Using Breathing Exercises To Relax Instantly

Breathing Exercises To Relax Instantly 

One of the quickest ways to counteract stress and force your body and mind to relax is doing breathing exercises. They are easy to do and what I love best about them is that you can do them anytime, anywhere. Breathing exercises can help you relax because they make your body feel like it does when you are already relaxed.

I want to introduce you to different breathing exercises that accomplish different things. They will help you de-stress and relax. Use them frequently. In fact, try them out right now and make it a point to practice them regularly until you can perform them anywhere, no matter how loud and distracting the situation. They will become helpful tools that you can use as needed in your stressful life.

There are many breathing exercises to relax your body and your mind. Since the way you breathe affects your entire body, breathing exercises provide immediate and long-lasting benefits. When you experience anxiety, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid, and you can quickly become out of breath. By consciously focusing on your breathing technique, you can calm down and relax. These exercises will train you to relax when you are feeling anxious.

Staying calm is the best way to handle public speaking, job interviews, and tense conversations. Unfortunately, for most people, this is easier said than done. So how do you do it? The first step is to understand what causes stress and anxiety in the first place. Once you pinpoint the problem, you can begin to work on ways to reduce and hopefully eliminate it. One of the best ways to handle public speaking is to take deep breaths and to focus on relaxing your body.

As a person with social anxiety disorder, your anxiety level can spike in the face of even the smallest social interaction. This can make it difficult to relax, which can then lead to further social anxiety and worsened symptoms. But there are ways to combat this vicious cycle!

These breathing exercises to relax help you slow down your breathing and relax your muscles, helping to get your mind on track and get you engaged in the situation you are anxious about.

The Breath Counting Meditation 

Meditation is an excellent tool for calming down and reducing the side effects of stress. This particular exercise will help you in the long run, but it isn’t something you want to do at the moment when you’re feeling super stressed. Look for the second exercise for those scenarios. Instead, find a calm moment every day and spend a few minutes’ breath counting.

The idea is deceptively simple. Sit down, close your eyes, and start breathing slowly. Focus on your breath and start counting on each exhale. Count to five and then start over. You know you’ve gotten distracted when you find yourself counting into the teens. Go back to one and start over. With practice, you’ll be able to stick to the repeated five-count for more extended periods of time.

The 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise 

Portrait of a pretty young woman and her senior father standing in the living room and doing breathing exercises to relax

This exercise is a great go-to when you’re feeling stress in the moment. It forces your body to relax almost instantly. The key is getting the timing right. With practice, this exercise will become very easy to do.

Here’s how to do this breathing exercise.

Exhale completely through your mouth. Then start inhaling through the nose for a count of four. Hold the breath for a count of seven before exhaling slowly through the mouth for a count of eight. Take four or five breaths like this before returning to your normal breathing. Don’t overdo it and pace yourself. Stick to a few breaths once a day and work up from there. Eventually, you can take up to 10 breaths as needed when the stress gets terrible, and you have to calm down your nervous system.

The end result is not only instant calm, but more focus, more patience, and an overall better outlook on life. You will enjoy the relaxed state and be amazed at how easy it is to achieve it.

Mindfulness Breathing Techniques

Mindful breathing is a technique that clinically proven to decrease anxiety and help you gain control of your emotions. To learn mindful breathing, sit in a comfortable position, preferably with your back straight and your feet flat on the floor. Next, place your hand on your chest and your other hand on your stomach. Now, take a deep breath in through your nose, filling your belly with air. Breathe in to the count of four. Then, hold the breath for three seconds. Exhale slowly through your mouth, releasing the air from your stomach. Repeat these steps once to get into the rhythm of the exercise.

Belly Breathing Exercises

Belly breathing is a type of breathing that is usually taught by self-help groups or therapists to help people with social anxiety. The belly breathing technique is based on the idea that breathing from the belly will increase the amount of oxygen in the body, which will then help to stop the panic attacks that are common in social anxiety. The idea is that by using abdominal breathing you can keep your body calm.

