Does deep breathing exercises for anxiety help?
Do you wonder how breathing makes you feel relaxed? Breathing can bring you calmness and eases your mind when you are focused on it.
As per the studies, deep breathing is one of the most essential exercises that can help you lower your stress level as well.
When you breathe, your body instantly sends signals to your brain compelling it to relax and calm down to a certain level.
This way, you can cope with your stress and take a closer step towards a healthier lifestyle.
What is the best breathing technique for anxiety? For the answers to more such questions, let’s have a look at the next section which tells us more about deep breathing.
What is Deep Breathing?
The process of taking slow and extended breaths for a certain period of time is called deep breathing. This conscious state of breathing Includes proper inhaling of air and exhaling it back through the mouth.
What happens when we breathe is, the blood cells carry the oxygen and carry it in order to distribute it throughout the body.
As soon as the oxygen drives through the body, it leads to the formation of carbon dioxide, which is eventually exhaled through our lungs. Whenever we get into a situation where we feel a little more anxious, we start breathing from our chest and it tends to get faster than usual.
We begin to take faster and more shallow breaths in those extreme situations. Well, distressful breathing can lead you towards various mental health issues as mentioned below.
- Fast Breathing
- Higher Blood Pressure
- Faster Heart Rate
Now that you know about the various aspects of breathing, let’s get to know more about how does breathing helps you in getting away with anxiety.
How Does Breathing Help You With Anxiety?
When you feel anxious, your heart rate automatically changes. Moreover, you might even experience a sudden increment in your blood pressure as well.
Although, deep breathing is one such process that can provide you immense calmness to deal with all such issues.
Some people have concerns- Can deep breathing worsen anxiety? Well, don’t worry! It won’t do any such thing.
Mentioned below are some of the essential benefits that deep breathing on regular basis can provide you.
#1. Helps in relaxing your mind
#2. Lower your stress level
#3. Helps you in dealing with high blood pressure
#4. Allow you to get a stronger immune system
#5. You can experience a sense of overall well being throughout the day
#6. Improves your heart rate
So, this was all about some of the effective features of breathing. Let’s have a look at some of the deep breathing exercises for anxiety and depression.
Deep Breathing Exercises for Anxiety
Well, there is a variety of breathing exercises that you can opt to deal with your anxiety and depression. Let’s have a look at some of the effective breathing exercises for anxiety and depression.
#1: Box Breathing
The primary motive of this particular exercise is to help you relax your mind. You can perform it after you have just come out from a stressful event.
One of the best things about this exercise is that it is way too easy to learn and adapt. Mentioned below are some of the steps that you need to follow to perform this exercise.
Step1- Breathe in while counting till 4 seconds
Step2- Keep holding you’re breathing for 4 or more seconds
Step3- Exhale the air through your mouth extending it to 4 seconds
Step4- After releasing the breath, hold it for 4 seconds
Step5- repeat the whole process several times
So, this is how you perform box breathing. Moving on to the next exercise which is Abdominal breathing.
#2: Belly (Abdominal) Breathing
Belly breathing is another effective breathing exercise that can allow you to reduce stress from your lifestyle.
All you need to do is practice this breathing exercise for more than half an hour a day to see results.
Mentioned below are the steps that you need to follow to know how to do belly exercises.
Step1- Lay down on your bed comfortably
Step2- Put one hand on your chest while placing the other hand on your belly
Step3- start breathing deep while keeping the whole focus on to it
Step4- While breathing, press your stomach gently and then exhale
Step5- Repeat the process
#3: Resonant Breathing
It is one of the most practical yet easy deep breathing exercises for anxiety. It allows you to lower your heart rate while making you relax at the same time.
All you need to do is follow a pattern of breathing while doing this. Mentioned below are the steps that you have to follow.
Step1- Breathe in for exact 4 to 5 seconds
Step2- Exhale the air slowly for 5 seconds
Step3- repeat it for as long as you want.
So, these were a few simple deep breathing exercises for anxiety. All these are effective ways to reduce stress.
Now, it’s time, to sum up, the discussion…
The Bottom Line
Breathing is the utmost necessity of our lives. Moreover, deep breathing can allow you to gain immense benefits.
You can modify your breathing technique and exercises in order to rule out stress and anxiety from your life.
In this blog, we discussed how deep breathing exercises can help you deal with your stress and anxiety. Hope you found it informative.
