Breathing Exercises for Anxiety

Anxiety can be defined as an emotional state, where the body reacts to the mental stress. Sometimes, anxiety helps us deal with stressful situations and bring out our best performances. However, when the anxiety goes beyond our control and starts disrupting our daily activities, then its an alarming condition. This is because, in such a situation, anxiety can lead to depression, fatigue, sleep deprivation or even some illness. When we are in the state of anxiety, we start breathing very fast, as a result the heart rate increases as well. With the help of breathing exercises for anxiety, we can slow down the rate of breathing, which in turn will normalize the heart beat. Read more on anxiety symptoms.

Breathing Exercises for Reducing Anxiety

Breathing exercises for anxiety, often yields the benefit of meditation as all our concentration is focused on the breathing process. Here are some effective breathing exercises which you can do at home.

Breathing Exercises for Anxiety #1
Stand straight keeping your feet shoulder width apart. Maintain a normal comfortable position for your body. Keep your attention on your breathing. When you are inhaling, slowly raise your hands over your head, with your palms in the upward position. Hold the breath and your arms in the raised position for a few seconds. Then start breathing out and bring down your arms. Repeat this till you start feeling a calming effect within you. You should hold the breath as long as you are comfortable. No need to push yourself hard for this purpose.

Breathing Exercises for Anxiety #2
When we are breathing normally, then the lungs and diaphragm gets expanded during inhalation. On the other hand, while breathing anxiously or under stress we start taking shallow breaths. With the help of this breathing exercise for anxiety we will try to make a conscious effort to make the breathing, back to normal. Sit on a chair keeping your back straight. Put one hand on the chest and the other one on the belly. Close your eyes, and focus all your attention on the rise and fall of your chest and belly as you are breathing. You can feel the air entering your lungs and coming out. Do this for at least five minutes, if not more. Thus you can feel very relaxed.

Breathing Exercises for Anxiety #3
This is one of the best deep breathing exercises for anxiety. When you feel that the anxiety is taking too much on your health and mind, then you should practice this form of exercise daily. Lie down on the floor with your arms and legs comfortably stretched. As you inhale, let your abdominal muscles swell up like a balloon. Hold the stomach in expanded condition for a few seconds. Then suck the muscles inward as much as you can, and again hold this position of deflated stomach for few seconds. In other words, after every inhalation or exhalation wait for few seconds. Repeat this a number of times. After 2-3 repetitions, you can sense the coordination between the movements of the abdominal muscles and the breathing. As the oxygen reaches the muscles, it leads to relaxation.

Breathing Exercises for Anxiety #4
This is one of the most common form of yoga exercises. Sit comfortably in an upright position. Bring your right hand near the nostril. Now, place your ring and pinkie finger on the left nostril and the thumb on your right nostril. First of all, close your right nostril with the help of your right thumb and breathe in with the left nostril till you finished counting up to 4. Then close the left nostril with the ring finger and remove the thumb from the right nostril and exhale thorough it. Similarly, in the next step, inhale with the right nostril and exhale with the left nostril. Continue the breathing with alternate nostrils as long as you feel comfortable. Read more on how is breathing rate controlled and anxiety cures.

There are several advantages of the breathing exercises for anxiety that have been discussed here. They not only help to cure anxiety, calm down our agitated mind and body, they also have a healing effect on the nervous system. Moreover, it brings about improvement in the functioning of our brain as well.