Try box breathing—a quick, proven technique to calm stress and reset your body and mind anytime, anywhere.
Box breathing is a technique that you can do anywhere. It's used by athletes, the military, and a lot of people use it in meditation, breathwork, and yoga. Even a couple of rounds of this can slow your heart rate. It can quiet racing thoughts and bring you back to the present moment.
Stress shows up in the body. Tight chest, racing thoughts, tension all over. And one of the quickest tools that we have to regulate that stress is our breath. Hi, my name is Rachel Havocost. I am a mental health advocate, and as someone who has definitely experienced a lot of physical pain related to my emotional pain, breathing has become an incredible tool that you can access literally anytime, any place. And it's incredibly supportive in regulating our stress and our feelings. So I wanna teach you a simple technique that has helped me that you can do anywhere called box breathing.
It's used by athletes, the military, and a lot of people use it in meditation, breathwork, and yoga. And it's used to calm the nervous system. I'm gonna tell you how it works, and then we can try it together. You inhale for a count of four, and then you hold the breath for a count of four. You exhale for a count of four, and you hold the exhale for a count of four. And that is one cycle. So it's four, four, four. So let's try it together. Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, four.
Hold, two, three, four. Inhale, two, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. Exhale, two, three, three, four. Hold, two, three, four. You can go back to your regular breathing. That was just two rounds, but notice if there's any shift in your body, in your chest, in your shoulders, in your neck. This is something that you can use before a meeting if you're feeling stressed. You can use it right before you go to bed if you're trying to wind down. I like to use it when I'm having difficult conversations where there's conflict, because that's usually when I tend to dissociate or feel really, like, out of my body.
And it can help me kind of ground back into my body. And even just a couple of rounds of this can slow your heart rate. It can quiet racing thoughts and bring you back to the present moment. Your breath is always with you. So next time stress shows up, remember that you have this tool in your back pocket to help bring you back to calm.
