Meditation and Breathing Techniques: Intervention vs Prevention Breathing.

Box Breathing:

I have learned that the way I breathe influences my emotions. For example, when I am anxious, or nervous, my breathing is shallow and constricted. The next time you find yourself holding your breath, or taking short constricted breaths, go right into the next technique to alleviate that anxiety and bring down your heart rate. While meditation serves to set a foundation of excellent well-being and mental resilience and serves to prevent mental health problems,  at times, we might need instant relief and an immediate intervention that is available to us. This is when this type of box breathing, or pattern breathing becomes beneficial and highly effective for us. 

This technique is targeted to help bring down your heart rate when you find yourself becoming triggered or anxious. How do you know you’re there?

Symptoms and when to use: Flustered and racing thoughts, worst-case scenario thinking, inflated anger toward small situations, inability to stop thinking about something that is bothering you.

4 - 4 - 4 Breathing Technique

Directions:

• Slowly inhale through your nose for a count of 4. 

• Hold at the top for a count of 4. 

• Slowly exhale through your mouth and breathe out for a count of 4. 

• Repeat 3 to 5 times until calm state is reached. 

  Box breathing is an immediate intervention when there is a thought we can’t shake, or we are triggered out of the blue and we want to regulate and come back to ourselves.

Symptoms and when to use: If you are looking to try another breathing pattern with similar effects, but where the emotion might be more distressing, or you need a little bit more to calm back down, try the 4 - 7 - 8 breathing technique approach.

4 - 7 - 8 Breathing Technique

Directions:

• Slowly inhale through your nose for a count of 4. 

• Hold at the top for a count of 7. 

• Slowly exhale through your mouth and breathe out for a count of 8. 

• Repeat 3 to 5 times until a calm state is reached. 
  

When you are calm again, then it’s okay to go back into a meditation state. There is no sense in forcing a meditation when our thoughts are ramping up, or and when we are flustered. First, let’s work to bring ourselves down to a regular state again, our balanced feel good equilibirium. From there, with a calm mind, we can begin going inward. During meditation, good hormones are released, counteracting the effects of stress and decreasing the production of cortisol in your body, resulting in an overall better physical and mental state.