Breathing techniques to calm your body down

When feeling anxious, pretty much everything gets forgotten and our breathing speeds up. When we are triggered and feeling overwhelmed, we need a simple strategy that is easily remembered to calm ourselves down. Here are 5 to use when your brain is not functioning as it should:

Belly breathing.

Breathe into your belly and feel your belly filling with air. This will send a message to your brain to calm your body down.

Hand tracing.

Trace up and down your fingers matching the movement to your breaths. Move up the finger and breathe in, move down the finger and breathe out. Slow down your tracing to match your breathe slowing down.

Five fingers, five senses.

Look at your hand, you have five fingers, Each finger represents a sense. Thing of five things you can see,hear,touch,smell (or like the smell of) and taste (orlike the taste of). If needed carry on with four, three two one.

Big exhale

Breath in for 4 and out for 6/7. As you breathe out produce a sigh/noise/hum/blow. This will help you to focus on a big out breath which helps the body to calm itself.

counting.

Counting as you breathe in and out helps you to focus on your breathing and cut out everything else that your brain is thinking.

These are all simple but effective techniques to help your brain quiet and control your thoughts. These techniques will bring you into the present moment and help you move past whatever has triggered you.

If you feel your anxiety is controlling you, please feel free to book an appointment to get your anxiety back under control.

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