Cosmopolitan magazine has taken note of the research of SMU psychology department Assistant Professor Alicia E. Meuret. Their Jan. 3 article “The 3-Second Trick to Beat Stress” tells readers that if they want to conquer that panicky feeling of suffocation when stressed and feeling anxious — forget about taking a deep breath.
EXCERPT:
By Zoe Ruderman
Cosmopolitan
You’ve probably been told that one of the first things you should do when you’re feeling panicky is to take a deep breath. But according to a new study, not only will that technique not help you calm down, but it could make you freak out even more.
Researchers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas say that found that when a person faced with nerve-wracking situations takes deep, slow breaths, she may feel like she’s hyperventilating, therefore making her more worked up. So what should you do when your boss calls you into a meeting you forgot about or you’re stuck in traffic? Take shallow, slow breaths.
Live Science news site interviewed SMU psychology department Assistant Professor Alicia E. Meuret for an article about her research findings that the hyperventilation that comes with panic attacks can be alleviated by breathing less — not more. The Dec. 26 article “To Stave Off Panic, Don’t Take a Deep Breath” tells readers that deep breathing reduces carbon dioxide in the system, which in turn causes symptoms like dizziness and numbness.
EXCERPT:
By Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
A new treatment for the feeling of suffocation that accompanies a panic attack focuses on getting patients to breathe less.
The treatment, which involves a technique for altering your breathing, is more effective at alleviating both short-term panic disorder symptoms and hyperventilation than traditional psychological therapy, and it may make people less prone to panic attacks in the first place, said study leader Alicia Meuret of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
The treatment is called capnometry-assisted respiratory training, or CART.
“In a certain way, CART was superior because it was changing the psychological symptoms and the abnormal physiological state,” Meuret told LiveScience.
Breakthrough “CART” treatment better than traditional cognitive therapy at altering hyperventilation and panic symptoms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQsJnLBWpE
A new treatment program teaches people who suffer from panic disorder how to reduce the terrorizing symptoms by normalizing their breathing.
The method has proved better than traditional cognitive therapy at reducing both symptoms of panic and hyperventilation, according to a new study.
The biological-behavioral treatment program is called Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training, or CART, said psychologist and panic disorder expert Alicia E. Meuret at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
CART helps patients learn to breathe in such a way as to reverse hyperventilation, a highly uncomfortable state where the blood stream operates with abnormally low levels of carbon dioxide, said Meuret, one of the researchers conducting the study.
Hyperventilation, a state of excessive breathing, results from deep or rapid breathing and is common in patients with panic disorders.
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“We found that with CART it’s the therapeutic change in carbon dioxide that changes the panic symptoms — and not vice versa,” Meuret said.
CART: Breathing exercises twice a day During the treatment, patients undergo simple breathing exercises twice a day. A portable capnometer device supplies feedback during the exercises on a patient’s CO2 levels. The goal of these exercises is to reduce chronic and acute hyperventilation and associated physical symptoms. This is achieved by breathing slower but most importantly more shallowly. Contrary to lay belief, taking deep breaths actually worsens hyperventilation and symptoms.
“Most panic-disorder patients report they are terrified of physical symptoms such as shortness of breath or dizziness,” Meuret said. “In our study, cognitive therapy didn’t change respiratory physiology, but CART did effectively reduce hyperventilation. CART was proved an effective and powerful treatment that reduces the panic by means of normalizing respiratory physiology.”
CART breathing a proven biological therapy The study pitted CART against a conventional cognitive therapy treatment, or CT. Traditional CT teaches patients techniques aimed at helping them change and reverse catastrophic thoughts in order to reduce fear and panic.
In the CART-CT study, 41 patients were assigned to complete either a CART or CT treatment program for panic disorder and agoraphobia, a fear of being trapped with no means of escape or help.
Both treatment programs were equally effective in reducing symptoms, said Meuret. But CART was the only treatment to physiologically alter panic symptoms by actively reversing hyperventilation in the patients. Cognitive therapy didn’t change the respiratory physiology, said Meuret.
Treatment helps patients address terror associated with panic The study is the second randomized control trial to measure CART’s effectiveness. By reversing hyperventilation, patients reported a new ability to reduce panic symptoms by means of changing their respiration.
With CT, Meuret said, if a patient reports shortness of breath, the therapist challenges the assumption by asking how often the person actually has suffocated during a panic attack, then hopes that will reverse the patient’s thinking.
“I found that process very challenging for some of my patients because it acknowledges the symptom but says it’s not a problem,” Meuret said.
