Six

Breathing Tricks

We do it all day, every day. But we barely take notice of exactly how we breathe. Breathing “well” and in certain ways, though, can be a big help in making you feel better both mentally and physically. Breathing techniques can engage your parasympathetic nervous system and lower your blood pressure and heart rate, all of which calms and soothes both your mind and your body.

Focusing on your breath can also make you feel more connected to your body and its well-being, and steer your mind away from worries that may be keeping you from getting a good night’s sleep.

Try the following breathing tricks and exercises to help relax you into a state fit for serene sleep.

147 ✦ Do the 4-7-8 breath

Dr. Andrew Weil of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine describes this pioneering breathing technique (also called the “relaxing breath”) as “a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system” because it’s supposed to relax you almost instantly and help you get to sleep in minutes.

Here’s how to do it:

Keep your tongue behind your upper front teeth throughout. First exhale through your mouth making a whoosh sound. Then close your mouth and inhale through your nose for a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven, then exhale through the mouth (making the whoosh sound again) for a count of eight.

Repeat the cycle three times and you might be ready to nod off!

148 ✦ Breathe through your left nostril

A study published in the Journal of the Indian Academy of Clinical Medicine found that breathing through the left nostril helped lower the heart rate and blood pressure of people with hypertension.1

To feel the calming effect yourself, place your right index and middle finger on your third-eye center (the space between your eyebrows), then close off your right nostril with your right thumb.

Now take long, slow, deep breaths entirely through the left nostril, aiming for six breaths a minute.

It’s thought that breathing this way engages the parasympathetic nervous system, and so relaxes us.

149 ✦ Hum like a bee

This yoga technique — sometimes called “bee breath” or “humming bee” — is said to help calm you down:

Sit upright in a chair or on your bed. Gently close your eyes and mouth, keeping your teeth slightly apart.

Breathe in deeply through your nose, then breathe out through the nose, keeping your lips closed but not pursed and making a humming sound as you do so. Keep the hum going until you’ve finished exhaling.

You can also try bringing your hands up to the sides of your head and using your thumbs to press the cartilage at the side of each ear so as to block the ear canal, making the hum vibrate even more deeply in your head, blocking out all distractions.

Repeat five or six times and you should feel less busy-bee-like, more mellow.

150 ✦ Breathe out for longer than you breathe in

Most of us breathe too shallowly and too fast. Not only does this restrict our oxygen intake but it also relays a message to our adrenal glands that we’re in fight-or-flight mode — sending our heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol output soaring.

The 7–11 breathing technique is designed to slow everything down — breathe in for a count of 7 and out for a count of 11.

It’s actually quite tough to do if you’re usually a shallow breather, but you can make it easier by starting with smaller counts, perhaps breathing in for a count of four and out for six.

The important thing is to breathe out for longer than you breathe in (remember, when you breathe in your heart rate speeds up; when you breathe out it slows down). Exhaling for longer than you inhale helps stimulate the parasympathetic system, which naturally lowers your blood pressure, relaxes your muscles, and calms you.

151 ✦ Breathe like the ocean

In this breathing technique, said to calm an agitated mind and general nervousness, the aim is to make your breaths sound like an ocean wave rolling into and away from the shore.

You can do it sitting comfortably in bed or lying down.

Imagine you are trying to fog your glasses before cleaning them, making a “hah” sound but with slow, deep, even breaths. Make this long, slow sound on both the inhale and the exhale.

Practice doing it with your mouth open, and when you’ve mastered that variation of the technique, try it with your mouth closed. To do this you’ll need to constrict the muscles by contracting the glottis (part of the larynx) in the back of your throat. In some respects this is the sort of breathing you do while asleep, so as well as calming your mind it could trick your body into sleepiness.

152 ✦ Breathe in blue

Color breathing — often used at the end of a yoga or Pilates class — involves picking a color you find calming, then breathing it in and exhaling a different color, one that represents stress. Many people find blue calming, and opt for a bright red for their exhalations, but of course feel free to choose any color that you find relaxing for this exercise.

First, start breathing slowly in through your nose for a count of 3 and exhaling through your mouth for a count of 5 or 6.

Then envision yourself enveloped in your chosen color, perhaps in the form of a cocooning blanket of light or mist. If you find it difficult to conjure up your color, picture it as the blue sky or a gently lapping blue sea.

As you inhale, imagine the calming color entering your body and filling it completely, soothing you from head to toe as it does. Now imagine you are breathing out your stress color, and envision it leaving your body along with any tension.

153 ✦ Breathe through your skin

Sometimes, deliberately trying to breathe properly to help you relax can itself cause stress. This exercise helps take the effort out of breathing, so is a good one to practice if focusing on other breathing techniques is making you feel uncomfortable or overextended.

Lying in bed, imagine that the skin all over your body is inhaling or absorbing oxygen, then expelling it. If it’s easier to focus on individual parts of the body, imagine instead that the air is being absorbed through your hands or arms, then expelled through the soles of your feet. Play around with what works best for you.

Imagining this is happening should help your body relax and your breathing naturally slow down.

154 ✦ Alternate nostril breathing

Here’s a novel way to use your nostrils!

It has been shown that practicing this Indian yoga breathing method regularly for six to ten weeks helped significantly reduce the heart rate and blood pressure of participants as well as reducing their stress and anxiety.2

Here’s how to do it:

You can practice this exercise first thing in the morning to give you a good start, then at night before bed or if you wake up in the night.

