Breathing Techniques to Reduce Stress and Anxiety | Mental Health Over Coffee

Today I want to teach you a few breathing skills to help you relax, increase your concentration, and reduce your overall stress response.

let's dive right in!

let's start by using the 4 by 4 breathing skills. start by taking a big breath in and then letting it completely out of of our lungs.

Now let's inhale for 4 seconds
1
2
3
4

Hold the breath for 4 seconds
1
2
3
4

Exhale for 4 seconds
1
2
3
4

Hold at the bottom
1
2
3
4

Now you want to repeat this a few times. This technique has been used by many first responders to help them get grounded and increase concentration and reduce overall stress!

The next breathing skill I want to show you is called 578 breathing. Its very similar to the box breathing however the goal is to hold for longer than you inhale to and exhale for longer than the inhale and the hold. So we inhale for 5 seconds hold the breath for 7 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds. let's try it out

Inhale
1
2
3
4
5

hold
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

exhale
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Again, you want to repeat this a few times. you might find that yo get lightheaded doing this and that's okay that means its working.

With both of these breathing exercised make sure you don't create urgency when holding the breath. so if you feel like you are tensing too much or its too difficult, shorten the times and you can work your way up to this.

So I want to point out that these are breathing skills which means you have to work at them and practice them often for them to work. A lot of people that say that they don't work for them is because they are either expecting them to get rid of the stress or anxiety or they wait until they are experiencing high amounts of stress before they try it for the first time

They key is to practice this at least once a day for 5 minutes, even on days that you feel good and have low anxiety. actually those are the best days to practice because you will not have the urgency to feel better and your body and mind will be more likely to respond positively in a crisis if you have been practicing.

What are your thoughts? have you tried these before? is there another breathing technique you like better? let me know in the comments below!Hey everyone today I want to teach you a few breathing skills to help you relax, increase your concentration, and reduce your overall stress response.

breathing for anxiety attack,578 breathing,4x4 breathing technique,breathing for mental health,youtube therapist,mental health over coffee,cut therapist tolrando,orlando trauma therapist,deep breathing mental health,how to deep breathe,how to deep breathe properly,mental health help videos,trauma informed therapy techniques,micheline maalouf,breathe to relieve stress,mental health blog,anxiety and stress,symptoms of anxiety,psychology student videos,