ADHD and emotional dysregulation
A simple technique that’s a breath of fresh air
Spanning the Rio di Palazzo in Venice is a very short, ornate bridge with a very long, sombre past.
You know the Bridge of Sighs. You’ve seen it in countless films and travel shows. And you’ve especially seen it in the instagram stories of anyone you know who’s recently been to Venice – more likely than not shot from the POV of a smug gondola passenger as they’re ‘gondoled’ along the canal below.
You may well have encountered copycat versions of this clichéd selfie backdrop in real life, too. The bridge’s defining feature – that it has a roof and sides – has been unapologetically borrowed by architects the world over. (Looking at you, Oxford and Cambridge Universities.)
Presumably, the creators of most Bridge of Sighs rip-offs were primarily looking for a way to keep their foot passengers dry. But health and safety wasn’t the reason the original Bridge of Sighs was created to be fully enclosed.
The OG bridge had high-end security in mind – in particular the need to prevent prisoners from escaping as they were marshalled between the interrogation they’d endured inside the Doge’s Palace on one side of the Palazzo Canal, and the city’s infamous New Prison on the other.
Interlaced with stone bars, even the bridge’s windows are un-climb-out-able, cruelly whipping away any chance of a last-minute bid for freedom.
Which is a somber thought. And one that wasn’t lost on one-time Venice resident, Lord Byron, who wrote about the bridge in a poem – suggesting that all who crossed it in ancient times must have given a sigh as they snatched one final glimpse of ‘the floating city’ on the way to their unfortunate fate.
But why is sighing a response to stress and sadness and despair?
What, physiologically speaking, does the actual act of sighing achieve?
And why am I writing, at quite some length it would seem, about sighing – in a blog that’s supposed to have an ADHD theme?
Take a breath
Deep down inside our lungs – at the very extremities of the bronchioles – are tiny air sacs called alveoli. There are millions of them, with a combined surface area of somewhere between (you won’t believe this) seventy and eighty square metres.
That’s not much shy of half a tennis court.
Under normal conditions, these miniature balloons allow oxygen from inhaled air to move into the blood, and for the waste product, carbon dioxide, to take the opposite journey and be breathed out.
When we’re stressed, however, we breathe rapidly and shallowly. Which can cause the alveoli to collapse – and for the whole gas exchange process to screw up.
As a result, carbon dioxide builds up in our blood, bringing on feelings of breathlessness. Which further raises levels of anxiety. Which leads to more intensely shallow and rapid breathing. Which exacerbates the whole collapsing alveoli thing.
And so the vicious circle goes round.
The physiological sigh
A somewhat heightened emotional reaction to situations can be a familiar experience to many a person who’s ADHD. The propensity to breathe poorly in times of perceived threat can be relatively high.
Mastering the breathing, therefore, can be a useful habit for ADHDers to get into in an effort to combat such an unhelpful involuntary response. And there just so happens to be a technique you can adopt that will do just that.
It’s called the ‘physiological sigh’, and it requires a good, deep inhalation through the nose to almost (but not quite) fill the lungs – followed by another, short, sharp, extra inhalation on top of the first.
It’s the second breath that re-inflates those collapsed alveoli, allowing the all-important process of gas exchange to fire back up – and for that overabundance of carbon dioxide to hop out of the blood stream ready to be exhaled – through the mouth – in a long, slow sigh.
We are entirely capable of consciously breathing our way to a calmer, more balanced state. Studies even show that exhale-focused physiological sighing improves our mood more effectively than mindfulness meditation.
That’s powerful. But what’s even better is that it can be performed in the moment. Without anyone clocking that we’re doing it. And with unbeatable real-time effect.
Make this a habit you start building, and you’ll have a taken a big step towards improving moments of ADHD-style emotional dysregulation.
Mind you, if you ever find yourself crossing Venice’s Bridge of Sighs, I doubt it will be enough.
Interested in building better habits (such as perfecting the physiological sigh) to help manage your ADHD? Get in touch here to arrange a free, no obligation discovery call with Kev. There’ll be no hard sell; just a relaxed and informal conversation about the many ways in which professional ADHD coaching could be working hard for you.
Copyright © Kevin Exley 2025
You should not regard the information contained in this article/post as being, or as a replacement for, professional medical advice or treatment. The words contained herein represent the thoughts and opinions of the author, who is not clinically or medically trained.
References: Balban MY, Neri E, Kogon MM, Weed L, Nouriani B, Jo B, Holl G, Zeitzer JM, Spiegel D, Huberman AD. Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Rep Med. 2023 Jan 17;4(1):100895. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895. Epub 2023 Jan 10. PMID: 36630953; PMCID: PMC9873947.
Image: Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash