How Breathing Exercises Help Drivers Stay Calm Racing

Well, let’s be honest. Racing can be incredibly stressful, right, especially before an important race or during intense fights on the track, and many drivers really try to push their nerves away. But actually, one of the best ways to deal with your nerves and deal with pressure is to actually control your breathing by doing some breathing exercises using your diaphragm, as I’ll explain in this guide.

In fact, it’s actually been scientifically proven that controlling your breathing through breathing exercises can reduce your cortisol level, which is basically the stress hormone. And therefore, if you reduce your cortisol level, you will feel less stress. You will be more relaxed. And when you need to drive at peak performance, controlling stress and making sure your cortisol level is as low as possible is definitely an important thing, and it’s a competitive advantage compared to all those drivers that are not able to deal with stress.

You’ll be able to be more focused, take quicker decisions, and your reaction times are also going to be super sharp.

In this guide, I’m going to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about the topic, especially how to deal with pressure and nerves before racing. I’ve experienced that state many times in my career, and now, after 20 plus years involved between karting and Formula cars, I can tell that if you have a proper strategy, you’re gonna have a big difference in performance compared to all the competitors who are not taking care of that.

I generally feel that some drivers are going to react in a worse way under stress, and other drivers are going to react just naturally in a better way, because maybe as a character trait, they are more relaxed. But I believe that at the end of the day, when the moment comes to perform, for example, you are starting P1 at the final, you need to really control your stress levels.

I feel like even icemen like Kimi Räikkönen or Max Verstappen are still going to feel that kind of pressure a little bit. But for sure, they have mastered that stressful state, and they were able to get much better results in their careers compared to other drivers that were not able to.

At the end of the day, let’s be honest, when you are sitting on the grid, the work from your mechanics or your engineers has been done and it’s only down to you. It’s only you that have to perform. So being able to deal with stress and really not cracking under pressure is a fundamental skill that you’ll have to develop, and in this guide, I believe I can really help you achieve this outcome through some breathing exercises.

So why do drivers actually feel stressed before the race?

Well, I feel that the stress comes from the tension that builds up because you want to do well, you know, because you don’t want to let anybody down, because you want to prove everybody wrong that maybe have been doubting you in the past, and maybe you want to bounce back from a previous race that wasn’t ideal.

There can be many, many factors that are going to create stress on you:

• You need to perform very well because you need to attract sponsors for the upcoming season
• You need to try to get some Formula One scouts interested in you and try to sign you up to support you into your next career stage
• External pressures from family, team, or personal expectations

So there can be many different reasons why drivers can get stressed. To be honest, I was able to deal with stress pretty well in karting because I knew I didn’t have anything to lose. I was always driving as if it was a testing day. I was not putting too much pressure on myself. Even when I was fighting for the world championship a couple of times, I was still able to perform really well under pressure.

When I got up to Formula cars, it was a bit difficult because I knew that it was very, very hard to continue unless I was able to win and pick up sponsorships, etc. So in that case, it was quite hard because I knew that if I do not perform, even though my car most of the times was not ideal, I’m not trying to take excuses, but it was actually the reality, I was never in the best team.

But I was short of sponsors, and I actually was trying to be very careful to not crash the car. And so in that case, yeah, I mean, that actually kind of acted a bit as a handbrake for me, and I noticed that.

But thankfully in karting, the stakes were very low. I knew that I wouldn’t have changed much if I won or not. And I was very, very confident back then. So in that case, I was able to not even create pressure on myself in the first place.

One of the best ways I was able to cope with stress was just to simply tell myself, “Listen, Alessio, just go for it. I mean, it’s not gonna change your career. It’s not gonna change your life.” And besides that, I would tell people around me when they were like, “Come on, go in. Go get P1” and stuff like that. I would just reply to them with, “You know, I’m just gonna give my best, and then we’ll see what happens.”

At the end of the day, whatever you are feeling stressed about, the goal is that we are able to control it.

So how does breathing actually affect focus and reaction times?

It’s been scientifically proven that breathing exercises, as well as visualization and meditation, really help to reduce your cortisol levels and therefore the stress hormones. They help lower your heart rate, which again, reduces your level of anxiety. They kind of make you a little bit less alert.

But to be honest, it’s a good thing, because you don’t want to be too alert. There’s a certain threshold you want to be, right in the middle. It’s called the activation sweet spot.

