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Feeling overwhelmed? Do you want to find a quick and healthy way to fight back your sadness or anxiety and get on with the rest of your day in peace? Mindful breathing can help most people get relief in just minutes.
It sounds like a bad infomercial, doesn’t it? Mindful breathing?? You’re breathing all the time!
Not all breaths are created equal, though. When feeling anxious, your breath may be short and rapid. You may feel like you can’t breathe at all. In the moment, it’s hard to think outside of the pain you’re feeling. Your whole day can get derailed trying to muscle through the discomfort, which in and of itself can create a cycle of frustration.
As a licensed therapist, I see this phenomenon all the time, and I can appreciate the damage it does. My job in therapy is to help that person feel and function better. Solutions take a great many forms, but I usually start off each of my therapy clients with this quick and easy to learn tool: mindful breathing.
Simple as it sounds, mindful breathing can improve a person’s quality of life. It is especially helpful for:
- Decreasing stress. There are real consequences to stress, both physical and psychological.
- Lowering your heart rate and blood pressure
- Reducing depression or anxiety
- Improving energy levels
- … and much more!
A couple disclaimers. This is not going to solve problems per se. You can be the most marvelous breather, but that’s not going to change the fact you’re in an unhappy relationship or stuck in a tough job. Also, while I find this skill works wonders for most people, your mileage may vary. There is no “one size fits all” exercise.
Still, this is a great form of self-care that helps most people I work with.
What is Mindful Breathing?
It is a type of meditation built around breathing. It starts off with taking some deep breaths, then transitions into a gentle body scan. With practice, this can create a sort of quiet connectedness with yourself. When you’re done and ready to return to the day, take three more deep breaths, and open your eyes. I’ll give you more detailed step-by-step instructions below.
Mindful breathing gives the gift of calm. While it won’t change your circumstance, this exercise can build up your inner resources so you have the bandwidth to tolerate the discomfort and create change yourself.
Keep in mind that mindful breathing should be practiced, just like any other skill. Think about the Lamaze technique, a method taught for childbirth. Does a woman wait until she’s in the middle of labor to start practicing? That’d be disastrous—how could she expect to absorb and implement a whole new technique while giving birth? No, best practices suggest she should learn these skills well in advance and practice on a regular basis leading up to her labor. This way, when the moment of need arises, the mother-to-be knows Lamaze like the back of her hand.
It’s the same way with mindful breathing. This skill is great in a pinch, but don’t just start using it in moments of crisis and expect it to work wonders. Research shows that for the best results, a person should practice mindful breathing for at least once every day.
That said, this exercise can work quickly. If you’re feeling anxious, depressed, or scattered, carving out just three minutes for mindful breathing can bring your distress down to a more manageable level.
Okay, So How Do You Mindfully Breathe?
This whole process is fairly simple. I’ll break it down into basic steps, with some tips and commentary thrown in for good measure.
Step 1: Make sure you’re in a safe space.
This is important. You want to find a space where you won’t be disrupted. If you live with others, this may require you ask for a few minutes to yourself, or for you to go into another room.
Of course, that’s not always possible. For example, if you’re a parent of small children, getting a even a second to yourself can feel like a minor miracle. In this case, you might ask the others to join with you in mindful breathing.
Step 2: Sit down and close your eyes (if you want!)
These two parts are recommended, but not required. Mindful breathing typically works best when you’re sitting down. On the edge of a chair, couch, or bed is perfect. Be upright, but don’t sit tensely. Set both feet on the ground if possible. Comfort is key.
It’s also suggested that you close your eyes. This cuts out any possible visual distractions. That said, some people are uncomfortable with closing their eyes. If that’s you, allow your eyes to relax and unfocus.
Step 3: Take three deep breaths.
To illustrate good deep breathing, let me first describe what it isn’t. When we get anxious, what do we usually do? Most likely, quick and shallow breaths at our chest level. Our shoulders might shift up and down with each breath.
These breaths aren’t doing much for us. In fact, they may be making it worse.
For a true deep breath, I want you to breathe slowly in through your diaphragm. Practice this by placing one hand on your stomach and the other on the small of your back. Now, try to push the two apart with just your breath. Your shoulders should remain entirely still. Don’t do deep breaths too quickly, as you might hyperventilate.
If you want inspiration, think of how a person breathes in their sleep. Their upper body doesn’t move up and down with the breath. No, their belly expands and deflates as they take deep, restorative breaths.
When you’re full of air (but not painfully so), pause and let yourself hold the breath for a moment.
Make sure when you exhale, blow out like you’re blowing out a birthday candle. Some find it helpful to imagine all the day’s stresses leaving their body as they exhale.
Once all the air has vacated your body, hold and let yourself be breathless for a moment before continuing with another deep breath.
To review, here are the steps so far:
- Breathe in through your diaphragm for four seconds
- Hold the breath for four seconds
- Exhale, like you’re blowing out a candle, for four seconds
- Hold breathless for four seconds
- Repeat two more times.
