Sarah is one of the Chiropractors here at Revive Chiropractic in Leeds. Sarah has written this blog and made a video to demonstrate these breathing techniques for helping stress and anxiety. (If you want to find out a little more about Sarah then click here)
How do stress and anxiety affect our breathing?
When we become stressed, or anxious, our breathing has a tendency to become shallower and faster.
Shallower and faster breathing means we use additional muscles around our neck and shoulders and when this breathing becomes common it causes problems.
If we continue this faulty breathing on a regular basis, these muscles can become chronically tight. This can lead to aches and pains and discomfort.
Breathing techniques for stress and anxiety
Find a place to sit, or lie down. Close your eyes and just feel how your breathing is. What\’s the breathing doing, is it slow, fast, shallow or deep? Just take a note of it, see how your breathing is then try to slow the breathing down.
Next, take bigger breaths, fill up your stomach and your chest, opening out your chest and the tummy. Just take a nice big breath in and out. Just slow everything down. Do a few of these just nice and slow and deep and controlled.
The counting technique
Finally, if you want to take it further, you can count whilst you\’re breathing, pausing after you\’ve taken the in-breath.
So breathe in two three four hold two three four and out two three four five six seven eight.
Repeat again. Again in two three four hold two three four and out two three four five six seven eight.
Just repeat those several times until it\’s nice and controlled. After you\’ve done this return your breathing just to a normal pattern and see how you feel.
What differences should I feel?
Is your breathing slower now? Is it slightly deeper? Do you feel calmer in yourself? Hopefully you do.
If not you can always do it again and just slowly calm the breathing and yourself down.
There are many breathing techniques out there and many mindfulness techniques. Have a look
around have a look on the internet and find one that suits you. By all means keep trying these ones but have an experiment to find what works for you.
If you want any help or advice on this or any other issues that affect back and neck pain just reach out to us. We are here to help.
If you would like to book an appointment with our chiropractor Sarah (Or Alison!) you can book here.
