3 Breathing Techniques to Calm Your Nervous System

Breathwork is a common go-to for de-stressing and relieving anxiety, but not all breathing techniques have the same effect. Certain kinds of breathing you may think are beneficial actually have little to no calming effect. In fact, some may even stress your nervous system further, rather than relaxing it. This post identifies three different breathing techniques, explains how to do them, and shows why they are beneficial for unwinding.

The Importance of Breathing Techniques

Breathwork is something that has been done for centuries as a way to reconnect with the present moment and bring your nervous system back to regulation. It’s used in yoga, meditation, as a way to help you fall asleep, and throughout daily life to help you calm down. 

However, not all types of breathing are the same. Breathing deep, for example, is something many people think will calm them down, but if done incorrectly, it can actually activate your fight or flight response even more. This is because deep breathing activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for that fight or flight stress response. The effectiveness of breathwork does not necessarily depend on how deep your breath is or how much air you take in. The key in breathwork is to focus on your exhale. 

Exhaling activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which opposite the sympathetic nervous system, is responsible for relaxation. In order for deep breathing to have a calming effect, your exhale needs to be longer than your inhale. 

The 3 Techniques

The three breathwork techniques below — box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, and belly breathing — are a few that I find the most helpful in calming me down when I’m anxious or stressed. They are each different in their origins, performance, and method of calming the nervous system, but they all achieve the same goal: relaxation.  Read through the following techniques, give each of them a few tries, and see which one (or which combination of techniques) you feel gives you the best results.

Box Breathing

Box breathing originated in India, from the Ayurvedic practice of pranayama, which focuses on controlling the breath. Counterintuitive to what I mentioned earlier about your exhale needing to be longer than your inhale, box breathing works by inhaling, holding your breath, exhaling, and holding all for the same amount of time. This is because box breathing’s calming effect on the nervous system comes from controlling your breath rather than a longer exhale. It helps bring you to the present moment by focusing your attention on counting the seconds you inhale, exhale, and hold your breath.

If this sounds familiar, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of this technique before, just under a different name. Box breathing is also called:

• 4×4 breathing
• 4-4-4-4 breathing
• Equal breathing
• Four square breathing
• Square breathing

How to do box breathing:

• Inhale for 4 seconds
• Hold your breath for 4 seconds
• Exhale for 4 seconds
• Hold for 4 seconds
• Repeat

Even just repeating the cycle a few times will have a massive calming effect on a stressed mind and body. 

4-7-8 Breathing

This breathing technique was specifically designed to calm the nervous system through a longer exhale. It has been shown to decrease heart rate and blood pressure. 4-7-8 breathing can also be considered a type of mindfulness practice / mantra because of its use of repetitive counting (similar to the counting in box breathing). Focusing your attention on counting the numbers brings your awareness to the present moment and away from any outside stressors or fears (past or future).

How to do 4-7-8 breathing:

• Inhale for 4 seconds
• Hold your breath for 7 seconds
• Exhale for 8 seconds

Pretty easy, right? This technique works so well in helping you unwind that many people use it to help them fall asleep at night. 

Belly Breathing

Also known as abdominal breathing or diaphragmatic breathing, this technique takes a little more practice than the others to master. Belly breathing is the practice of breathing from your diaphragm rather than your chest. We were all born with the ability to do this, however over time, stress and societal pressures (like sucking in to make your waist appear smaller) has led most people to taking shallow breaths from their chest rather than fulfilling ones from their diaphragm. This type of breathing actually reduces the amount of work your body needs to do, allowing  for a full exchange of oxygen and deeper breathing overall.

How to do belly breathing:

• Place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly/diaphragm.
• Inhale, focusing on letting the air into your diaphragm. The hand on your belly should rise and the one on your chest should stay still.
• Exhale, focusing on slowly moving the air from your diaphragm out of your body. Again, the hand on your chest should stay still while the one on your belly lowers. 
• Try to make your exhale longer than your inhale. 

This technique promotes a full oxygen exchange (something shallow breathing doesn’t), slows the heart rate, and lowers blood sugar. 

Benefits of Breathwork Are Endless

If you liked these and want to try more, I encourage you to dive deep into the world of breathwork. There are so many different techniques out there to calm your nervous system, help you relax, lower your heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol, and so much more. The benefits of breathwork are infinite, as are the ways to incorporate it into your daily life. Breathwork doesn’t have to mean sitting by yourself and counting your inhales and exhales. It can look like going to a yoga class or listening to a guided meditation. Explore what makes you feel best and maybe you’ll end up finding a new hobby or passion. 

Final Thoughts

If you’ve read any of my other posts, I’m sure you’re beginning to understand the importance of slowing down and making simple, sustainable changes to your daily routine. The smallest things can end up having the biggest impact on your life. By taking 5-10 minutes out of your day to focus on your breath and come back to the present, you get out of your head and away from all the distractions in your life, allowing you to spend time with yourself. You start remembering who you are. You begin to realize your power. And once you do that, you’ve just put yourself in the position to create your own reality; a life that feels like you.