Breathing Exercises for Anxiety

Breathing exercises are some of the best tools we have to cope with anxiety and stress, yet people often overlook them because they seem to simple or too easy. Instead, they prefer to try mindfulness which isn’t always helpful when you’re upset, or simply try to avoid difficult feelings which comes with a long list of long-term adverse effects of its own. 

Using breathing exercises can help you settle your mind and address some physical symptoms of acute anxiety. If you meditate, starting your meditation session with a series of breathing exercises can be a good way to ease into a state of calm awareness.

Altering your breathing to regulate your body has been used for centuries by both Eastern and Western systems of psychology. Now we have some science to back up these traditions, as research has shown that breathing exercises can regulate physical symptoms of anxiety and even affect your brain chemistry! 

If you want to give them a shot, click here to download a pdf with some foundational and a few advanced techniques. Try them out and keep using the ones that work for you!