CAN BREATHING EXERCISES REDUCE ANXIETY?

Research shows that although we all breathe every moment of our life with no conscious input (after all, if we had to remember to do it we wouldn’t last long, would we), practicing some simple conscious breath techniques can be very helpful.

One very simple exercise that can instantly calm you down is what I call rectangle breathing:

Choose a rectangle somewhere in the room where you are to look at, say a picture or a window. Now, starting in the top left corner, breathe in while you let your eyes move along the short side. Turn the corner and breathe out while you follow the long side with your eyes. This breath out will be a little bit longer than the previous in one. Now turn the next corner and breathe in along the short side, then along the next side breathing out as you return to the place where you began.

Repeat this a few times, following along the sides of the rectangle with your eyes. The breath is always a bit shorter as you breathe in, a bit longer as you breathe out. As you do this you are mindful only of your breath. And within less than a minute your system and thought patterns have changed, and you are in a different, slower, mode.

You can do this when you feel a bit of stress or anxiety wherever you are, on the bus, in a meeting, or alone in your room, when you want to feel calmer. It can help performance anxiety, or a tendency to panic. Practiced regularly it will help you to feel more in control.

Stuart Sandeman, a former international athlete and founder of Breathpod, a London-based breathing clinic says “By controlling your breathing you can change the response of your autonomic nervous system. And that influences your body’s stress response as well as processes such as digestion.

“When you take slow controlled breaths your brain gets the message that there’s nothing to fear and activates the parasympathetic response, which promotes a sense of calm. The release of stress hormones is reduced and our brains are effectively rewired. It changes the way you feel.”