Mindful Breathing to calm Anxiety.

There is a lot out there written about breathwork which you can research for yourself. I would just like to briefly show how useful and simple this can actually be. The greatest thing about using breathing as a calming tool is that we can all breathe, and we do it all the time! So simply by manipulating our breath a little and focusing on it we can make a huge difference to our lives, and we can adapt this activity to almost any time or place.

Mindful breathing then, can be a really powerful tool to use. Shallow breathing from our chest is typical when we are panicked or anxious so if we can control and change the breath by deepening and slowing it down, in consequence our whole body will calm down.

I often advise clients to practice breathing when they are not particularly anxious. This works like any practice or exercise helping us to train ourselves to breathe more deeply in a calming way, so that when anxiety does rear its head, our body knows what to do almost by default.

So, why don’t you give it a go?

To start off with I would suggest finding a comfortable place to sit quietly. It can be helpful to close your eyes, but you don’t have to. Take a nice, deep breath in through your nose to a count of 7, then exhale to a count of 11. Continue to do this focusing on the sensations of your breath going in and out of your body for at least 5-10minutes. You should notice the calming effect it has on you.

The 7/11 counting isn’t written in stone, do play around with the numbers until you find what is most comfortable for you; we are all different. However, it is important that your exhale is longer than your inhale. This is what literally calms down your central nervous system. So, find whatever works for you but stick to that one detail.