Box Breathing
Box Breathing
Breathing in a slow, steady, and relaxed way from your belly can lead to a feeling of relaxation and calm, and can reduce the physical symptoms of generalized anxiety. In the next experiment we’d like you to practice some relaxed box breathing for five to ten minutes. Try it and see what happens.
For this exercise find a quiet and comfortable place to lie down on your back. A bed is fine. The floor is fine too. Here’s what we’d like you to do:
1. Put one of your hands on your belly, just below your rib cage.
2. Put your other hand on your chest.
3. If the hand on your belly is moving up and down more than the hand on your chest, you’re breathing from your diaphragm, which is good.
4. If the hand on your chest is moving up and down more than the hand on your belly, try to move your breathing from your chest to your belly.
Box breathing may not be easy if you’re used to anxious breathing from your chest. For most people it’ll take a while to learn how to breathe in a relaxed way. Give yourself time to learn how to move your breathing from your chest to your belly. When you’ve moved your breathing from your chest to your belly, start to think about your breathing in a new way.
Normally when we think about breathing, we think of it as having two parts: breathing in and breathing out. Not any more. We want you to think about breathing as having four parts, like a square or a box. Breathing in and breathing out are two sides of the box, but there are two more sides. It is the two other sides that we want you to focus on.
If you pay attention to your breathing, you’ll notice it has four parts. We breathe in and we breathe out (sides 1 and 3), but we also actually pause twice with each cycle. We pause once after we breathe in, and once after we breathe out. So, our breathing really goes like this: breathe in on one, pause on two, breathe out on three, pause on four, breathe in on one, pause on two, breathe out on three, pause…
Sometimes it’s easier to notice the pauses. When we’re very relaxed the pauses are easy to spot. When we’re exercising or panicking, the pauses are harder to spot. But, they’re always there, no matter what.
What we’d like you to do is try box breathing for 5 or 10 minutes. Relax and breathe to a count of one, two, three, four. Breathe in on one, hold on two, breathe out on three, and hold on four. Like this:
Just keep counting to four over and over again. Slowly breathe in and breathe out. Make sure to hold between breathing in and breathing out for a few seconds. You’ll find that with a little practice your pauses between breathing will get longer. As you continue to do this you’ll find yourself breathing more slowly and more regularly, and you’ll notice yourself getting more and more relaxed.
If you find yourself feeling short of breath or feeling dizzy, or if feel like you’re hyperventilating or getting anxious, stop counting. Breathe normally for a little while and start again. It takes a little practice but you’ll soon find the pace that’s right for you.
If you like, you can try box breathing for five minutes a couple of times a day to see if it helps you reduce your general level of stress. After all, it’s basically what millions of people in the world do when they meditate or perform yoga. Relaxing in this way can be very good for your general health.
