I don’t usually think about how to breathe. My body does it automatically, and that’s fine for me. But sometimes my brain gets so focused on breathing that it suddenly becomes difficult to breathe regularly and deeply. That doesn’t happen during meditation, so it’s a strange experience.
During my daily meditation, I can focus on my breath without altering it, but that’s not the case when I let my attention wander throughout the day, so when I stumbled across this one-minute deep-breathing exercise from Centr, I decided to give it a try.
We use a technique called box breathing, which extends each stage of the breath to four seconds. I’m already a big fan of Centr as a workout app, so I was also interested in the team’s mindfulness and wellbeing training.
How to do Box Breathing
Unlike training with dumbbells or other weights, you don’t need any equipment to try box breathing. You can do it at home, at work, or while traveling, any time of the day. It doesn’t even have to be done for a specific amount of time; just a few breaths is all you need.
The goal is to breathe deeply and bring calm to your body and mind. You can follow Centr’s tutorial to get started, but all you really need to do is breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, and repeat.
While you can do box breathing any time you want, I set a goal to do it for one minute every morning for a month. This way I could add box breathing to my pre-work routine more easily and see if it made a difference in how I felt throughout the day. Here are my results:
I felt calm.
Box breathing encourages you to take long, deep breaths at a slower pace than the breathing I normally do, which usually only takes a few seconds to inhale and exhale. Slowing your breathing changes the amount of oxygen you can inhale and slows your heart rate.
So just practicing this technique for a minute can help you feel more relaxed. After all, there’s a reason we use breathing exercises to help us sleep. I don’t mean that you’ll want to take a nap after box breathing, but I was surprised that such a small intervention could have such a big impact.
Another benefit was that I have a chronic health condition that can make my heart rate pretty high, even when I’m resting. Having my heart pounding when it doesn’t need to can be quite anxiety-inducing, and deep breathing helps reduce those feelings and slows my heart rate.
It was easier to pay attention
I’ve been meditating regularly for almost a decade, spending a lot of time focusing on my breath, but like most things, it takes regular practice to see any benefits. But I was impressed with how quickly I noticed box breathing helped me to be more mindful throughout the day.
As I breathed in, I could visibly feel my chest expanding to accommodate the air, and as I breathed out, I immediately felt calmer. After 60 seconds, I felt better than I had before, and even more surprised that this feeling lasted throughout the day.
Because I meditate with my eyes closed, I think experiencing box breathing helped me focus on the things around me: the early morning sun streaming through my window, the gentle breeze on my face, the voices of people walking past my house.
I couldn’t keep it up for a minute every day.
I box breathed every morning, but I found myself adding it in periodically at random times during the day—sometimes because I felt my heart rate spike, other times because I wanted a moment to relax.
For people who work from home, it’s easy to forget to take regular breaks when there’s no one around to chat to. If I find myself getting too wrapped up in work, I immediately try to do some box breathing, drink some water, and relax.
But I also occasionally practiced box breathing while walking through the park. This challenge occurred as spring was transitioning into summer, so plants were flowering and trees were emerging from winter. Taking a moment to breathe deeply helped me feel more connected to the world around me.
