervous system, a cold shower is just a cold shower. It wakes you up, it feels good afterwards, and that's about it.
I still like these things too!
The problem starts when your nervous system is sensitized, or stuck in survival mode, as we like to call it.
Because then the very same breathing exercise or cold shower can mean something completely different to your brain.
And that all comes down to one thing: your intention.
Why Breathing Exercises Can Make Your Anxiety Worse
When your nervous system is in survival mode, it's constantly scanning for evidence. Am I safe? Or am I in danger?
And it doesn't really listen to what you tell yourself. It watches what you do.
So when you start box breathing the moment you feel anxious, or jump in an ice bath every morning so the panic won't show up later that day, what's the message you're sending?
"I'm not okay. Something is wrong, and I need to protect myself from it."
As I told Joe on that call: with that intention you're actually saying "I'm not okay, I'm in danger", because otherwise you wouldn't be doing the box breathing.
Mirka, our head mentor, explained it really well on one of her calls:
"When we are doing the breathing to fix the anxiety itself, you literally keep seeing anxiety as the problem, as a threat you need to be protected from, but the only protection against threat is more anxiety."
So you breathe to calm down, and your nervous system reads it as proof that there's something dangerous to calm down from.
Which means... more anxiety.
The opposite of what you're trying to achieve with these breathing exercises in the first place!
I said something similar to Jamie, a participant who was listening to calming frequency music every day.
Your nervous system is basically looking at you and thinking: "Well, if Jamie was okay, she wouldn't need to listen to this."
So the breathing, the cold water or the music itself was never the issue.
It's the why behind it that keeps your nervous system on high alert.
The Relief Is Real (And That's the Trap)
Now, I'm not going to tell you these things never "work". They do, sometimes.
You do your breathing, you feel a bit calmer, and it feels like proof that it helped.
Just like when you go to the doctor and get reassurance, you get that moment of relief.
But as I explained to Joe, even if you didn't do anything at all, you would also eventually get that relief.
That wave of anxiety would have passed anyway.
And because it seemed to work, you start relying on it.
You do the breathing, and then you check in: "Is it gone? Did it work this time?".
And with that checking, you're right back in the anxiety cycle, because your goal is still to get rid of anxiety.
(I wrote more about this in why checking keeps your anxiety going.)
Over time you need the breathing more and more, cause your brain has learned that you can't handle anxiety without it and that the anxiety itself is dangerous. Giving you more symptoms.
That's how a breathing exercise turns into a safety behavior, just like always sitting near the exit, carrying a water bottle everywhere or never leaving the house without your phone charged.
My 90-Minute Morning Routine
I know this one from experience.
Back when I was still stuck in the anxiety cycle, I had a 90-minute morning routine.
Breathing exercises, box breathing, meditation, Tony Robbins exercises, a cold shower and a workout.
Every.
Single.
Morning.
On top of that, I had lavender drops that I would put on my hand, so I could smell them every time I felt anxious.
And one of the first therapists I saw told me to bring a paper bag with me to breathe into, on the plane and everywhere else I would go.
I thought: "If the professionals say this, it must be true."
I honestly believed I was doing all of it because I wanted to or because it's healthy.
But the truth is, I did it because I believed that if I started my mornings like this, the anxiety would be a little less during the day, or the panic might not show up at all.
So if you had asked me back then, "Would you still do all of this if you didn't have anxiety?", the honest answer would have been no.
And I know that for sure, because these days I don't do any of it.
I wake up, I go to work, and I probably drink a little too much coffee ;)
I'm not saying which one is healthier. But the intention behind it is completely different.
(And to be honest, I do miss doing meditation. I kinda liked it but don't make time for it anymore nowadays...)
Mirka went through the same thing.
She used to do meditations, cold showers, supplements and all kinds of other stuff.
When she finally understood anxiety, she threw all of it out of the window, because she would have done none of it if she didn't have anxiety.
Is It Helping or Hurting? One Question
So how do you know whether your breath-work, your cold plunge or your meditation is helping you or keeping you stuck?
Ask yourself: would I still do this if anxiety was no longer an issue?
As Mirka said in one of her calls:
"Do you enjoy meditating? Absolutely, do it. Do you enjoy cold plunges? Do them. If it's something that the moment anxiety would leave you would be like... finally I don't have to do this anymore... then drop it. You don't need it."
If you love your morning dip in cold water because of how it makes you feel, great, keep it!
But if the thought of never having to do your breathing exercises again would feel like a relief, that's your answer.
If it's something you need to do in the MOMENT anxiety shows up or to prevent it, it's something keeping your anxiety alive.
In our Kickstart Your Recovery mini-course I call this the 80/20 of recovery.
Things like exercise, sleep, breathing, yoga and ice baths can play a part, but they're 20% at most.
The other 80% is how you respond to anxiety when it shows up. (More on that in how to respond properly to anxiety.)
And even that 20% only helps when you do these things because you genuinely want to, so with the right intention.
When you do them to get rid of anxiety, you're focusing on the symptom again, and that only makes you more intolerant of anxiety.
What to Do Instead When Anxiety Shows Up
So when that wave of anxiety comes and every part of you wants to start breathing in for four and out for four, what do you do instead?
- Recognize it. "Okay, this is anxiety. This is my sensitized nervous system doing what it's been doing for a while now."
- Let it be there. You don't have to calm it down. It's allowed to be here, as strong as it wants and for as long as it wants. (If you want to go deeper, read how to accept anxiety.)
- Leave your breathing alone. Your body has been breathing your whole life without any help from you, and it can do that during anxiety too.
- Go back to what you were doing. Let anxiety come along if it wants to. As one of our mentors says, the difference between distracting yourself and refocusing is simply intention: "One is from oh no I have to run away, and the other is okay this is here and it can be here, but I have better things to do."
And you don't have to throw everything away on day one. If letting go of your routine feels like a big step, that's okay.
Start by being honest about why you're doing it.
And if the answer is "to make the anxiety go away", try skipping it once - or postponing it for 10 minutes - and letting the anxiety be there while you do.
That in itself becomes your "exposure".
In this video I go deeper into why the things we do to feel better can keep anxiety going, and what to do instead:
You Already Have Everything You Need
Mirka said something on a call recently that I really love.
People make recovery so complicated sometimes, looking for external things to help their body.
Should I meditate?
Should I do cold showers?
Should I do this or that?
"It's literally all up here. You have everything to recover. Even if someone would put you on bed rest for three weeks, if you work with this, you have everything you need."
You don't need the perfect breathing technique, the coldest ice bath or the longest morning routine to recover from anxiety.
What you need is the right response to anxiety, and you can bring that with you anywhere.
So keep whatever you genuinely enjoy, and let go of the rest.
And the next time anxiety shows up, see what happens when you don't do anything to make it go away.
Thank you for reading and good luck!
-Jort
P.S. If you want to be part of our little tribe and get mentorship support? Book a free discovery call below and see if we can help you.
This article is for education and is based on lived experience. It is not medical advice and does not replace a doctor or therapist. If you have new or changing symptoms, get them checked by a doctor. If you are in crisis, contact your local emergency number.
