Breathing for stress

Breathing is something we don’t need to think about. Our amazing body sorts us out - our lungs, heart, arteries, veins and magical brain work for us to make sure that we constantly inhale and exhale. Thanks body! That’s one less thing to worry about at least! 

BUT…when we lead busy lives, when we rush from place to place, when we work in high pressured environments and when we’re presented with so much choice our breathing can start to hinder us rather than support us.  

With stress comes constriction, stressful situations can cause our heart to beat faster and for us to breathe shallowly into our chest rather than into our belly, and all of this makes the stress worse - it’s a vicious cycle. 

Breathing through a stressful situation could be the best medicine for calming the mind and body down. Here’s two ways you can try this:

Start a daily breathing meditation practice:

This could just be a regular yoga class where you move and stretch with the breath. Naturally in yoga we slow the breath down, breathe more deeply and focus on our breath rather than anything stressful that’s on our mind. 

Alternatively, try to adopt a short morning or evening breath meditation. You can do this in bed as soon as you wake up or just before you go to sleep, or you can sit on the sofa with a lovely cup of tea and some calming music. Just find a comfortable position, close down the eyes and start to breathe. Lengthen each inhale and exhale to four counts each. Focus on filling your belly with air on the inhale and drawing your belly button to your spine as you exhale. Concentrate on fully filling and emptying the lungs. Keep going like this for five or ten minutes and see if this helps you remain more relaxed and calm through the day. 

Step away when a stressful situation arises, and breathe

As soon as you feel that stress creep up on you, or when you get an email that sends you into a panic, or have a conversation that doesn’t go well - step away. Go outside of the office or into the bathroom or a meeting room. Take ten deep breaths, deep into the belly, and slow everything down. Maybe repeat a mantra to yourself as you inhale and exhale. ‘I will be OK’, ‘It’s only work’, ‘This feeling will pass’, are ones that have worked for me personally. Take a couple of big exhales out of the mouth and just let all of that worry go. Step back inside and know that you got this. 

Alternatively, if you can’t step away, slowly exhaling the air out over the underside of your thumb has an amazing calming effect.

What an amazing remedy this is - it costs nothing, it’s easy to do and we can draw on it whenever we need it. Give it a go and let me know what you think!