4-7-8 Breathing
Breathing is an action our body innately does every moment of every day and often happens subconsciously. It isn’t something that we have to remind ourselves to do, because imagine how scary that would be! Similar to your heart beating, your body will ensure that you are breathing regularly, but that doesn’t always mean that it is the healthiest or most effective breaths you can be taking. Breath work, and focusing with intention on breathing, can help be a healthier individual in many ways. One of the largest impacts it has is reducing the stress response and any problems associated with chronic stress, which increases the body’s relaxation response (more on that later). The reason deep breathing accomplishes this is because of its calming effects on the parasympathetic nervous system by pushing on our vagus nerve (running from brain to abdomen), which helps to eliminate the fight-or-flight response that is often a result of fear, stress, or anger.
The 4-7-8 breathing technique is something I have been practicing for awhile and it has truly helped my anxiety both in the moment and long-term, has helped me to fall asleep quicker and have deeper rest, and has helped me to find calm and relaxation throughout my day. So, I wanted to share it with you!
This is a fairly easy practice and is a really great tool to have in your breath work toolkit if you are looking for similar results as the ones listed above. There are also a multitude of benefits not listed here that I encourage you to look into as you start your journey on conscious breathing.
The practice is as follows:
Breathe in for 4 counts / seconds
Hold that breath for 7 counts / seconds
Breathe out for 8 counts / seconds
A few other things to note about this technique:
You will want to be sure that you are holding your tongue in yogic position, which means that the tip of your tongue is resting on the ridge of tissue right behind your teeth
Beginners will want to start at only 4 breath cycles, which means doing this practice 4 times in a row and then stopping. After a few months of practice, feel free to increase up to 8 cycles
Be prepared to feel a body high, which can commonly feel like lightheadedness. There are many breathing techniques that will provide this state of euphoria because your body is getting good quality oxygen into your lungs which directly impacts the brain due to the increased oxygen it receives during this work
I do encourage you to be open to trying practices like these, especially if you experience anxiety or elevated levels of stress, to see if it can be helpful over the long term. Even doing this right before bed can be very relaxing. If this doesn’t help, as mentioned before there are a ton of really great breathing exercises that will help us get more comfortable with conscious breathing and provide our bodies with as many relaxation responses as possible.
All my love,
Hannah