So what breathing exercises can help racing drivers calm their nerves?

One of the best exercises I suggest you to do, which I do most of the times, is the so-called Box breathing exercise. Here’s how it works:

1. Breathe in for a set amount of time (I do it for 5 seconds, but you can do 10 seconds if you want to do it more extreme; for beginner-friendly, start with 5 seconds)
2. Hold for 5 seconds with your lungs extended
3. Breathe out for 5 seconds
4. Hold for 5 seconds with no air in your lungs
5. Repeat the cycle

The whole cycle includes 20 seconds total, and in a minute, you’re going to be doing three breathing cycles. Compared to the average breathing rate of about 10 to 12 breaths per minute, you are going to be doing a lot less, which is going to reduce your heart rate, reduce your cortisol level, and scientifically, give you an advantage.

If you want to geek out on it, there’s tons of different breathing exercises you could be doing. You can search them on Google or on YouTube, but I don’t want to give you too much information. The box breathing exercise, I think, is pretty good.

On top of that, you can do another one, which is very, very simple instead of doing the box breathing. So instead of doing 5-5-5-5, you can just do:

1. 10 seconds breathing in
2. 10 seconds breathing out (without the pause after the breathe in, or the pause after the breathe out)

It’s going to be a bit more simple, but still going to be a 20-second cycle with just three cycles per minute, which again, it’s going to make it very, very good for your cortisol levels and your heart rate and your heart rate variability.

Can breathing slow down an overactive mind before a race?

Yes, you bet it. I mean, it’s pretty much the reason why we’re doing it right. So we really want to try to block out any kind of stressful thoughts and stressful scenarios.

Of course, kids are going to feel stress, depending on whether the circumstances are not very friendly to them. For example, if they’re not in a very friendly environment, if perhaps they have obstructive parents that maybe are not helping them succeed in a way that they can make them feel safe and make them feel at peace.

Of course, at the same time the parents, I understand that it’s not an easy job for them, you know, because they feel like, “Oh, I gotta do something if my kid is distracted, so I kind of have to get him to be back to focus.” But at some point, yes, it kind of crosses the line, and then they start to become too protective and be too stressful to the kid. So it’s a very thin line.

If you are not being careful, you’re actually going to end up dumping massive amount of stress and pressure on the kid. You may feel like that’s going to make him perform well, that’s going to help him. But in reality, no, it’s not, especially for younger kids.

I mean, I think for younger kids, maybe the coach, maybe the mechanic, could put a bit of pressure, but the parents should always be loving figures. If the kids notice that the parents are not going to love them anymore if they’re not performing well, then they’re going to have fear of doing wrong, fear of doing bad.

That’s going to automatically make them panic and make them afraid of doing mistakes, which of course is a complete handbrake for performance.

How do professional athletes use breathing techniques to achieve peak performance?

I’ve read many sports biographies as well as sports performance books, and I’ve came to realize that there’s a pattern. Most of them are visualizing, doing some meditation, but also doing breathing exercises, which is what we’re talking about here. They may all have slightly different techniques. They may all have a slightly different breathing exercise, but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that they pretty much all do it.

Why do they do it? Well, they do it for the same reason: because they have been preparing for that race physically and mentally, and they know that that single race may define the whole season, maybe a world championship, or like the Olympics. And if they are not in the perfect peak state of mind, they are going to waste all the effort they have spent over those years.

Being able to center yourself and being able to really get you in the optimal performance window is going to be massively important to any athlete, it’s not just for racing drivers.

Yeah, they really do that kind of thing, you know, in the locker rooms, whether for soccer players or for tennis players. They try to do some visualization exercises, some breathing, some mindfulness, even under the shower. I’ve heard they do those kind of things before going to bed.

I used to do a lot before going to bed to try to relax myself, because it’s very important to have a very good night of sleep. If you’re not able to sleep because you’re stressed, because you are trying to anticipate the upcoming race the next day, and you’re a bit worried and anxious, of course, you’re going to not perform very well. And you’re not going to have a great night of sleep, and then automatically, you’re going to have a bad result the next day.

So there’s many different instances during, for example, race week that you will benefit from doing breathing exercises. I feel that anytime you’re able to lower down the stress level is going to be a great advantage to your overall performance at the end.

