5 Minute Daily Breathing Challenge

Reducing your stress is as easy as breathing... sometimes.

Hi, I’m Sophie and I write about how to slow down and live a simple more calm life. I’m passionate about slow living and I truly believe that we don’t have to live busy stressful lives. I’d love it if you could subscribe and join my community, it really is a beautiful space to be.

As humans, we’re great at being stressed. It’s an automatic response and we don’t even know we’re doing it. Think about it. Are you stressed right now? Is your breathing shallow and fast? Are you breathing using your upper chest and shoulders?

If not, that’s great! But what I’m about to teach you may come in useful for when you are feeling like that.

This challenge requires you to find 5 minutes of your day, every day, to relax and focus on your breathing. The real hope is that you’ll stay there and enjoy the feeling for longer, but sometimes 5 minutes is all you have.

When I’m stressed I tend to breathe with my shoulders and my upper chest. This is a typical response, and many of us do it. Luckily, we can reduce this stress response by focusing on, and controlling our breathing.

The area where we should be breathing from is our lower rib cage, also known as the diaphragm (the big muscle that controls the movement of our lungs), and our abdomen.

By breathing using our diaphragm and abdomen, we can control our nervous system and help our bodies to relax. This in turn leads to lots and lots of health benefits, some of which include:

• Lowering your heart rate

• Lowering your blood pressure

• Lowering your stress levels

• Increasing your energy

• Regulating your levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood

It’s pretty incredible how much controlling your breathing each day can impact your health and well-being. Have I sold you on the challenge yet?

So how do we breathe correctly?

Firstly, you need to find somewhere comfortable to sit or lay, preferably somewhere that you won’t be disturbed for a while, although I know that’s not always possible. It could be anywhere, on your sofa, in your bed, on the living room floor. It could also be on the train to work, or in a chair in a waiting room if you need to reduce your stress levels quickly. I do this whilst I’m sat breastfeeding my baby. I’m usually stuck there for much longer than 5 minutes, so it’s a good chance for me to reduce any stress I’ve built up.

If you’d like to set an alarm if you have limited time, you can do so. Now, if you can, close your eyes.

I find it easier to place each hand on either side of the bottom of my rib cage, but you could put one hand there and the other on your abdomen if you wish.

Now imagine that your lower rib cage is like an umbrella. It opens evenly all the way around, 360°.

Take a slow deep breath through your nose and try to expand your lower rib cage, imagining an umbrella opening.

Relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw.

It’s ok if this takes you a while to get right. When I’m stressed it takes a few breaths to correct my shallow upper chest/ shoulder breathing.

If you’re feeling really stressed, try to breathe slowly in through your nose and out of your mouth until you have slowed your breathing down enough to breathe in and out through your nose.

Breathe in through your nose and let your lower rib cage and abdomen expand up into your hands.

Exhale slowly through your nose and let your lower rib cage and abdomen relax back to normal.

Try to breathe slowly, gently and evenly.

Focus on your breathing and try to ignore the other noises around you. Be fully present to controlling your breathing. Check your shoulders again, are they still tense? Try to relax them some more.

Repeat that again, inhale slowly through your nose, allow your lower rib cage to expand into your hands like the umbrella. Exhale slowly through your nose, relaxing your diaphragm and feeling your abdomen fall back to normal.

Keep repeating this breathing until you feel relaxed and calm.

If your alarm has sounded, you can gently open your eyes. Notice how you feel now. Recognise your lower stress levels and acknowledge your increased sense of calm. This is a happy feeling. If you have more time and you’d like to continue, stay where you are and enjoy this feeling until you’re ready.

I invite you to join me in the comments and share how that exercise has made you feel. For me, it feels like I’ve had a brief nap and I feel energised and happy.

I’d love it if you’d join me in this daily challenge of 5 minute breathing. That feeling that you’re feeling right now is great, but imagine how you’d feel if you did this exercise for 5 minutes each day for a week.

When should you do this exercise?

It’s entirely up to you. It could be first thing in the morning when you wake up before getting out of bed, it could be before an important meeting, it could be after lunch before you get back to work, it could be before you have to collect your children from school and you’d like to prepare yourself for the busy next few hours.

This technique is also great to do last thing at night to calm your body and help you drift off to sleep peacefully. Whenever you need it, this exercise is there at your disposal to help you reduce your stress levels and increase your calm.

Are you ready to join me in this challenge?

I’ll be checking in each day via the Chat. I’d love to see the space where you’re practicing this exercise, so feel free to share a picture of you doing it.

The challenge starts on Monday 30th October until Friday 3rd November. It can be done at any time of day, just take it when you need it.

See you on Monday?

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