“CART, however, tells us a patient’s CO2 is very low and is causing many of the symptoms feared, but it can also show how to change these symptoms through correct breathing. There has been an assumption that if people worry less about symptoms it will also normalize their physiology, but this study shows that this is not the case,” she said. “Hyperventilation remains unchanged, which could be a risk factor for relapse down the road. Apart from hyperventilation being a symptom generator, it is an unhealthy biological state associated with negative health outcomes.”
Broader study planned to measure CART The researchers plan to branch out with their studies on CART by taking the program into the community, particularly to ethnic minorities. They believe CART is a more universally understood treatment due to its physical exercises — as opposed to cognitive therapy’s more intellectual methods — and therefore more accessible to a broader range of people with varying levels of education and different cultural backgrounds. Ongoing studies will test the efficacy of CART in patients with asthma and fear of blood.
Co-authors of the study at SMU were David Rosenfield, associate psychology professor, and psychology graduate students Anke Seidel and Lavanya Bhaskara. Stefan G. Hofmann, psychology professor at Boston University, was also an author on the paper. The research was funded by the Beth & Russell Siegelman Foundation. — Austin Reed
SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU’s seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.
SMU has an uplink facility on campus for live TV, radio or online interviews. To speak with Dr. Meuret or to book an interview with her in the SMU studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.
As the health care reform debate turns to cutting costs and improving treatment outcomes, two SMU professors are expanding a study that shows promise for reducing both the expense and suffering associated with chronic asthma.
Thomas Ritz and Alicia Meuret, both of SMU’s Psychology Department, have developed a four-week program to teach asthmatics how to better control their condition by changing the way they breathe.
With the help of a four-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, they plan to engage 120 Dallas County patients in four weeks of breathing training by the study’s projected end in July 2012. Their co-investigators include David Rosenfield, also of SMU’s Psychology Department, and Mark Millard, M.D., of Baylor University Medical Center.
More than 22 million Americans suffer from asthma at an estimated annual economic cost of more than $19 billion, according to the American Lung Association. The number of cases doubled between 1980 and 1995, prompting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to classify the disease as an epidemic in 2000.
During an attack, sufferers tend to hyperventilate, breathing fast and deep against constricted airways to fight an overwhelming feeling of oxygen deprivation.
Unfortunately, this makes the problem worse by lowering the body’s carbon dioxide levels, which restricts blood flow to the brain and can further irritate already hypersensitive bronchial passages.
Patients who “overbreathe” on a sustained basis risk chronic CO2 deficiencies that make them even more vulnerable to future attacks. Rescue medications that relieve asthma symptoms do nothing to correct breathing difficulties associated with hyperventilation.
As part of SMU’s Stress, Anxiety and Chronic Disease Research Program, Ritz and Meuret use their biofeedback-based Capnometry-Assisted Respiratory Training (CART) to teach asthma patients to normalize and reverse chronic overbreathing. A hand-held device called a capnometer measures the amount of CO2 exhaled. Using this device, patients learn how to breathe more slowly, shallowly and regularly.
CART techniques could have a positive impact on quality of asthma treatment even as they reduce the need for acute care, Ritz says.
“The research shows that this kind of respiratory therapy can limit both the severity and frequency of asthma attacks,” he says. “That means fewer doctor visits and less frequent use of rescue medications, with the associated savings of both time and money.”
And for those who count any year without a trip to the emergency room as a year with a good treatment outcome, that means a higher quality of life, says Meuret, who lives with asthma herself.
“The training gives patients new ways to deal with acute symptoms, and that helps them to feel more in control,” she says. — Kathleen Tibbetts
(Photos: SMU Professor Alicia Meuret uses biofeedback data to demonstrate the relationship between oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in hyperventilation.)
Southern Methodist University psychology professor Alicia Meuret proves conventional wisdom is dead wrong: A person suffering a panic attack who tries deep breathing to calm themselves only increases his or her level of hyperventilation and overall panic-related symptoms.
Meuret’s solution? Self-training to expel lesser amounts of carbon dioxide using a hand-held, biofeedback device results in the ability to normalize breathing and avoid hyperventilation.
As the health care reform debate turns to cutting costs and improving treatment outcomes, two SMU professors are expanding a study that shows promise for reducing both the expense and suffering associated with chronic asthma.
More than 22 million Americans suffer from asthma at an estimated annual economic cost of more than $19 billion, according to the 
CART techniques could have a positive impact on quality of asthma treatment even as they reduce the need for acute care, Ritz says.
Southern Methodist University psychology professor 