Even when I’m in the car, for example, you can see that from my past races, from the TV footage, you could see that I would close my eyes, have the visor almost fully closed, and just like, breathe in and just like, try to do a lot of breathing exercises. And try to also visualize the perfect lap in my head and visualize the start. If it was the race, I would try to visualize myself taking the right decisions, and try to deal with different scenarios based on different outcomes.

So I just felt like that would give me less stress, that would give me more preparation, and more confidence overall. But again, that comes down to practice and that comes down to personal preferences.

When I was in the kart, before stepping into the truck, you know, I was already in the kart, but when you’re waiting for the green flag, you know, five minutes before. You may have to get into the car like five minutes before, and you have to sit in your seat. And instead of like, thinking about Minecraft games or about like, what you’re gonna eat at dinner, you know, it’s great to just try to channel your attention to your breathing, for example.

If you’re channeling your attention to breathing, automatically your brain is not going to make you think at other negative things, for example, like worries, or am I going to crash, or am I going to get a bad result, or are my parents going to be mad at me? Or am I going to lose the sponsors? So stuff like that. So if you’re able to distract your mind by just focusing yourself on your breath, then you’re going to reduce your cortisol level, reduce your heart rate, and you’re going to find yourself in the sweet spot when the moment comes to drive, and I feel like you’re going to have the best performance of all.

But again, I think it’s a trainable skill. It’s going to come automatic after you do it for a while. It’s going to come almost subconsciously. But to get started, you know, as in any habit, you need to make sure you stick to this at the beginning. You have to kind of force yourself doing that, and then you’ll see that the benefits are going to outweigh the inertia and procrastination. So you’ll see that you’re going to, yeah, just naturally do it, because you’ll feel like you’re going to have great benefits out of it, which is going to just be a natural thing to keep doing it again and again.

Can breathing techniques improve decision making as well?

I think so, you know, especially if you couple breathing exercises together with visualization. You know, if you’re able to couple the two and try to, you know, breathe in and try to, meanwhile, visualize you doing the perfect lap. Visualize, you know, the decision you may take at the start, whether you go on the inside, whether you go on the outside, whether you overtake, whether you attack. Of course, there’s millions of different possibilities of outcomes, but you know that there are going to be four or five more probable outcomes that are going to come out of every situation, whether you’re going to get to the inside or outside, etc.

So I feel, yes, definitely, if you are doing visualization exercises coupled with breathing exercises, you’re going to be doing better decision making at the end of the day. A stressed mind does not take great decisions under stress, whereas a relaxed mind is more confident and takes better decision at the end of the day.

Again, it’s really a chemical thing. You know, you can definitely feel your cortisol reducing, and of course, we would have to measure it in that moment, but you need to just be aware of that once you are visualizing well, but most importantly, when you’re doing a breathing exercise and slowing down your breath, you are actually reducing your cortisol level, which is a massive, massive benefit compared to all those other drivers.

And then, you know, when you hear the quote saying, oh, he cracked under pressure. Well, you know why he cracks under pressure? Well, most of the time it’s because his cortisol levels are so high that it’s kind of like brain fog, and he’s just like going to be panicking. But again, the goal is that you’re not panicking. And why do you panic? Well, you panic because you are stressed. So if you’re able to reduce that stress upfront before getting into the kart, because, I mean, it would be foolish to say, oh, Alessio, you should be doing the breathing exercise while driving. You know, while going through turn one, you should try to breathe and try to do the box breathing. Like, I mean, that’s kind of a bullshit, right? You cannot expect to say this or to expect doing that.

So I feel that, of course, the only thing you can do is before getting in the kart. Yes, I feel like also being able to strategically breathe down the straights. I mean, it’s something you do unconsciously. And even after 20 years of driving, I still struggle. I still feel like I go in apnea most of the times. I feel like I’m just driving almost without breathing. But now I think I am much better than I was when I was little.

So, for example, now when I’m going down the straights, I put my head down, and when I put my head down, I kind of automatically take a big, deep breath. And of course, I cannot tell exactly when I breathe, but I feel like that’s when I breathe. I mean, definitely not when I’m on the brakes or when I’m going through a flat out high G corner. So yeah, I feel that again, being able to breathe strategically, also during the specific race, you know, it’s going to keep yourself in a better mindset and less panicking.

