The Square Breathing Technique for Managing Stress Symptoms
A Simple Routine to Follow in Times of Anxiety
In today’s blog post, I’m sharing a technique I learned many years ago during cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat mild anxiety symptoms.
It’s a very simple technique called “breathing in a square” and can be followed easily, whether you’re waiting your turn to present during a conference call, or on the bus home and in need of some stress relief.
Background
When we are stressed or concerned, our breathing patterns can shift, and we tend to “breathe too much”.
As a result, we often breathe more deeply than we actually need to and consume more oxygen than is necessary.
Particularly, when we are concerned, we feel it impacting our chest area taking these frequent and shallow (and what feels like empty) breaths.
Breathing in a Square
To “breathe in a square”, we start by inhaling through the nose for four seconds. Pay attention to your posture and make sure your shoulders are relaxed back into a chair, and not tensed up.
We then hold our breath for another four seconds, before slowly exhaling through our mouths for a further four seconds.
Now comes the hard bit — after you exhale all the air out of your lungs you need to not breathe for (you guessed it) four seconds. This takes some practice, as we try to override our fears about having no air in our lungs.
Why don’t you try it, going around this four-cornered process several times, and see if you feel the benefits?
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