How Box Breathing Restores Your Focus and Reduces Anxiety
A three-minute routine that has a lasting impact.
The average person takes four hundred million breaths by age fifty. That’s roughly twenty thousand breaths per day.
While you probably didn’t give much attention to your breathing until the outbreak of a lung-attacking virus this year, it does more than just keep you alive.
What you might not realize is your body isn’t drawing in enough energy when you don’t breathe deep into your diaphragm. Because most breaths are taken unconsciously, you probably don’t put much thought into breathing. That’s right, you might be ignoring an essential bodily function.
Until you become more aware of your breathing habits throughout the day, you’ll likely continue to feel sluggish, anxious, and unfocused. Why? Because shallow breathing leaves stale air in your lungs which increases toxicity in your body.
When I started working in a customer-facing retail job in 2018, I experienced anxiety like never before. The environment was fast-paced, and I had to deal with demanding customers.
The job required a lot of attention to detail while handling large amounts of cash. When I felt stressed, my breathing was shallow and my anxiety was high. I needed something to help me relax and focus. I found it in breath control.
Deep breathing is the easiest way to control your parasympathetic nervous system. It activates the part of your nervous system that’s responsible for relaxation and digestion. But there’s more.
The way you breathe has a strong effect on both your brain and the chemicals in your body.
In his book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor explores how humans lost the ability to breathe the correct way. He describes the damage caused by shallow breathing and mouth breathing. Nestor explains that the nose is the only proper organ for breathing because it “filters and heats raw air.” But many people don’t realize how nasal breathing “can lower our blood pressure … how it monitors heart rate … [and] even helps store memories.” Breathing brings balance to your body.
That’s a lot of action for one tiny organ. So it’s not hard to see why it’s beneficial to become more intentional in your breathing. Learning how to regulate your breathing can help you not only sharpen your focus but also reduce your anxiety in high-stress situations.
Why Are You So Bad at Breathing?
When my boys were infants, I’d go into their room every night and listen for the sound of their breathing.
Anyone who’s a parent knows the instinct to listen for your child’s breath. Standing beside his crib late at night, I could see his little body swell with every breath he took and I knew he was okay.
If you watch a healthy infant breathe, you’ll see a demonstration of perfect breathing. Babies take long, deep breaths and their belly rises and falls each time. But most adults don’t breathe this way. At some point growing up, you forget how to breathe.
Sure, you suck in oxygen without thinking, but you probably only use a small portion of your lung capacity with every breath.
Modern humans may be such terrible breathers due to poor posture. It’s hard to breathe deep if you’re slumped in a chair at a computer all day. It’s also difficult if your neck is bent because you’re looking at your phone for hours on end.
Pay attention to how you’re breathing right now. Are you taking full breaths into your diaphragm? Or are you breathing shallow and only using part of your lungs? If you are breathing deeply from your diaphragm, are you only doing it because you’re reading this and you’re conscious of it? Be honest.
On top of shallow breathing, most people have a habit of breathing through their mouths.
Many adults do it without thinking. But your nose is the primary organ for breathing, and your mouth is only an auxiliary instrument. Breathing through your mouth causes health problems including increased chronic stress, anxiety, and elevated blood pressure.
So how can you breathe in a way that helps your body relax and lowers anxiety? Simple.
Breathe Like a Navy SEAL
To say most adults deal with some type of stress issues is an understatement. Stress is the cause of many diseases including some cancers and heart disease.
Psychological stress of all kinds negatively affects the respiratory system as it constricts your airways and prevents the deep breathing necessary for staying calm and focused.
If you deal with anxiety, that means your body is often in a fight or flight response loop which inhibits deep breathing. This is why people who suffer from panic attacks have to regain control of their breathing make it stop.
As far as stressful jobs go, Navy SEALs rank near the top. Former SEAL Mark Divine used his knowledge of yoga to develop a breathing practice that would help him relax in stressful situations. He calls his technique Box Breathing.
In the book Unbeatable Mind: Forging Mental Toughness Divine describes Box Breathing as a “box-like ratio of inhaling, retention, exhale and suspension.” I’ll explain it more in detail below.
Divine calls Box Breathing his “secret weapon” for staying calm and focused in stressful situations. That’s nothing to scoff at coming from a Navy SEAL. Here’s the breakdown of how it’s practiced:
- Take a deep breath for five seconds. First, fill your belly–then your chest–with air. This should fill your lungs to capacity.
- Hold that breath for five seconds. Don’t clamp down and put pressure on your ribs and back.
- Slowly release the air until your lungs are empty. This should take another five seconds.
- With your lungs empty, count to five and begin the process again.
The point of box breathing is to breathe deep and slow. This is in opposition to the rapid, shallow breaths most of us take in stressful situations. As Divine says:
“The average person takes fourteen to fifteen breaths per minute…The trained warrior will take three to five breaths per minute, greatly reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in his system while maintaining a calm body and mind.” (P.49)
The question is, what makes this kind of breathing so effective? It turns out the answer is in your gut — sort of.
Why Does it Work?
Science is only starting to understand the positive effects of deep breathing.
Many Eastern traditions teach it’s importance, and have for thousands of years. Breathing deeply is a way to increase mental functions and is central to most meditation practices.
Box Breathing requires you to breathe from your diaphragm, called diaphragmatic breathing. It gives you the feeling of breathing into your belly. Studies show this kind of deep breathing “could improve sustained attention, affect, and cortisol levels.” In other words, it can help you focus and reduce stress. That’s a lot of positive effects from something you’d normally do without thinking.
Focusing on your breath through Box Breathing helps regulate your parasympathetic nervous system. That’s the system responsible for helping your body relax.
It also helps counter the sympathetic nervous system which handles the stress response “fight or flight.”
According to Divine, breathing from your diaphragm also solves three major problems caused by rapid, shallow breathing.
- It conserves energy that is wasted by rapid breathing.
- It brings optimal levels of oxygen into your body with each breath.
- It expels “stale air” from your lungs so you feel less sluggish.
Divine advocates deep breathing as a way to breathe all the time. But it takes conscious effort at first because most people breathe shallow. Of course, you don’t need to be a Navy SEAL to enjoy the benefits of deep breathing.
Box Breathing is a tool you can use to increase your relaxation and focus. It’s effective when practiced for two to three minutes upon waking (to clear out your lungs from sleeping) and before going bed to help you fall asleep faster.
This type of breathing is also helpful when you know you’re headed into a situation where you need to perform, such as a meeting or job interview.
Final Thoughts
Most people don’t give much attention to how they breathe. But by relearning how to breathe from your diaphragm you can reduce stress and anxiety.
Deep breathing works because breathing through your nose activates the part of your nervous system that’s responsible for helping you relax. Box Breathing is a simple practice of diaphragmatic breathing that can have a big impact on your health and body.
Breathing into your diaphragm has many health and psychological benefits. It lowers blood pressure, increases focus, and reduces cortisol. You can use Box Breathing to help you stay focused and calm, even under stressful situations.
It’s a simple and effective tool you can use whenever you need it. So what are you waiting for?