4 Breathing Techniques to Reduce Stress
If you’re having a particularly busy week with little to no time for self-care but are feeling quite tense, breathing exercises are fairly simple, brief relaxation techniques that can easily and effortlessly be squeezed into a busy timeline.
Stress produces plenty of negative effects – high blood pressure, suppressed immune system, heart disease, anxiety, depression, and much more. Practicing deep breathing for a few minutes every day can greatly counteract these unwanted effects. It slows the heartbeat down, reduces or stabilizes blood pressure, and generally calms you down, lowering your risk of physical diseases and mental strain.
These simple exercises clearly come with a host of benefits. Here are four easy stress-reducing breathing techniques to get you through a hectic week, and that will hopefully help you to better cope with stress, improve your cognitive functioning, and mitigate adverse effects caused by long-term stress.
1. Alternate Nostril Breathing
This technique is a bit funny-sounding and can feel ridiculous at first, but is a very helpful age-old technique. Sit up or stand up straight. While inhaling, take a finger and place it over one nostril to close it off, then take a deep breath. After you inhale, exhale fully and switch nostrils. It’s that easy!
There is no set pace at which you have to breathe. The nice thing is that you can breathe at whichever pace is easiest and most relaxing for you – if it’s ten seconds, that’s okay, and if it’s thirty seconds, that’s just as great. You can repeat this alternate breathing technique for up to five minutes or ten rounds for optimal relaxation, but you can do it for much longer if needed.
You may want to save this one for when you’re not at work or in public because you will be humming out loud! This technique, which is also known as Brahmari Pranayama, requires you to sit up straight, keeping your knees and ankles touching. There are many variations to this technique; some require you to cover your ears with your hands, cover your eyes with your hands, or place your thumbs in your ear for better concentration, as you close your eyes and hum.
If you don’t want to do that, you can simply inhale deeply through your nostrils with your eyes closed, seal your lips, and hum as you exhale. Keep humming the letter ‘M’ (a humming sound) until you need to inhale once more. Repeat this around three to ten times, or however long you wish to do it until you feel relaxed enough. Remember not to force yourself to breathe beyond your natural capacity or maintain a certain speed, as this will only stress you out more.
This might be one of the easiest breathing techniques out there and it helps to induce instant relaxation. Start by sitting up straight or lying down flat, then put one hand on your stomach below your ribcage, and place the other hand on your upper chest. Relax your belly and inhale deeply and slowly through your nose without moving your chest. Then breathe out through pursed lips (in a stance that is similar to whistling).
Take note of your belly under your hands, and how it feels while you inhale and exhale. You should be able to feel your stomach rise and fall when you’re doing so. During all of this, the hand placed on your upper chest should remain as still as possible, while you can use the hand on your belly to help ‘push’ the air out as you exhale. Repeat three to ten times to build your endurance.
Also known as the Relaxing Breath, 4-7-8 Breathing is more on the ‘advanced’ side of breathing techniques, but is an excellent exercise to try once you’ve mastered the previous three techniques. As with the other exercises, sit up or stand up straight (and when you’ve mastered it, you can try it lying down).
For this counted breathing technique, inhale for a count of four, hold it in and wait for seven seconds, then exhale for eight seconds. Make sure you’re counting the seconds down accurately in your head. You can repeat this as many times as you like, but three to seven repeats usually instill a sense of calm in people. Always remember to take a break if you’re feeling light-headed, as this one can be a bit difficult when you’re first starting out.
The great thing about all of these techniques – besides their tension-reducing capabilities, of course – is that they only take a few minutes to do, are free, and work really quickly. Whenever you feel yourself becoming anxious at work or in your daily life, all you have to do is practice one of the breathing techniques mentioned above for a few seconds, and notice the shift that takes place. Keep these in your back pocket so you can refer to them when you need them most.
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