9 Breathing Exercises For Instant Relaxation & Stress Relief Or Extra Energy
Have you ever gone for a run or done some workout and you were super exhausted and then you realised that you “forgot” to breathe?
Or has it ever happened to you that you were upset and some wise person tells you to “take a deep breath”? Maybe you didn’t because it is hard to listen to others when we are upset. But maybe you did and it helped to calm you down.
Or have you ever noticed what the quality of your breath is when you are sad or happy or upset or angry? Is it shallow? Deep? Long? Short? Soft? Sharp?
Becoming aware of our breath carries a lot more significance than you may realise.
Your breath is your gateway to presence of mind, healing, emotional mastery, and so much more, depending on how you approach it.
Studies are even showing that the way we breathe can directly impact what emotions we are feeling! In that way, you can observe your breath when you are, say, happy and then imitate that breath when you are upset. Try it out! Or, more obviously, when you are upset (and your breath may be shallow and maybe you even hold your breath) take a few deep breaths (which is one quality of our breath when we are relaxed and calm).
Let’s just say it is fantastic - and super easy to access.
I personally use breath awareness through yoga and meditation, to calm down when I am upset, during self-led re-parenting sessions, or any self-coaching sessions when tension comes up in my chest. Breathing into that tension in a way that I have learned or in a way that intuitively feels good and provides transformation is honestly one of my favourite go-to tools.
I also use it with my coaching clients.
The other week, after I did a few moments of deep breathing with a client to begin our session (in order to ground her in the moment and have her pass through that third space between activities), she was obviously relieved and calm. I asked her if she sometimes takes the time to just take a few deep breaths and her response stuck with me ever since. She said that she thinks of it at times but that she doesn’t have time for breathing. So, when she remembers that she should do some deep breathing, she plans to do it the next week.
The next week!
That touched me deeply. Because yes, it does sound like a big task - but we are breathing all the time - except when you hold your breath. When you plan to breathe next week, you know that you want to take the time right now - yes right now as you are reading this - to take a deep breath.
Seriously.
I mean it.
Pause your reading, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths right now.
I’ll wait.
…
…
Okay. Welcome back.
Now, you breathe all the time - it happens automatically. Plus, when you spend time thinking, “Oh, I should do more breathing exercises” - you can use the time it takes to think about it to actually do it and take one.deep.breath. The very moment you think about doing a breathing exercise later, extend your exhale in that very moment. It doesn’t need to take long. The moment you are aware that you are thinking about breathing - shift that very awareness to your breath right then and there.
It is not even, necessarily, about doing special breathing techniques. The art is to become aware of your breath throughout your day even without a special technique.
Disclaimer: Before you dive into any new and exciting breathing exercises, please do consult your health specialist if you have any conditions, doubts or questions. In this post, I am sharing techniques that I personally have tried and enjoyed, but I am not an expert on these. That is also why I am providing various links to teachers. And always listen to your body. If something doesn’t feel right as you are doing any of these exercises, stop.
Box Breathing (or square breathing)
This is a very simple grounding breathing technique that you can use when you feel anxious, scattered or overwhelmed by thoughts. It is a very effortless exercise and it increases your focus on the present. The way it works is you balance your inhale and exhale, plus, you pause after each inhale and exhale for the same amount of time. For that, you can imagine following a square with your eyes and which each line that you follow, you do one of the four activities.
1. Get settled, relax your shoulders, jaw, face and hands.
2. You can sit or stand for this exercise.
3. When you are ready, breathe in for 4 counts.
4. Hold the breath at the top for 4 counts.
5. Breathe out for 4 counts.
6. Hold at the bottom for 4 counts.
7. Repeat for a few minutes until your emotions have settled and you feel present and comfortable
This technique is also what kept U.S. Marine Corp Officer Jake D. Alive when his “vehicle drove over an explosive device in Afghanistan, he looked down to see his legs almost completely severed below the knee.” He did this breathing technique to stay present in his mind, propped up his injured legs, gave orders, and did everything he had to before falling unconscious. “Later, he was told that had he not done so, he would have bled to death” (Harvard Business Review).
