Breathing Techniques To Reduce Anxiety

General
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Just imagine you are standing in front of the notice board , where your semester results have been announced. The heartbeat becomes so fast that you won’t be able to see what is written on the notice board. You will find it difficult even to breath. That’s anxiety. Let’s take another example. You are driving and suddenly a vehicle, out of no where, comes very near to your car and applies breaks. You may feel like your whole body just froze (even though our body’s stimuli works and had already applied breaks). Many such conditions are very common in our lives, causing anxiety. At these times, the easiest way to get back to our calm state to try breathing techniques.
There are many types of breathing techniques we ca try when anxiety strikes us.

  • Deep breathing : Just breathing consciously a little deep itself will help to reduce the anxiety. While breathing in count to 4 and while breathing out also count 4.
  • Alternate nose breathing or Nadi shodha pranayama : Just inhale through one nostril and exhale through the other
  • Box breathing : Inhale through nostril counting 4 hold for 4 and exhale counting 4
  • Humming bee breathing or Brahmari pranayama : Take a long inhale and while breathing out, make the sound of bee humming.

By controlling breathing, our heart rate also drops to normal, reducing anxiety.

What is your go to way of reducing anxiety?

References

  1. https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/wellbeing/breathing-exercises
  2. https://www.healthline.com/health/breathing-exercise

MBH/PS

4 Likes
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I have heard people say take deep breaths when we are in a stressful situation but I learnt that doesn’t work that well. What works better is that we take 2 short breaths in and then 1 breathe out normally this activates our parasympathetic system and helps us to actually feel less anxious

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True, breathing techniques are simple and effective for quick anxiety control.

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I always apply this technique in which I deep breathe and exhale only through left nostril for 5 times. This technique shows good results.

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To be honest, I was not that conscious about my breathing pattern when I am anxious. But yes, long deep breaths do really help me when I am stressed out. Thanks for this informative post. I will definitely keep these in mind.:+1: