Told to "Just Breathe" While Furious: Four Common Misunderstandings

"Just breathe."

"I am breathing."

"Breathe deeper. Calm down."

"I am calm."

That was the exchange at desk number seven, third floor, eleven fifteen in the morning, while my headset was still crackling with the voice of a customer calling for the fourth time that week. Vân, my team lead, meant well. I heard it as being told I was doing something wrong.

I am Đạt, twenty-nine, and I work in phone customer service. There is nothing wrong with the phrase "just breathe". It simply arrives with a few misunderstandings attached, and I carried the whole set around for more than two years before I put them down one at a time. This is about four of them, in the order I tripped on them.

It is not a way to make anger vanish

Before the four, one thing to say plainly: breathing when you are angry is not for putting the anger out. I used to believe it was, and every time I breathed and was still angry I decided I was doing it badly. It does not put anything out. What it can do, when it works at all, is give you a short gap between hearing and speaking. That is all. All four misunderstandings below circle that point.

Four things people get wrong

"You have to breathe in as deeply as you can"

After Vân's sentence I took the biggest breath I could. Chest up, shoulders creeping to my ears, my left hand still clenched on the mouse. The breath stopped at the top, caught for a second, and I coughed softly just as the customer asked:

"Are you still there?"

"Yes, I am here."

Everyone assumes deeper means better, so the bigger the in-breath the more correct it is. Underneath that is something else: trying to breathe in "deeply enough" turns the breath into one more thing to get right, and when your head is hot you already have plenty to get right. Leave the in-breath exactly as it is. The part you can change, gently, is the out-breath.

The first time, I often felt the out-breath was "not long enough" and wanted to gulp more air. I let it stay that way. After a week the out-breath took less thinking; some people notice no difference, which is normal too. You know you are doing it right when your shoulders no longer creep up on the way in. If you want to go a little further with the out-breath, there is a piece about three weeks of changing just one small thing: a longer exhale than inhale. On a busy day, keep exactly one breath out, like fogging glass, between two of the customer's sentences.

Here is where I kept tripping: on days my chest did not feel full enough, I would add more. It is tempting because it matches the picture in the books, ribs wide, shoulders dropped. What I do instead is half as much, and stop.

"Breathing is meant to make the anger go away"

Three in the afternoon, my iced tea down to the ice, the second customer of the day raising the same invoice problem as in the morning. I breathed three times, exactly as I had learned. My chest was still hot, my fingers still tapping the desk.

I did breathe.

If I breathed and I am still angry, what is breathing for?

Those two lines were my own head arguing with itself. Everyone believes breathing is a switch: press it and the anger goes off. Underneath is something else: I was asking the breath to do the work of time. Anger needs its own time. Breath only opens a gap, and what you say in that gap is up to you. Anger ending is the anger's job. What to say is yours.

1. After the third out-breath, ask yourself: if the sentence I am about to say were recorded, would I want to hear it again?
2. If not, pick a shorter one: "I have noted that, let me look at this part again."
3. Say that. The anger can stay.

The first time, I found the anger exactly as it was, sometimes clearer because I had stopped. After a week, some people hear the sentence they were about to say before it leaves their mouth. Others say the same thing as always, and that is fine, because this practises the gap and not the cooling. You know you did it right by looking at the first sentence you said, not at the anger. On a busy day, keep one out-breath and one question.

I also used to measure results by how much the anger cooled, conclude I was not suited to breathing, and quit. It is tempting because a feeling is the clearest thing you have in your hands. Measuring by the sentence is harder to see, but it is the right place to look. Close to this idea, there is a piece about practising breath before replying to a message, the same short gap, placed somewhere else.

"If one breath does not work, breathing is not for me"

Wednesday evening, alone at the dinner table, a bowl of sour soup still steaming, my phone face down beside it. And I suddenly saw: all week I had only tried to breathe at the exact moment I was angriest, and every time it had not worked. Not once had I tried when things were calm.

Everyone thinks that if it does not work when you need it, the method is not for you. Underneath is something like riding a motorbike into a jammed alley for the first time: never having ridden anywhere wide, you find the narrow place even tighter. A breath taken in anger, by someone who has never breathed in calm, feels as unfamiliar as a new pair of handlebars.

The first week I forgot two of the three moments, so I stuck a small scrap of paper beside my screen. After about ten days the breath no longer felt strange. Some people feel it within a few days, others still find it strange, and that is fine too. On a busy day, keep only one moment: sitting down at the chair.

There was a way of practising I did very badly: pushing all of the practice into the moment of anger, like teaching a child to swim in the middle of a current. It is tempting because that is the moment you feel you need it most. But it is also the hardest moment to learn in, so do the learning when things are calm.

"Telling someone else to breathe is helping them"

That evening at home, Linh, my sister, twenty-four, sat hugging her knees on the sofa, eyes red from something at work. I blurted out:

"Just breathe."

Linh turned to look at me, then stood up and closed her bedroom door. The door made a small but distinct sound.

I stood there holding an empty glass and realised I had just done exactly what Vân had done to me.

Everyone assumes the right advice will help. Underneath, "just breathe" sounds like "you are overdoing it", and a person who is angry or crying needs to be heard before being shown a method. Breathing is the work of the one who is breathing. I can breathe next to them, but I can hardly breathe for them.

Next time I catch myself about to say "just breathe", I try swapping it for three things. Set a glass of water down near them. Sit at a fitting distance. Breathe out one slow breath of my own, say nothing, then ask one question only: "Is it all right if I sit here?"

The first time I was clumsy, and the silence ran longer than I am used to. After a week, some people tell me they slow their own breathing when someone sits beside them. Others show no reaction, and the glass of water was still worth putting down. On a busy day, keep only the glass of water.

That sentence tends to slip out when I am impatient, and it comes out like an order. It is tempting because it is short and sounds kind. The glass of water is a little slower, but whoever receives it does not have to guess who I am blaming.

If you tried and nothing seems to change

This happens more often than people say, so here it is plainly.

The first common reason: you are breathing at the very peak of the anger. When it is too hot, one out-breath does not reach it. Then leaving the spot for thirty seconds often helps more than trying harder: go and wash your face, drink a glass of water, and breathe after that. The second reason: you are measuring by a feeling instead of by what you did. Switch to counting how many times in a day you managed three out-breaths, and stop counting how many times you cooled down.

One thing needs saying plainly, beyond right and wrong: if while breathing you feel dizzy, short of breath, a tightness in the chest or tingling in the hands, stop and breathe normally. If it happens again, or worries you, please see a doctor to rule out a physical cause. This article does not explain causes and cannot replace that. And if the anger lasts for weeks, or frightens you, talk to someone qualified. Do not wait until it is really bad.

And if paying attention to your breath makes it feel harder to breathe, there is a piece about exactly that. It is quite common.

Yesterday Vân walked past my desk while a customer droned on in my headset. She said nothing. She set a glass of water beside my mouse, and walked on.

I looked at the glass for a while, then breathed out, slowly, just enough to fog a pane of imaginary glass.