Breathing Techniques for Stress Management

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Breathing Techniques for Stress Management

Read this page carefully and bookmark it for future reference.

Breath control is the fastest and most effective way to relieve the effects of stress for 3 reasons:

1. When anxious the breath becomes shallow and constricted and doing a deep breathing exercise reverses its effects by bringing more oxygen to your blood.

2. By consciously focusing on a breathing pattern your attention is off the thing that made you feel stress in the first place.

3. By practicing a breathing exercise you are doing a form of meditation which increases your awareness and actually makes you smarter.

General Breath Awareness Tips

Remember to breath slowly and deeply on each inhale and exhale.
Gently inhale and exhale through the nose.
Keep your head neck and back completely straight.
Stay within your comfort zone. Do not strain.
Practice breath awareness for 8-12 minutes/twice a day or longer.
Your nervous system will completely refresh and rejuvenate itself from regular practice.
Mastering a breathing technique gives you the ability to manage your stress whenever you need to.

The following is a video guide to a simple breathing technique called the "Continuous Breathing Pattern". The technique involves continuous inhale and exhale pattern with no pause. The following breathing technique is designed for a complete beginner with a one second inhale and one second exhale. After practicing a couple of times you can increase the duration of each inhale and exhale according to your lung capacity.

Pranayama: Rejuvenating Mind and Body with Patterned Breathing

Another very effective yoga technique is called Pranayama. It involves inhaling for a count of 4, holding your breath for another count of 4, exhaling for a count of 4 followed by holding your breath for yet another count of 4. A basic 4 – 4 – 4 – 4 pattern. If you have greater lung capacity you can do this for counts of 5, 6 or 7. Always keeping the ratio the same, i.e. 5 –5 – 5 – 5 , or 6 – 6 – 6 – 6 and so on.

The following video guides you through the pranayama technique as a beginner. After practicing you can increase your inhale/exhale duration according to the figures above.

Also read my blog post on breathing techniques

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