When I’m guiding people through deep breathing, I usually take them through three cycles. Feel free to do more or less based on what works best for you.
Step 4: Do a body scan.
Let your breath return to normal as you begin paying attention to the rest of your body. A body scan is an opportunity to really check in with your physical self. Notice the weight and shape of your body. Feel the textures pressed against your skin, or the temperature of the room.
It’s often helpful to first focus on your feet and work up through your body. For example, you may start with examining the way your feet press against the ground. A key through all this is noticing tension points and finding a way to release them. Move up through your calves and thighs to your lower back, upper back, shoulders, hands, neck, and face. Imagine those tension points melting away.
Step 5: Keep breathing.
Keep breathing all the way through this exercise. Don’t force the breath to be anything. Let it be. Locate where you feel your breath. Is it in your chest? Your throat? Your nostrils? Great. Notice how one breath flows into another.
You may sometimes want to take a diaphragmatic breath if you need to recenter. That’s wonderful. Take the deep breath, then return to your regular breathing and body scan.
Step 6: Acknowledge intrusive thoughts and let them float away.
Thoughts may barge into your head as you go through this body scan. This is likely to happen for people just starting off with mindful breathing, though it can happen for experts, too.
If your mind wanders, that’s okay. Kindly acknowledge the thought and let it go. You may find it helpful to gently turn your attention back to your breath.
Step 7: Enjoy the peace.
Sustain this state of mindfulness as best as you can. You may only have a few minutes to spare. On the other hand, you might try to stay here five, seven, or ten minutes.
Notice your breath. Check in with your senses. What are you feeling? What are you hearing? Be fully present in the here and now.
Step 8: Finish up and open your eyes.
Once you’re ready to complete this exercise, take three more slow, deep breaths. Then, whenever you’re ready, open your eyes.
Take a moment to observe how you’re feeling. What’s going on in your body right now? How would you describe your emotional state?
Once you’ve taken stock of yourself, give yourself kind words or a pat on the back for practicing quality, evidence-based self-care. Nicely done.
Why Does Mindful Breathing Work?
There’s a couple of reasons. For one, this exercise grounds us in our body and in the now. This is a practice that Western science recently came around to, but has been established for many centuries in other cultural practices. Think about how calming yoga can be. Or, consider the everlasting power of Buddhism teaching us to stay in the moment. Ruminating on the past or future can be a hamster wheel of neverending despair. The present can be our sanctuary.
Biology plays a role, too. As rudimentary as it may sound, taking those deep, clean breaths allows more oxygen into the heart and brain. This can be energizing—people often remark they feel more awake after mindful breathing. Their inner resources will also be further replenished, and they will be better armed to face the day.
A Brief History
In Western cultures, mindful breathing often gets credited as a fresh technique that chills out people’s stress. However, these principles are anything but new. Psychologists and other Western social scientists repackaged what other countries have been doing for millennia.
Mindful breathing owes a great deal to Hinduism. A lot of people relate mindfulness to yoga. They’re not quite the same thing, but the similarities are obvious. In both practices, people are trained to connect with their body. Buddhism, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of being in the moment. Only when somebody is fully present can they be happy and fulfilled.
Here’s a great article laying out these religions’ intertwined history, and how they gave birth to practices like mindful breathing. It goes into great detail on how these Eastern ideals got imported and rebranded in Western culture. In +contrast to its inspirations, however, mindfulness remains a secular practice here.
All that’s to say that psychologists might have studied and confirmed mindful breathing’s effectiveness, but don’t forget to give credit where it’s due.
So, in a Nutshell…
Whether you’re dealing with loads of stress or just generally wanting to live healthfully, mindful breathing is a proven and science-backed exercise for you to consider incorporating into your life.
Best practices say you should try carving out at least one time in your day (possibly when you wake up or before you go to sleep) to do your mindful breathing. You can also use it to manage your feelings and regain a sense of calm in distressing moments.
Just follow eight basic steps:
- Make sure you’re in a safe space
- Sit down and close your eyes (if you want)
- Take three deep, diaphragmatic breaths
- Do a body scan
- Keep breathing
- Acknowledge intrusive thoughts and let them float away
- Enjoy the peace
- Finish up and open your eyes.
Practice incorporating mindful breathing into your daily routine and see how your emotional health might improve.
This is a great form of self-care, but it’s not the only one. Click here for a full guide on building an effective self-care routine.
Also, you can subscribe to my email list to stay up to date with all the greatest self-care exercises and techniques. As a way to say thanks, I’m giving away worksheets to help you track your mood throughout the day. This free tool will let you better evaluate what is and is not helping your mental health, and empower you to make different choices.
Have you tried mindful breathing before? If so, what was your experience? Please sound off in the comments below. And if you know somebody who may benefit from mindful breathing, consider sharing this post.
