Breathing Exercises to Soothe your Anxiety

When you suffer from extreme anxiety, you come across breathing problems, like feeling short of breath, shallow breathing, and feeling breathless. However, there exist specific breathing techniques that can help you feel comfortable. Simple yet effective, you can do these breathing techniques any time during the day, or even try doing more extended moments following a routine. Scroll below to unlock the secrets to a healthy life:

  • Lengthen the exhaling process

When we are stressed out, we often end up inhaling profoundly and rapidly. This leads to hyperventilating, reducing the level of oxygen-rich blood in the brain. Inhaling has fewer chances to calm you down when you are suffering from anxiety. You can try the opposite –lengthening the exhale. 

  1. Before taking a deep breath, take a long exhale, pushing all the air from the lungs. 
  2. Try to increase the duration of your exhaling from the inhaling process. 
  3. Repeat the procedure for around 5 minutes. You can do it in any comfortable position.
  • Abdomen breathing 

Try to breathe from your diaphragm to reduce the body's effort to help you breathe. 

  1. Lie down comfortably on a bed, putting pillows beneath your head and the knees. You can lie down on the floor, as well, or even make yourself comfortable on a chair.
  2. Next, you need to place one hand over your heart while keeping the other hand under the rib cage.
  3. When you breathe through your nose, notice if the stomach and the chest keep moving according to the breathing pattern.

You can practice belly breathing through the following steps-

  1. First, make yourself comfortable on the bed or sofa.
  2. Keep one hand over the chest and the other near the stomach, above the belly button.
  3. While breathing, notice your stomach rising as you breathe. Your chest should not move.
  4. Try exhaling with the help of your mouth. You should focus on your stomach muscles, engaging them to push the air out after breathing. 

You need to perform this exercise daily to help this breathing pattern become automatic. The maximum time limit for a beginner to practice the exercise is ten minutes. This may be tiresome for a few days of practice, but you will eventually get better.

  • Focus on your breathing 

While breathing deeply, try to focus on it by following the listed steps.

  1. Focus on your body while breathing. You may track some tension prevailing, which you have avoided earlier. 
  2. Now, breathe slowly through your nose, and notice your belly and upper body expanding.
  3. Exhale in any manner you find comfortable. Keep vocalizing a word during exhaling. You can choose any word.

Think positively. Consider the exhaling process as a manner to wash away all the stress and negativities. 

Distractions will happen. Try to bring back the attention gently.

You need to do this exercise daily, for at least 20 minutes.

  • Resonant Breathing 

Often defined as coherent breathing, resonant breathing helps one to bid farewell to anxieties and stresses. Follow the simple techniques –

  1. Comfortably lie down, and close your eyes.
  2. Keep breathing in for 6 seconds through the nose while keeping the mouth closed. But, you shouldn't fill your lungs with excessive air.
  3. Now, exhale for 6 seconds, slowly and calmly.
  4. You need to continue this for 10 minutes. You can even add up a few extra minutes to focus on how your body feels after the exercise. 
  • Equal Breathing 

The ancient form of yoga, Pranayama, has given rise to the breathing exercise named Equal breathing. In simple terms, the objective of equal breathing is exhaling and inhaling an equal amount of air.

  1. Lie down or sit whatever you feel comfortable with.
  2. Close your eyes, and try to focus and scan your usual way of breathing. 
  3. Next, start counting as you inhale through your nose.
  4. Follow the same counting pattern while breathing out.
  5. Your counts may vary each time you inhale and exhale. But you should be sure that you inhale and exhale, following the same pattern.

Try practicing one of the exercises mentioned above daily, and bid farewell to the breathing problems during anxiety disorders.