This simple technique reduces stress and anxiety while making you calm

By Last Updated: January 10th, 20221.6 min readViews: 1147

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Table of contents

Introducing “Box breathing” 

Conscious breathing, it’s a powerful yet simple way to relax. It aims to return your breathing to its natural rhythm. There are many effective ways to do this but one way to do is called “ Box breathing”. Its aim is to relax the body, clear the mind, and increase your focus.

It’s a simple way to “reset” your breathing

It’s easy to use, quick to learn, and extremely effective for people in highly stressful situations.

People use it in high-stress jobs such as police officers and soldiers but it’s also great for someone under emotional stress. I use it for concentration and calming myself down from an anxious event.

How do you do box breathing?

  1. Breathe in for four seconds.  Make sure you get rid of all the air out of your lungs before you start. Really breath in and fill up the lungs
  2. Hold your breath for four seconds. Hold the breath at the top and don’t let air escape
  3. Exhale for four seconds. Let the air out in a slow and controlled motion.
  4. Hold your lungs empty for four seconds. Hold the bottom of your breath. Repeat

Tips to help out

There are a couple of tricks and tips that you can implement to make the box breathing more effective.

  • Try to move into a quiet area to start the box breathing, it’s easier with fewer distractions
  • Your belly should be moving when you are breathing, place your hand on your tummy and feel it move out as you take a breathe in
  • Focus on filling the whole belly and make all the air touch every side of the belly (the front, side, and back)
  • Do this when you’re happy/ in a good mood as well. “What fires together, wires together”.

Reference:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874/full/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEmt1Znux58

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