Awareness of your breath can do magic.
Deep breathing
This is another beautiful grounding exercise. I personally love doing it. I take a very deep breath in, so deep that it expands my chest. With each new breath, I go a little further and expand my chest as far as it goes. It makes me feel alive and in touch with my body. At the top of each in-breath, you hold your breath for a count of 5.
1. Stand tall or sit with a straight back.
2. Take a few natural breaths.
3. Then breathe a deep breath in through your nose, let your chest expand.
4. Retain the breath for a count of 5.
5. Then gently let the breath go through your nose.
Diaphragmatic breathing (belly breathing)
When: you feel stressed
When not: you have generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or another similar mental health condition
This breathing technique is very good at helping you relax. It also lowers the harmful effects of the stress hormone cortisol on your body and therefore reduces stress, too.
Often, when we take deep breaths, we expand our chest (like I describe in the previous technique), and maybe the belly rises a little bit. With belly breathing, you want to try to only have the belly rise, and keep the chest as it is. This helps you train and strengthen your diaphragm.
1. You can lie on your back or sit comfortably in a chair.
2. Relax any obvious tensions in your body and take a few natural breaths.
3. Place one hand on your belly.
4. Then breathe in for 2-3 seconds through your nose into your abdomen and let the belly and the hand you placed there rise.
5. Try to expand only the belly while the chest stays relatively still.
6. Then purse your lips like you would to drink through a (bamboo) straw and push out the air gently through your mouth for 2-3 seconds. You can also gently push on your belly with your hand.
7. Repeat several times.
Alternatively, you can lie on your belly and take the belly breaths and notice how your belly pushes in the floor.
4-7-8 breathing
This is a very calming, cleansing and relaxing breathing technique.
This technique is great to create a general sense of calmness within you. You can make this a proper 10-minute or even 20-minute breathing exercise each morning. Alternatively, you can also apply it in situations like the box breath. This technique is very powerful in that it makes you push out all the air in your lungs.
1. Get settled, relax your shoulders, jaw, face and hands.
2. You can put a hand on your belly to really connect with your body.
3. You can lie, sit or stand for this exercise.
4. When you are ready, take a deep, slow and calm breath in and count to 4.
5. Hold the breath at the top for 7 counts. Don’t speed up your counting, try to remain as consistent as possible.
6. Breathe out for 8 counts. Try to get all the air out of your lungs.
7. Repeat for a few minutes until your emotions have settled and you feel present and comfortable
8. Notice how you feel at the end of the exercise.
At times, I skip holding the breath at the top and only exhale for a count of 4 and exhale for a count of 8. Listen to your body and do what feels good.
Extend your exhale
When you feel upset and are unsure what to do about it, extend your exhale. In a case of doubt, extend your exhale. Only got 10 seconds? Extend your exhales. Your heart rate rises as you inhale and falls as you exhale. By focussing on your exhale instead of your inhale, you help the body activate your rest and digest nervous system and calm down from a stress response. When you are upset and you start breathing fast and you focus on your inhale, you risk hyperventilation. So, try to pay more attention to your sweet exhale.
Side note: Whenever I do this technique, I have to think of my P.E. teacher in high school when we were doing long distance jogs. She told us to breathe in for 3 steps and breathe out for 4. Whenever we would breathe in for more than 3 steps, we were also to extend our exhale to be one step longer than the inhale. It has always helped me to prevent stitches!
1. You can do this easily in any situation when you are aware and present.
2. Become aware of your breathing.
3. Shift your focus from the inhale to the exhale.
4. Extend the exhale so that it is longer than your inhale.
Yogic breathing
Yoga is a practice that combines many aspects of life. Spirituality, body, mind, breath and more. Breathing practices in yoga are called Pranayama. Below, I am sharing practices I have done and enjoyed, but I also share links to guided presentation for each of them, so that you can learn from a professional.