Can breathing actually affect physical tension in the body?

Yes, I mean especially the lack of breathing. I mean, you will probably not believe me, but trust me, when you’re driving, you are most of the times going in apnea, which is, again, quite crazy, think about it. But you really need a lot of air. I mean, you need a lot of oxygen going through your body, especially because you’re gonna be driving at, you know, especially faster karts, or like GT or formula cars, where you’re going to be having 160, 170, you know, beats per minute in terms of heart rate.

And when you’re going at such high heart rate, because of the adrenaline, because of the physical effort, and because of the mental effort required, you need to breathe in oxygen. Otherwise you’re going to go into hypoxia, which is a state of low oxygen and high CO2, which, of course, is not a good state to be in. You’re going to lose lucidity, you’re going to become more brain fog, and you’re going to, again, take bad decisions.

And of course, it’s going to affect tension. You know, the less you breathe, the more physical tension you’ll build up. So I just really feel that, yeah, I mean, it’s hard to track, but yes, physical tension is definitely going to be reduced if you’re able to properly breathe and relax yourself before getting in the kart, or even, well, during the five minutes before the green flag, you know when you’re sitting in the kart ready to go, that’s the moment you really need to try to relax yourself.

How long should young drivers practice breathing exercises during a race day?

I mean, it’s difficult to say a specific number of time to allocate, but I would say like five to 10 minutes before each race would be a very good amount of time to start. Of course, if you feel the benefit, then you can do it even more.

One thing that I really like to do, and I would recommend you to get, is, you know, you could go through Amazon or Decathlon and buy an inclined chair. You know, those kind of chairs that almost like make you almost like, sleep on them. You know, like, almost like gets you horizontal.

Well, when I raced, I always wanted to have this with me, because I could get myself to the back of the truck and just, like, put the headphones on and just like, close my eyes, listen to something, or just use the feature from the noise canceling headphones to just simply cancel the noise. And I would just visualize. I would just close my eyes and visualize, visualize, or do some breathing exercises, or both. And by doing that, you know, breathing exercise, I would relax myself.

And I mean, again, I cannot exactly say how long I did it, if I did every day. For sure, I didn’t do it every day. I wish I did. Probably I could have done even better. But I would say, if you’re able to spend at least one or two minutes when you’re right in the kart, you know, just before getting started, waiting for the green light, if you’re able to do it as a habit, one or two minutes, you know, closing your eyes and doing that, it’s going to help you massively.

But you should not start doing it from a race. You should start doing it from a free practice. You need to really build that habit of doing the breathing exercise. And I’m telling you, that’s going to massively, massively impact your performance. You’re going to feel less stress. And then when the race comes, when you will feel like, oh, now I need to reduce my stress. It’s going to be much easier to do because you’ve been doing it a lot in the past. You have basically trained for this.

So I hope this guide was helpful. At the end of the day, remember that everything we do can really impact our performances in either a positive way or a negative way. And I feel that breathing exercise right before getting in the kart, or right when you’re in the kart, like waiting for the green flag can really drastically improve your performances. You know, it’s one of those kind of actions that follows the Pareto principle, like the 80/20. If you know it, you can Google it. So basically, 20% of an action can affect 80% of the results. So for example, like spending, like, just, you know, in this case, like two minutes in the kart doing some breathing exercises can have, actually, a massive impact on your performances, you know, and affect that 80% of that Pareto principle relationship.

So I feel like, yeah, you don’t need to spend an hour a day doing some breathing exercises, not even half an hour, I think, just like one or two minutes right before getting in the kart. Or if you feel like you can do it in the truck, you know, in the back of the truck, just like, take an inclined chair, put some headphones on and do the box breathing exercise. You know, breathing in five seconds, holding on to it five seconds, then breathing out five seconds, and then holding on to that, and again, the whole cycle resumes.

If you need more practical advices on how to, you know, improve your race routine, or, just like, get faster overall, you can sign up to some private coaching lessons. Or if you want to go and try to improve everything in a, you know, remote way, you can just sign up to the six month training program, and if you, instead, want to get your onboard videos analyzed, feel free to sign up to that package.

I hope that was useful.

I’ll see you in the next one.

Related guides: How Racing Drivers Train Focus and Concentration | Does Listening to Music Before Racing Improve Focus