COMMUNICATION, BEHAVIOUR & ART

Slow Breathing to Combat Stress and Anxiety

Take a moment to boost your wellbeing with just two minutes of slow breathing.

Benefits of Slow Breathing

  • Reduces stress and anxiety, helping you reset to a calm state, improve focus, and enhance cognition.

  • Increases oxygen levels, elevates mood, and promotes positive emotions.

  • Lowers heart rate, blood pressure, depressive symptoms, pain, and muscle tension.

 

Slow Breathing Exercise

Use whatever time you have—if it’s only two minutes, simply take two minutes to breathe slowly and mindfully.

Our videos last ten minutes—if you have the time, breathe along for the full ten minutes and then return to your day feeling more relaxed and better focused.

How to Breathe Properly

  • Breathe in gently through your nose. In this exercise, breathe out slowly through pursed lips.

  • Sit or stand with a straight posture and get comfortable.

  • Notice your abdomen rising as you breathe in, and falling as you breathe out.

 

Congratulations, you just slowed your breath to six breaths per minute!

Average breathing Rates

Adults typically breathe between 12 and 18 breaths per minute, and during stress, this can increase to 20 to 45 breaths per minute.

Breathing at six breaths per minute provides many benefits of slow breathing, but breathing slower—at five or four breaths per minute—can help you achieve those benefits even faster. If you found it easy to keep up with six breaths per minute, try five or four breaths per minute by clicking here.

Important: Never breathe slower than four breaths per minute, as it may have the opposite effect.

Body language and Anxiety

If you’d like to learn more about the connection between body language and anxiety, you can read more about it here.