Belly breathing: the 60 second trick to help combat anxiety
Sometimes life can get a bit overwhelming. Whether you struggle with a longterm anxiety disorder or not, feeling like the walls are coming in on you happens to the best of us.
We live in an age where opening up about our experiences and our mental health is much more accepted, and I will be forever grateful for this, but sometimes, in the moment, we're on our own and we need to find a way to get through it.
A few weeks ago I met with Poppy Jamie, the effervescent founder of mental wellness app Happy Not Perfect, who is passionate about helping people manage their day-to-day wellbeing. It's not about meditating for hours on end or striving for a seamless existence, it's just about self-awareness, a moment to pause and taking accountability where we can.
We talked for over an hour about all sorts of things related to mental wellbeing but I wanted to immediately share one of Poppy's nuggets of wisdom with you. I've been doing it daily since we met and it's revolutionised how I deal with my anxiety.
Enter: belly breathing.
What is belly breathing?
This type of breathing is also known as diaphragmatic breathing, or deep breathing, and is all about creating space in your body by taking exaggerated breathes.
In short, we should all be trying to belly breathe all of the time as every deep breath goes straight to the lungs and fills the body with oxygen. Deep breathing benefits both physical and mental health. It alleviates stress, improves confidence, and helps create better blood circulation.
However we tend to hunch over at our desks or slouch on the couch or are focused on other things so forget, but just 60 seconds a day can make all the difference to how you feel.
Not only does it have a physical impact on your organs and calm your nervous system, it also helps you ground yourself when that familiar, floaty feeling of angst trickles in.
How to belly breathe
Belly breathing really is just any breath where you are sucking air into your stomach and letting it really expand, holding it a moment and then letting it out. However I *love* the way Poppy does it:
Lie on the floor and place a book on your stomach. Hardback is probably best as you need to be able to feel the weight of the book on you.
Spend 60 seconds breathing in and out, focusing on the pushing the book up with an in-breath and lowering it down on an out-breath.
You can keep your eyes open and focused on the book or close them and focus on the feeling of the book on your stomach.
I now do this once in the morning to wake me up and ground me, and then once in the evening to get lots of oxygen into my body and facilitate deep sleep.
This morning I waste at least 300 seconds smoothing an eyebrow hair back into place, so we can all spare 60 seconds to help lessen our anxiety and control our mental health.
You can belly breathe when and where you like to help bring you back to calm, try experimenting with times of day and positions to see what works best for you.
Happy breathing!
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