Breathing Right Can Lower Stress Instantly, Suggests Expert | Here's How To Do It

When you're stressed or in a state of panic, your heart races, stomach growls, shoulders slowly roll up toward your ears, your jaw tightens, and the breath you take feels lodged high in your chest. That's your body ringing the alarm of stress. In times like these, the body’s immediate reaction is to power through. But the quickest, cheapest, and most immediate way to press pause on panic isn't outside of you; it's the act of breathing.

You're already doing it thousands of times a day, but our expert, Dr Kinjal Modi, Consultant, Pulmonology, PD, Hinduja Hospital & MCR, Khar, explained to us that right breathing can reduce stress and help calm down in seconds. Here is everything you need to know, and she shared it with us.

Link Between Stress and Slow Breathing

When you're anxious or stressed, your body enters fight-or-flight mode. This old survival mechanism speeds up your heart, pumps adrenaline, and makes your breathing high, fast, and shallow in your chest. This rapid, shallow breathing, also referred to as chest breathing, sends a signal back to your brain that danger is approaching, and it continues the stress cycle in motion.

However, Dr Modi noted that we can get our body to calm down just as fast.

Belly Breathing (Diaphragmatic Breathing)

The opposite of stress breathing is diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing. Our diaphragm is a large dome-shaped muscle beneath our lungs. When you breathe with it properly, your breathing is slow, deep, and makes your belly rise, rather than your chest.

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This slow, deep movement tells your brain that you are secure and safe. It stimulates your body's parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest mode) into lowering your heart rate, decreasing blood pressure, and dissolving muscle tension instantaneously. Hence, leading to instant calm.

How to Get Started: 4-7-8 Technique

“You can begin practising immediately. One extremely well-known and simple trick to calm down instantly is the 4-7-8 Breath. It's easy, and you can practice it anywhere,” Dr Modi explained. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

• Get Comfy: Sit up or recline. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue at the back of your upper front teeth (and hold it there for the entire exercise).
• Exhale Fully: Before beginning to count, exhale all the air from your lungs in a whoosh.
• Inhale (Count of 4): Shut your mouth and slowly inhale through your nose for a count of four (4). Pay attention to filling your belly with air as if blowing up a balloon.
• Hold (Count of 7): Quietly hold your breath for a count of seven (7). This is an important step for bringing oxygen far down into your system.
• Exhale (Count of 8): Breathe out fully through your mouth with a loud whooshing sound for a count of eight (8). This is the prolonged exhale that really releases tension.
• Repeat: One complete cycle. Repeat the cycle another three times, for a total of four breaths.

Additionally, here is an expert-approved pro tip: “If the duration of 4-7-8 feels too prolonged initially, simply concentrate on having the ratio correct (exhaling twice as long as inhaling).”

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Bottomline

“You don't have to be anxious to improve breathing. Only a few minutes every day may restore your baseline level of stress and make you less responsive to life's minor crises," explained Dr Modi.

• Morning Wake-up: Perform four repetitions of 4-7-8 breathing before rising from bed.
• Mid-Day Break: When you reach a slump or feel upset, take two minutes and do some rounds of belly breathing.
• Before Meals: Some deep breaths before you eat can turn on your "rest and digest" mode, which facilitates improved digestion.