A typical stress response often entails breathing that is shallow and in the upper chest. In comparison, abdominal breathing helps to encourage the body to relax, bringing about a range of health benefits.
Deep breathing exercises are one of the most immediate ways to reduce stress. They can also be used to preface other techniques to bring your attention out of your thoughts and into your body.
Breathing exercises can be used to lower blood pressure and heart rate, reduce levels of stress hormones, balance levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, improve immune system functioning and increase feelings of calm and well-being.
Deep Breathing
Why Deep/Abdominal Breathing? When we breathe in (inhale), our diaphragm (located just above our stomach) drops and our lungs drop and fill with air. A slight expansion of the chest completes the filling of the lungs. When stressed, we tend to breathe only in our upper chest - a shallow breathing. Full, diaphragmatic /abdominal breathing is calming for many.
How to breath deeply. Correct deep breathing should be done with your belly muscles. The idea is to let your stomach go out as far as possible as you inhale. In this way you will fill your lungs more completely. Put a hand on your abdomen and, as you inhale deeply, feel your stomach expand as though it were being filled like a balloon. Now let the air out and feel your stomach return to its normal position. As you do the exercise, pause comfortably at the end of each exhalation until you feel ready to take the next deep breath. Stand or sit straight, put one hand on your chest and the other on your belly button. Now, breathe so that only the hand on your belly buttom moves - as you inhale the hand moves out, then it moves in as you exhale. The upper hand on your chest does not move. Watch your hands as you breathe and see if you can breathe with only the lower hand moving.
Breathing Tension Away
Gently focus your attention on your feet. As you take in a slow, deep breath, imagine collecting all the tensions in your feet and legs, breathing them into your lungs and expelling them as you exhale. Then, with a second deep breath, imagine all the tensions in your trunk, hands and arms, being expelled with the next breath. With a third breath, collect and expel all the tension in your shoulders, neck and head. With practice, some people can collect tensions in the entire body in one deep inhalation, then expel them all at once. If necessary, breath away any remaining areas of tension.
Equalizing Breathing
Why equalize your breathing? As tenseness begins, our breathing often becomes irregular, our breaths in and out shorter. Slowing down and equalizing our breathing is calming.
How to equalize your breathing. Take 4 seconds to breathe in and 4 seconds to breathe out. That is, as you inhale, count "1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand, 4 one thousand." And, as you breath out, count similarly. Do that 4 or 5 times.
The Cool Air In, Warm Air Out Technique.
With your eyes closed, shift your attention to the tip of your nose. As you breathe in, become aware of the air coming in your nostrils. It is cooler air. As you breath out, the air is warmer. Focus your awareness on this difference of the cool air in and warm air out.