The election, Coronavirus, upcoming holidays, maybe you feel like you can finally take a deep breath or maybe you feel even more anxious.

I spoke this week on my podcast, BYOB (Be Your Own Bliss) about how I use breath to calm myself down. How connecting with our breath can be an easy way to ground ourselves and to connect with our bodies. (If you haven’t listened yet, hop on over and check it out!)

When I was taking my Yoga Teacher Training, I didn’t fully understand why we spent so much time talking about breathing. I mean it’s just in and out, pretty simple, in fact our body does it automatically.

What is so amazing is that our breath can do more than just bring oxygen to our bodies. There are techniques to heat up the body, cool ourselves down, to bring focus to fully expanding the lungs and of course calming ourselves.

Think back to a time when you felt nervous, anxious, overwhelmed, how did that feel in your body? Was there a tightness in your chest? A knot in your belly? Was your breathing shallow and fast?

Breathing can be our first recognizable sign that something is off. Next time you feel yourself getting upset, stressed, anxious pay attention to how your breathing changes. Awareness is our first step to change.

But you clicked here to be a more relaxed you, so here it is. Just Breathe.

Start by taking 3 deep breaths. Deeper then you think you are capable of. You are trying to fill your lungs up like a balloon so slow down your inhale and feel your lungs fill up. 

Soften your belly. Especially if you are a woman, you probably spend a good majority of your day holding your stomach in as an attempt to make you look/feel thinner. Relax, allow your belly to be soft, not only will this allow you to take a bigger breath it will also bring some relaxation to your body.

Once you have taken as big of an inhale as you can, exhale it all out. Exhale until you don’t think you have any more air left in you and release a little more. As you exhale think about not only all the air leaving but also releasing all that you no longer need. All the thoughts, emotions, guilt you are holding onto. Let go.

Taking 3 deep breaths can be done anytime you need to give yourself a pause, a break, a release. Learn to use your breath as a way to re-connect to your body. Marvel at the feeling of your chest and belly expanding with the inhale. Feel the exhale squeezing out all the stuff that isn’t serving you anymore.

Check out the video below for 3 more breathing techniques sure to bring better awareness to this seemingly simple task.