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to breathing for anxiety is that they over-breathe. When you breathe too much you send blood to your head, increasing your heart rate and creating more anxiety. (Even if you don’t have anxiety, over-breathing can make you feel dizzy and lightheaded.) Instead, breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, and out through your mouth for 4 seconds. Repeat this 4-4 ratio for a full minute. Keep your focus on your breath, and try not to let your mind wander when doing this breathing exercise to relax..

What Shallow Breathing Does

Anxious breathing, or shallow breathing, is when an individual breathes shallowly, or abnormally slow. It is often a side effect of social anxiety and can cause feelings of panic, shortness of breath, and heart palpitations.

Generally speaking, shallow breathing means that you are breathing with your chest and not with your abdomen. The more you take shallow breaths, the more your body is at risk of feeling stressed. That’s because shallow breathing is an unconscious response to stress. It’s your body’s way of preparing you to fight or flee.

If you have social anxiety, you might find yourself breathing quickly, frequently taking deep breathes, or panting. Shallow breathing can be a real problem for people with social anxiety. Breathing exercises to relax you will help you breathe better overall.

Why Deep Breathing Is Good

Deep breathing is a natural way to reset your body’s stress response. When you’re stressed, your body’s sympathetic nervous system kicks into gear and your heart beats faster, your blood pressure rises, and you start to breathe faster. This shift from the body’s normal parasympathetic state to its stress state is known as the fight or flight response. When this happens, you might also feel jittery, lightheaded, or even numb.

Although it seems like a simple concept, most of us do not do deep breathing correctly. The most common mistake is that we forget to breathe! Most of us take much shallower breaths than we need to, which means that while our diaphragms are not being used effectively, our chest muscles are overworked. If you suffer from anxiety, you have probably noticed that you hold your breath quite a bit. This is a common sign of anxiety. Practice some of these breathing exercises to relax and reduce your anxiety.

If you are suffering from anxiety, you have most likely experimented with a variety of relaxation techniques. Deep breathing is a common calming exercise that can help reduce the stress and worry that can lead to panic attacks. Although deep breathing may not seem like much, it can increase the amount of oxygen in your body, which relaxes your muscles, slows your heart rate, and can reduce your level of anxiety. Although deep breathing is a great anxiety-relieving technique, it is important to remember that it can be difficult for some people, especially when you have social anxiety.

Ready To Practice Breathing Exercises To Relax?

Breathing is a skill that we all take for granted. It’s an activity so natural that we don’t even need to think about it. And yet, it’s one of the most important aspects of our physical and mental well-being. Breathwork is a popular “mindfulness” technique that encourages people to pay attention to their breath and how it affects their mental and physical health.

While most people focus on the causes of social anxiety to try to work out why they find social interactions so difficult, the more important question is what to do about it. Often the problem is that the conscious mind gets in the way of social interaction, judging every word and action to try to fit into a social script that we learned as children, but no longer fit with our adult personalities.

Rather than fighting against a feeling of dread or panic by trying to relax, or trying to push past uncomfortable sensations, by focusing on your breath, you can take a different approach, one that is more effective at helping you manage thoughts and feelings, and feel more calm, comfortable, and confident.

Make these breathing exercises to relax daily habits starting right now!

Start with the simple breathing exercises to relax I shared with you here and then expand your horizon as needed. Try different breathing techniques and exercises. A quick google search will give you plenty of others to try. Social anxiety is a common, treatable condition that can be debilitating if left untreated. It gets its name from the feeling that you are being judged by others in social situations, but it can also include symptoms that negatively affect your quality of life.

Fortunately, these breathing exercises can help. While you can’t cure social anxiety, you can control your symptoms and learn how to cope with your anxiety-inducing social encounters. Find the breathing exercises to relax that work best for you and make them part of your daily anti-stress routines.