155 ✦ Be a square breather: Breathe yourself a box

Don’t let anxiety box you in at bedtime. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by thoughts and worries that are sending you into a panic, try this breathing technique. It’s used by people in high-stress jobs, such as soldiers and surgeons, and aims to slow down your breathing and return it to a normal rhythm, far from fight-or-flight mode.

Start by ensuring that your tummy inflates as you breathe in and deflates as you breathe out (see “Breathe like a baby"). Then breathe in for a count of four seconds as you imagine drawing the first side of a square. Now hold your breath for four seconds as you draw the next side. Next, exhale for four seconds, drawing the third line. Then hold for four seconds as you complete the final line. Erase the square on the next round of breathing, and imagine drawing it again on the following round.

Repeat several times until you start to feel relaxed.

156 ✦ Cool your body, calm your mind

If you’re overheating in bed on a warm night, stress is making you feel hot and bothered, or menopausal hot flashes are bothering you, try cooling both your body and your mind with this yoga technique, called “sitali breath.”

First stick out your tongue, then curl the sides upward to create a roll.

Now imagine your tongue is a straw, and slowly breathe in through it for a count of four or five. Then bring your tongue back into your mouth, and hold the breath for two seconds before breathing out through your nose for a count of five.

The air will feel cold as it passes through your tongue roll, cooling you down and helping calm your mind.

Some people physically can’t roll their tongues, so if that’s you, try this instead: Bring your top and bottom front teeth together, separating your lips. Then inhale slowly through the gaps between your teeth. Then close your mouth and exhale through your nose.

Repeat a few times.

157 ✦ Practice solar plexus breathing

Try this reflexology trick to help combat stress and the shallow breathing that accompanies it. The aim is to release tension in the solar plexus, a network of nerves in the stomach. Releasing tension here is thought to reduce pressure in the diaphragm (above the solar plexus), which can stop you from breathing deeply and filling your lungs.

You should feel your breathing becoming deeper and more free, and hopefully feel your stress melt away, too.

158 ✦ Blow bubble breaths in bed

As we all know, to blow the perfect bubble you need to take a deep breath, then blow out the bubble quite slowly and evenly or it will pop. This type of deep, slow breathing slows your heart rate and helps engage your calming parasympathetic nervous system.

Bubble breathing is a technique often employed by therapists or teachers to calm children or to treat their anxiety. But the bubble analogy can be a useful imaginative tool at any age to help exchange short, shallow bursts of breathing, typically associated with stress, for the longer, deeper breathing that can help bring calm.

Imagine you have a bubble wand. Then take a deep breath through the nose for about four seconds. Hold for two seconds; then exhale slowly through pursed lips as if blowing out a big bubble, for about seven seconds.

You can even imagine breathing “calm in, anxiety out,” and envision the bubble carrying your stresses up into the air and away, until it pops and disappears.

159 ✦ Breathe like a baby

Lots of us tend to breathe into our chests. Check your breathing. Do your chest and shoulders move upward and outward?

This is normal during exercise or when we’re tense. But a lot of us get into the habit of breathing like this all day. It can make the body feel under stress, leading to yet shallower breathing and even to over-breathing — because we feel short of breath — which can exacerbate tension and anxiety.

Babies and small children naturally breathe in the best way possible. They belly-breathe, fully saturating their lungs with oxygen while their bellies rise and fall as they inhale and exhale. This way of breathing is also called diaphragmatic breathing because it allows the diaphragm, the muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen, to drop down and push the belly forward so as to make room for our lungs to expand.

Not only is this kind of breathing efficient, it’s also calming. It has been demonstrated that relaxed abdominal breathing can reduce our fight-or-flight response.3

To try belly-breathing, lie down comfortably, and place a pillow under your knees and head if that feels right. Then put something like a paperback book on your belly and a hand on your chest. The aim is for the book to move up and down as you breathe but for the hand on your chest to keep fairly still (though some movement is fine).

Breathe in and let your tummy (and the book) rise. Breathe out and allow the tummy to flatten.

If you find it difficult or a strain, don’t force it. Try imagining that you’re filling up a small balloon in your tummy when you breathe in and releasing the air from the balloon when you breathe out. Aim to get into the habit of abdominal breathing throughout the day and at night. Stick a note on your desk or by the fridge to remind yourself to check your breathing regularly.

The more you practice, the more natural it will become.

160 ✦ Slow it down — get to sleep sooner

Taking long, slow, deep breaths can help calm your body and your mind enough for you to get to sleep faster. Slow, regular breathing has been found to reduce blood pressure and induce feelings of calm.4

A study published in Science found the explanation as to why this might happen: it transpired that a group of neurons in the brain appear to spy on how we’re breathing — and change our moods and states of mind accordingly.5 So, by actively changing how we breathe we could change how we feel. Breathing slowly and calmly induces calm. Breathing quickly generates tension.

Most of us take about ten to twenty breaths a minute, a rate that could exacerbate stress and anxiety, so try slowing your breathing to a more leisurely six breaths a minute. Simply inhale for four seconds and exhale for six. Repeat six times and you’ll have accomplished your six breaths per minute.

It may be quite difficult to slow your breathing as much as this if you’re not used to it. There are some good simple apps you can use to help you concentrate on this exercise. They usually allow you to input however many breaths per minute you want to achieve, then you follow an image as it expands and contracts, matching your inhalations and exhalations to it as it does so.