When you get stressed or start to feel your body flood with adrenaline, your brain is telling you to run away or get ready for a fight. Deep breathing can help you calm down. Deep breathing, also known as controlled breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing or belly breathing, is one of the simplest and most effective ways to cope with stress.
Controlled, deep breathing encourages full oxygen exchange (trading incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide), slows your heart rate and lowers your blood pressure and cortisol levels, creating more calm in your body. Deep breathing triggers a relaxation response that can improve your mood and lower your stress levels. Learning to manage and control our stress response helps ward off health problems like high blood pressure, a suppressed immune system and mental health issues like anxiety and depression.
The first step is learning how to breathe deeply. Here are some steps to get you started. Sit up straight or lie down if possible.
Put hands to your side or rest them on your thighs. Slowly inhale through your nose. While you inhale, imagine your stomach is a balloon you are blowing up until it’s full.
If it helps, reset your hands gently on your stomach to feel it rise and fall. While extending your stomach outward, fill your chest and then expand all the way up to your shoulders. Hold your breath for a count of three.
Exhale all the air slowly through your mouth. Your exhale should be a third longer than your inhale. Maximum relaxation occurs during exhalation, so don’t rush it.
Even a single deep breath will help. But if you take four to six belly breaths like this, you’ll feel the difference. Deep breathing is a simple, powerful stress response strategy.
And it’s one you can access most anywhere and most anytime. Feeling more calm is only a breath away. Sources: The Stress Recovery Effect, Advent Health Press, Harvard Health Publishing, NIH - National Library of Medicine