Coping Technique: One You Always Have with You

“Are you sure you emptied all of your pockets? No belt? No metal inside your body?” the apathetic technician in standard hospital scrubs asked. 

“Yup, I’m sure. No metal.” I replied.

I entered a room through a door with yellow warning signs posted all over basically telling me that I would be seriously injured or killed if I brought any magnetic materials with me into the MRI machine. 

This was my first time getting my brain scanned so I didn’t know what to expect. Earlier that morning, I googled, “how to prepare for an MRI” on my phone while brushing my teeth and quickly learned that, unlike certain things like blood work that can require fasting, not much preparation was involved. 

I also read that it was generally a safe process. What the internet failed to tell me was that it would involve me having to lay still in the overly-air conditioned hospital room for 20 minutes as the big MRI machine blasted siren-like noises into my eardrums. 

According to gethealthcare.com, “…an MRI scanner generates about 110 decibels of noise, which is about the same volume as a rock concert. However, instead of producing rock music, an MRI scanner produces scanning sound that varies in pitch and intensity.”

Right before my body was rolled into the big contraption, the technician did hand me a pair of foam earplugs while telling me that it would be loud. I had approximately 0.2 seconds to put them in my ears before I was told I had to remain dead still. One minute into the process, they half-way fell out of my ears. 

Although I had the option to squeeze the emergency handle that was said to stop the entire process, I wasn’t sure that this was an emergency. 

I began to feel anxious. All of a sudden, I felt my sympathetic nervous system (AKA the flight, fight, or freeze response) kick into high gear, breath shallowing and feeling panicked. I was squeezed into a big tube like electromagnetic machine firing rock concert-level sounds into my head and I was acutely aware of this fact. 

I was also aware of the fact that I needed to get this done according to my doctor. So, instead of squeezing the emergency handle, I decided to stay in the machine and use the breathing techniques I knew to get through it. 

Eyes closed, I let out the air in my lungs. Then, I inhaled for a count of 4, held my breath for 7, and exhaled for 8. Inhale 4, hold, 7, exhale 8. 

The noises continued. I continued to breathe. 4-7-8.

My body started to relax. I felt my anxiety decrease and my sense of panic dissolved. The annoying loud noises were still firing away, but I no longer felt the need to eject from the machine. 

The 4-7-8 breathing technique is based on pranayama, the practice of focusing on the breath that comes from traditional yoga. 

After a while (I had no sense of time in there), I got bored of the 4-7-8 breathing technique so I switched to another one I knew about which was box breathing. Again, I let the air out of my lungs. Then, I inhaled to the count of 4, held my breath to the count of 4, exhaled to the count of 4, and held my breath again for another count of 4. 

Inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4, repeat. You can visualize a box or a square to represent this breathing technique popularly known to be employed by the United States Navy SEALs. 

“When we’re anxious, we breathe shallowly and quickly, which actually creates more anxiety within your body,” integrative medicine specialist Dr. Melissa Young explains. “We can use breathwork to move out of the fight-or-flight state and into that parasympathetic nervous system.”

Whichever technique you choose to use, using the breath to manage your stress and anxiety in the moment is a tool that you always have with you. The next time you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or worried, try using the 4-7-8 or the box breathing technique. If you can’t remember how long to hold your breath for, just take a deep breath and exhale.