Ocean breath (Ujjayi pranayama)
This is the breath that reminds you of Darth Vader. Or, more poetically, it is the breath that sounds like the ocean. It helps to harness and focus the mind, to detoxify organs through the internal heat that it creates, it intensifies the flow of energy throughout the entire body, and a lot more. You will mainly know this technique from yoga sessions, but I also like using in in my daily life sometimes, or during meditation if it is particularly hard to notice that my mind has been wandering.
A good way to think of it when you first try it is to imagine you were standing in front of a mirror and you wanted to fog it up with your exhale and then to un-fog it with your inhale.
But, no matter what you do, keep it soft and gentle. You don’t want to evoke a coughing fit!
Here are instructions from Yoga with Adriene:
Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana)
This is also a very calming, effortless and soothing exercise. The Alternate Nostril Breathing practice balances the right and left hemisphere of your brain and it is a great way to prepare for meditation. For it, you alternatively close your right and your left nostril.
Here are Instructions from Yoga with Adriene
Yogic breathing for extra energy
Bellows Breath (Bhastrika)
When not: you are pregnant, you are menstruating, have heart disease, hernia, high blood pressure, lung disease, a gastric ulcer, diarrhoea, dizziness, anxiety (source: Jean Hall, Breathe)
This is quite an intense breathing practice, but it is gentler than Breath of Fire (the technique below). It improves oxygen circulation, some even like to use this technique or the Breath of Fire as a way to replace coffee intake because it helps them so much to wake up and become energised.
I first came across this breathing exercise when I attended an introductory workshop on SKY (Sudarshan Kriya) breathing with Art of Living. I was inspired by Emma Seppälä’s research on SKY breathing and its benefits and so I took this introduction. During this workshop, we were lead through a Bellows Breath practice and I found it very powerful.
For this exercise, you breathe in very sharply while lifting your arms above your head and opening your hands, and then you pull your arms back down quickly, let them bounce into the sides of your chest, close your fists and push out your breath quickly too. This is done over several minutes.
After that, sitting in silence and observing the sensations in the body, the blood flow, the lightness from all the oxygen that gets pumped through your body, is just as important as the breathing exercise itself.
You can sign up for the 1.5-hour workshop that I did with Art of Living here. But be aware that this introductory session functions as a sales point for their 3-day breathing and happiness program and the workshop I intended was a live guidance through bellows breath.
This video demonstrates the technique very well:
Breath of fire (Kapalabhati)
When not: you are pregnant, you are menstruating, have heart disease, hernia, high blood pressure, lung disease, a gastric ulcer, diarrhoea, dizziness, anxiety (source: Jean Hall, Breathe)
This breathing technique is similar to bellows breath but more intense. It doesn’t use the arm movement but focuses on the movement of the belly and belly button as you push out the breath by pushing in your belly. This practice focuses more on the sharp exhale and in-between those your body automatically sucks in new air.
I know this breathing technique from this meditation: Manoj Dias combines Bellows Breath with Alternate Nostril Breathing in this meditation.
Takeaway
There lies a lot of real-life magic and grounding or even energising energy in our breath. It doesn’t only need to be this thing you happen to be doing that keeps you alive. Every second of your day you can become aware of your breath and try out this or that technique. I personally find it so reassuring to be in touch with my breath. Both during meditation but also just during my day. I would love for you to try some of these and experience them for yourself!
DISCLAIMER:
Please consult your doctor if you have any medical conditions or mental health conditions before taking on an extensive breathing exercises. I am not in the position to give any healthcare advice, if you have any doubts or questions, please consult your health specialist. In this blog post, I am sharing techniques that I have tried and enjoyed.
Sources other than those linked include:
Jean Hall, Breathe
https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/uz2255
https://www.healthline.com/health/breathing-exercise
https://www.healthline.com/health/diaphragmatic-breathing
https://www.healthline.com/health/breathing-exercises-for-anxiety
https://www.virtualpsychologist.com.au/2019/11/10/control-your-emotions-after-90-seconds/
