Simple Breathing Practices to Help You Deal with Stress
3 of the simplest exercises you can do anywhere at anytime
My company recently brought in a motivational speaker to help us develop some practical strategies to deal with stress and avoid burnout while being productive and achieving goals. I applaud the leadership at my company for including the part about avoiding burnout.
Our guest speaker was Jannell MacAulay and she is an expert at staying calm in stressful, high-stakes situations like refueling fighter jets in the air. That kind of makes my stress feel like child’s play, but stress is stress and we all have to deal with it.
To be honest, I almost tuned her out as she was introducing herself because I grew exhausted just listening to her list of accomplishments: U.S. Air Force combat pilot and military leader, a master's degree in kinesiology, and a Ph.D. with work in the field of strategic health & human performance.
She is also a certified wellness educator, and yoga instructor and holds a certificate in plant-based nutrition. In addition, she is a TEDx speaker, military spouse, and mother of two. That’s not even her full bio, but you get the idea.
After a lifetime of striving and never feeling like I was performing well enough on a personal or professional level, I’ve had to excuse myself from most motivational messages, including those preached from behind the pulpit. I am already much too hard on myself, and my health and well-being can no longer afford to add unrealistic goals and expectations to my plate.
But as MacAulay continued, I became a fan. She is a motivator and believes in helping others achieve their biggest goals, but she didn’t define what success had to look like for everyone.
I’ve come to believe that, for me, simple is the new successful.
It’s actually more of a struggle and spiritual discipline for me to say “no” and do less than it is for me to grab onto all the things I want to do and strive for them. This realization is one of the reasons I created my Medium blog called Pick More Daisies. I want to encourage others who have felt trapped in the cycle of performance as I did.
I want to share one of the strategies that MacAulay challenged us to adopt into our daily routines: breathwork.
Studies have found that breathing practices can help reduce symptoms associated with anxiety , insomnia , post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and attention deficit disorder. — Parsley Health Article
Here are three breathing exercises to retrain your nervous system, calm anxiety, and reduce stress.
Breathing or breathwork is a common relaxation technique used over the centuries in meditation and yoga. Modern science is now catching up to its health benefits with evidence-based studies that prove we can have a positive influence on our mental and physical well-being by simply breathing.
It is recommended to spend at least 10–12 minutes each day practicing breathwork to see the health benefits. Pick one of these methods and see which one appeals to you.
Focus on one part of your body as you breathe in and out. This is pretty simple to do. Just choose a body part, maybe the way your belly fills and empties as you breathe or the way the air feels as it goes in and out of your nose. Maybe you have a particularly tense area like your shoulders that you’d like to loosen. No judgment, there’s no right or wrong, it is just an activity to help you focus on your breathing.
Box breathing. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold it for 4, breathe out for 4, stay empty for 4 before inhaling again. As you do this, literally picture making a box with your breath.
4×8 breathing. This is my favorite because it is what our bodies naturally do to relax. Think about what you do when you sit down at the end of a long day or hang up the phone after getting a good report from your doctor or collect yourself after a near accident on the freeway: you sigh, a long exhalation that tells your body to stop producing the stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol and to move out of the fight or flight response.
By practicing this method, I can remind my nervous system that all is well and calm in my life, preparing it to handle stressful events better when they do occur. For this method, you simply breathe in for 4 seconds and then extend the exhale for 8 seconds. Try it — don’t you feel more relaxed already?
I like these three practices because they are simple (my favorite kind!) and anyone can practice them at any time. You could even practice while standing in line at the grocery store while sitting through a Zoom meeting, or when stuck in traffic.
Here are some more tips on incorporating breathwork into your life
Insight Timer. This is a free app to help you find background sounds, music, or guided meditation.
Use the timer on your phone to work up to the recommended 10–12 minutes. I started with four minutes and added a couple of minutes every few days until 12 minutes became easily doable every morning before getting out of bed.
Practice in the morning or split it up throughout the day. Even 10 minutes once a day has shown to be beneficial, but you don’t have to stop there. You can set a reminder on your phone or calendar to stop and do some breathwork after lunch, before heading home from the office, or before bed.
Don’t worry if your mind wanders; it will. Just bring it back when you catch your thoughts running ahead into your day.
Check out other forms of breathwork, such as alternate nostril breathing or 4–7–8 breathing.
Breathwork is a practice, something we do to add value to our lives. It’s not something to conquer, perfect or crush. Breathwork may help us solve a problem, improve our skills in other areas, or crush our goals, thus making us more productive at what we love.
I love that something as simple and essential to life can make such a monumental difference in how I approach life and handle stress.
Which breathing practice will you incorporate into your day?
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