Belly Breathing

Once upon a time I was struggling with some pretty debilitating anxiety.

I had the good fortune to find a helpful counselor right out the gate when I decided maybe my brain needed more help than I knew how to give it alone.

First session right then and there we didn't talk about baggage or work or stressors in general. I just breathed. She had me learn how to breathe into my stomach for three straight minutes. Yes I was too stressed to get there on my own at the time.

Turns out the human body can be tricked to calming then hell down. By breathing in to your stomach. For three minutes. Not less. More than that doesn't hurt but isn't absolutely necessary.

I don't care how you do it...well maybe avoid using the nose exclusively...that could result in hyperventilation and falling down. Deeper is definitely better in my experience. Slower is probably better too, but I found that slow eventually happened on it's own and if I had to breathe rapidly and a deeply into my belly for a minute to get there, that was just fine. I've been using this technique for seven years and I really think it works to calm down when you hit some hard feelings.

So next time you hit a stress wall of some variety and feel up to multitasking (better yet just sit there if you can steal three minutes somewhere) try three minutes of deep breathing into your belly.

This is also a good way to get back to sleep.