Try: Mindful breathing

Time required

Five minutes

How to do it

The most basic way to do mindful breathing is to focus your attention on your breath, the inhale and exhale. You can do this while standing, but ideally you’ll be sitting or even lying in a comfortable position. Your eyes may be open or closed, or you can maintain a soft gaze, with your eyes partially closed but not focusing on anything in particular.

It can help to set aside a designated time for this exercise, but it can also help to practice it when you’re feeling particularly stressed or anxious. Experts believe a regular practice of mindful breathing can make it easier to do in difficult situations. 

1. Start by finding a position in which you can be comfortable for five minutes or so.
2. Notice how your body feels. Take about a minutes to explore the sensations throughout your body.
3. Tune into the rhythm of your breath. Notice where you feel it in your body. It may help to focus on the rise and fall of your chest or the sensation through your nostrils. Observe each breath without trying to adjust or control it. 
   
4. You may find that your mind wanders, distracted by thoughts or bodily sensations. That’s OK. You can notice that this is happening and try to gently bring your attention back to your breath.
5. After five to seven minutes, allow your attention to return to the sensations of your whole body and open out again to where you are.

Try an audio guided meditation on the breath

When you're first trying out mindful breathing, it can be helpful to be guided through the practice. 

Click here to find a mindful breathing meditation on the Insight Timer website, contributed by the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Why you should try it

Stress, anger, and anxiety can impair not only our health but our judgment and skills of attention. One way to help deal with these difficult feelings is the practice of mindfulness, the ability to pay careful attention to what you're thinking, feeling, and sensing in the present moment without judging those thoughts and feelings as good or bad.

After setting aside time to practice mindful breathing, you may find it easier to focus attention on your breath in your daily life – an important skill to help you deal with stress, anxiety, and negative emotions, cool yourself down when your temper flares, and sharpen your skills of concentration.

Mindfulness gives us distance from our thoughts and feelings, which can help us tolerate and work through unpleasant feelings rather than becoming overwhelmed by them. Mindful breathing in particular is helpful because it gives us an anchor – our breath – on which we can focus when we find ourselves carried away by a stressful thought. Mindful breathing can also help us stay “present” in the moment, rather than being distracted by regrets in the past or worries about the future.