If you have ever noticed that your breath feels off after receiving an unexpected email or while drafting a perfect reply, you may be dealing with "email apnea." This is a common occurrence for those who rely on email for work or other high-stress activities.
What Is Email Apnea?
"Email apnea is an informal term used to describe the unconscious tendency some of us have to temporarily pause our breathing or breathe more shallowly while we're locked in to what's happening on our screens," said Carrie Howard, a licensed clinical social worker and anxiety coach. "It's often related to concentration or the stress or pressure we feel around completing a task. It's not only specific to email. We can also do this when we're texting, scrolling or engaging in other forms of intense work."
When this breath-holding phenomenon occurs during texting or scrolling, it is colloquially referred to as "screen apnea." It may also be called "laptop apnea," according to Jamie Janko, founder of ReWild Breathwork. "It's something that so many of us do when we are using a computer or laptop," Janko said. "Essentially what's happening there is our attention is narrowing, we're leaning toward the screen and what we're looking at, too, is through the lens of the nervous system. The body really reads this as almost a threat, and it braces."
The first thing that happens when you brace for something? You hold your breath, Janko noted. It is like those memes on social media that say something like, "Unfortunately, my nervous system doesn't understand the difference between an incoming email and a tiger chasing me."
Danica Harris, a somatic therapist and coach based in Texas, added, "When we are preparing for something, a lot of times we are going into an energy conservation mode." Email notifications, along with things like an unexpected update on social media, cause a "chronic bracing" in our systems. When it comes to incoming emails, there is also a preparatory feeling of "did I do something wrong?" or "what is the email sender going to ask of me?" that plays into this and exacerbates the shallow breathing or held breath, according to Harris.
How Shallow Breathing Affects Your Body
Shallow breathing into your chest, as opposed to deep belly breaths, tells your nervous system to stay in fight or flight, which is the body's physiological response to stress. When your breath is shallow, your heart rate increases. "Humans tend to code increased heart rate as activation and as anxiety," Harris explained. Anxiety, along with shallow breathing, then causes your heart rate to increase. "And if that's happening, then we're not going to be aware of other things that are happening in our body, so then tension is more likely to rise."
You may clench your jaw, clench your fists, or raise your shoulders. These are all signs of your body responding to internal tension. "Holding your breath, even subconsciously, keeps your body and mind in a hypervigilant state," Howard added.
Since work stress often follows you throughout the day, you may notice that you are often holding your breath even when you are not checking an email. Or, you may notice that you are "chronically tense or constricted." This can lead to fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, or feeling keyed up and on edge. You may also find yourself letting out big sighs periodically, which is your body's way of trying to restore its normal breathing rhythm.
Combating Email Apnea
If you notice that you hold your breath when responding to an email or have shallow breaths when getting a notification on your phone, that is okay. It is a normal response and not one you should be ashamed of. Nonetheless, it is a response that is not great for your brain or body. The first step in making change is awareness, Janko said, "and then just starting to notice when you do hold your breath." You may find that you do it when an email comes in, when you get a Facebook notification, or even when you are moving through a difficult in-person conversation.
"If we want to talk about our 'email apnea,' specifically, notice your breath the next time you open your email," Janko said. "Most people are going to find that they probably have started to hold their breath." To combat this, take a full exhale before opening the email, put both feet on the ground, unclench your jaw, and fully pay attention to what is happening in your body. "It's not about necessarily bringing in a technique here, it's really about bringing in awareness that this is something that your body has learned to do over time," she said.
You can also try coherent breathing, which is breathing in through the nose for five seconds and out through the nose for five seconds. This helps bring awareness to your breath and retrain your breath to be deeper, fuller, and go into the diaphragm, not just shallowly into the chest. Shallow breaths into the chest keep us in a heightened, stressful state. It can also be helpful to take breaks from work by going for a short walk or taking a few minutes to stretch.
Technology makes a lot of things feel like a crisis when they are not. Most updates coming in through email are neutral, yet it can be hard to remember this. "Email apnea is a reminder that all that stress you experience doesn't just live up in your mind," Howard said. "It also shows up in your body, too, even when you don't realize it."
