Many of us experience anxiety in our daily lives, whether situational or chronic. However, there are breathing practices we can use in the moment of heightened distress or as a regular daily self-care practice to reduce stress, relax us, and promote both psychological and physical well-being. Below you will find my personal top 5 quick and easy breathing exercises.

1. Alternate Nostril Breathing: This exercise involves breathing through one nostril while keeping the other closed. One way to do this is to bring your right hand close to your nose and use your thumb to block your right nostril. Then, inhale fully through your left nostril then move your ring finger against your left nostril as you release thumb from and exhale out fully through the right nostril. Swap and inhale fully through your right nostril then move your thumb against your right nostril as your release the ring finger from and exhale out fully through the left nostril. Repeat the process two or more times until you feel the calming effect.

2. Finger Breathing: This exercise combines deep breathing with physical movement using your five fingers. Hold one hand out in front of you with fingers spread apart. Using the index finger of the other hand, place it at the bottom of your thumb and slowly trace your finger up the outside of your thumb while inhaling deeply. Then, slowly trace your finger down the inside of your thumb while exhaling. Repeat this sequence for each finger, breathing in as you trace up and out as you trace down. Repeat until feeling more relaxed.

3. “Let Go” Breath: This exercise has you breathe in and out slowly through your nose and invites you to let go of tension or anxiety by silently saying “Let” as you breath in, and “Go” as you breath out. So, inhale “Let” and exhale “Go” and repeat this saying in your mind for as long as feels good to you. I also like to add to this exercise repeating silently “breathe in calm” during the in-breath and “breathe out anxiety” during the exhale or “breathe in relaxation” and “breathe out tension.”

4. The Relaxation Response: Like the “Let Go” Breath technique mentioned above, this exercise involves repeating a two-syllable word or phrase to synchronize with breathing. The first half of the word or phrase is silently repeated during the in-breath and the second half of the phrase is silently repeated during the out-breath. Some examples include: “Stay Calm”; “Re-lax”; “O-kay”; “Be strong.”

5. Calming Breath: This exercise is also known as breathing by the numbers. Basically, this exercise requires you to try to make your in-breath and out-breath equal in time. You do this by counting slowly and silently one second for each count as you breath in and then counting for the same amount of time as you breathe out. Another approach to calming breathing is to practice making your exhale longer than your inhale. In this practice, start by counting silently your inhale one, two; exhale one, two, three, four. Basically, keep each in-breath for a count of two (each count represents one second) and as it feels okay to you try to increase the out-breath by 2 as follows: In 2-Out 4; In 2-Out 6 and so on. Both calming breath approaches helps your body activate a relaxation response and can be repeated until you feel calmer.

By practicing these breathing exercises, we are assisting and activating our respiratory system which allows our bodies to relax and feel calm. Just remember that when feeling overwhelmed and unsteady we need to turn to our breath. Our breath is like our best friend and always there for us to help keep us stay calm and steady. As quoted by Jon Kabat-Zinn, “As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you.”

Maria Kanakos, Psy.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist