5 Breathing Exercises to

CALM & FOCUSYour Mind

By Lori Deschene, Tiny Buddha Founder

There’s nothing quite as frustrating as feeling trapped in your own busy mind.

Maybe it’s a harsh place, full of self-critical thoughts that make you feel like you’ll never be good enough.

Maybe it’s a 24/7 alarm, constantly identifying potential threats in your environment that could hurt you if you don’t keep your guard up—many that aren’t actually real.

Or maybe it’s a judgment factory, constantly updating you on why the world sucks, other people suck, and life is hard and unfair.

My mind has been all three, particularly when I was struggling with depression, and often all at once.

If you naturally have tons of white space in your brain and generally think uplifting thoughts, that’s awesome—but believe me, you’re in the minority. Most of us have to actively work at calming in our busy minds. It’s been estimated that we think upward of 60,000 thoughts per day, with 80 percent of them being negative and 95 percent of them repetitive.

That means without conscious effort, our brain is essentially an angry toddler, irrationally screaming the same things over and over, making it hard for us to focus on anything else.

The great new is, just like an angry toddler, it can be calmed with a little love and attention.

It’s normal for our minds to generate thoughts pertaining to our fears, insecurities, stresses, losses, judgments, and irritations. It does these things all day, every day, without our conscious choice. Even now, as I write this, I’m also fantasizing about lying down, noticing that my hand skin looks old, and slightly seething about the noise coming from outside my door.

The goal isn’t to stop the thoughts. It’s to create a little space between them and to learn not to attach to them so that they can’t limit or control us.

The easiest way I know to accomplish this is through deep breathing exercises.

The beauty of deep breathing is that you can do it anywhere, at any time, for as little as thirty seconds, and still experience relief. You can do them to start or end your day, in a stressful moment, or whenever have a small window of time you’d rather fill with mindful self-care than another episode of mindless scrolling.

Though you don’t need any special tools to practice deep breathing, you do need the following:

• The intention to focus solely on your breath for whatever time you choose (even if you find this hard to do)

• A willingness to sit with discomfort if your mind keeps wandering, your heart starts hurting, or your environment is distracting

• Self-compassion to help you be gentle with yourself if you struggle in any way while practicing

• Patience to help you keep trying different methods if the first ones you try aren’t helpful

If you equip yourself with these four things, deep breathing can help you relax your mind and body, reduce your stress and anxiety, and become more present in your daily life.

Before we get into the practices…

How Your Tiny Buddha

MINDFULNESS PRODUCTS

Can Enhance TheseDeep Breathing Practices

All of the products in this kit are aromatherapy-based and formulated with essential oils designed specifically to support mindfulness practices.

Aromatherapy has been around for thousands of years, and for good reason—it offers a host of physical, mental, and emotional benefits.

It essentially triggers sensors in the brain that are linked with emotion and memory, which can help relax you and elevate your mood. This makes aromatherapy a perfect complement to any mindfulness practice, since it can help calm your mind and put you into a meditative state.

The bath and shower gel, essential oil roll-on, and pillow spray/meditation mist are all infused with lavender essential oil, which is known to reduce stress and anxiety and promote calmness and wellness.

The lychee flower scented candle has a more uplifting scent, which is known to promote clarity and focus.

If you’re practicing deep breathing in the tub, you could make it a bubble bath and, depending on your preferred scent intensity, use the roll-on and spray as well. I personally don’t like to mix scents, so I would either go this route or light the scented candle.

If you’re at work, you might want to just use the roll-on, as to concentrate the smell on your own body. Or, if you’re in your own space, you could use any combination of the products. The possibilities are endless!

And now, onto the practices, listed in order of my personal

preference.

1. Alternate Nostril Breathing

Alternate nostril breathing is a yogic breath control practice, known in Sanskrit as nadi shodhana pranayama, which translates as “subtle energy clearing breathing technique.”

Studies have shown that alternative nostril breathing not only lowers stress but also improves your heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, and may also improve lung function.

Though you will be alternating nostrils as you breathe, the goal is to keep your breath slow and continuous.

To start, get into a comfortable seated position and exhale fully. Now hold your right nostril down with your right thumb and inhale through your left nostril. Then close your left nostril with your right index finger, so both are closed, and hold the breath. Release your right nostril only and exhale.

With your left nostril still closed, inhale through your right. Now close your right nostril with your thumb, so both nostrils are closed, and hold the breath. Release your index finger from your left nostril and exhale.

This is one set. Complete a minimum of five sets to harmonize the left and right hemispheres of your brain, calm your nervous system, and create a sense of relaxation and ease.

2. Diaphragmatic Breathing

As a former singer, I learned diaphragmatic breathing young and quickly realized it not only enhanced my vocal quality, but also helped calm my nerves.

Most of us default to chest breathing, which uses muscles in our upper chest, particularly in stressful situations. We end up with tight shoulders and neck muscles, and maybe even get frequent headaches; whereas diaphragmatic breathing, using—you guessed it!—the diaphragm (the large, dome-shaped muscle at the base of the lungs), creates relaxation and ease.

In addition to creating inner calm, diaphragmatic breathing has been proven to improve respiratory function, lower heart rate and blood pressure, boost the immune system, detoxify the body, and help with digestive function.

To start, get into a comfortable position, seated or lying down, with your knees slightly bent. Then place one hand on your upper chest and one on your diaphragm, just below your rib cage.

As you slowly inhale through your nose, to the count of three, feel the cool air traveling down your throat to your belly, allow your abdomen to expand, and feel your hand gently rising. Then exhale to the count of three, with pursed lips, feeling your stomach deflate and your ab muscles tighten.

Continue breathing, slowly, in and out in this way, keeping the hand on your chest as still as possible, for five to ten minutes. You’ll not only feel more relaxed and less anxious, you’ll also reduce the harmful effect of the stress hormone, cortisol, on your body.

3. Lip-Touching Breathing

When aroused, your sympathetic nervous system puts you in a state of high alert—that sense of “fight-or-flight” panic that tells you there’s some sort of threat. Your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), when aroused, produces the opposite feeling—a sense of relaxation and ease.

In his book Buddha’s Brain, Rick Hanson suggests a few simple ways to stimulate the PNS—the simplest of which is to touch your lip with two fingers.

The lips contain parasympathetic nerve fibers, making this a simple approach to create a sense of calm, that you can use anywhere, anytime.

To reap the benefits, all you need to do is touch your lips, breathe slowly, and tell yourself, “I am safe.” To enhance the practice, apply your Tiny Buddha Calming Essential Oil Roll on to the inside of your wrist first, allowing the soothing scent of lavender to further calm you.

Rick also suggests fiddling with your lip, making the blub blub blub noise you may have made as a kid, as a way to stimulate PNS nerve fibers, activating reverberations through the whole PNS. At the very least, as he notes, this activity will distract you from whatever’s stressing you out through its sheer absurdity!

4. The 4-7-8 Technique

You may have heard the sage advice to take a few deep breaths before reacting in anger—so you don’t call your boss an ass, scar your child for life, or destroy your relationship over something that, let’s be honest, you’ve probably done before, yourself. This is a great technique for those moments. And it’s also particularly helpful for those nights when you can’t seem to sleep (with the aid of Tiny Buddha’s Relaxing Pillow Spray, of course!)

All you need to do is breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven, and exhale for eight. To be more specific…

Start by getting into a comfortable seated position. Now place the tip of your tongue at the tissue right behind the top front teeth, then exhale.

Keeping your tongue in the same position, breathe in through the nose for four seconds, hold for a count of seven, then release the breath through pursed lips, for a count of right, making a “whoosh” sound.

Complete up to five cycles, eventually working your way up to ten.

5. Lion’s Breath

Lion’s breath, another yogic technique, can make you feel a little foolish, so you might want to do this away from prying eyes. But it can also be both relaxing and energizing, and it helps release tension in the face, neck, and chest.

I find this practice particularly helpful when I’m taking life a too seriously, because I can’t help but laugh at myself every time I do it.

For those who are into chakras, this breathing practice is related to the thyroid and fifth chakra—the seat of creativity, communication, and expression.

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that this technique requires you to let go of self-consciousness, if you’re in the company of other people, since self-expression requires the same.

To start, get into a comfortable seated position, perhaps cross-legged. Many people like to practice sitting on their heels, with their knees together, but this isn’t essential. Light your Tiny Buddha Lychee Flower Scented Candle, if you have it nearby, and take a few moments to breathe evenly, in and out, relaxing your shoulders and settling into the moment.

Then press your palms firmly against your knees or the floor, with your fingers splayed outward, and lean slightly forward.

Now inhale through your nose, while opening your mouth wide and sticking your tongue out, as if trying to reach your chin with the tip. Then exhale forcefully, with your eyes wide, making a “ha” sound as your breath passes over the back of your throat. And that’s lion’s breath!

Practice for three or four rounds, working up to ten. Not only will you feel more relaxed, you’ll likely have better breath. Win/win!

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And there you have it—five breathing exercises that can help create soothe your active mind. Sending calming thoughts your way, from my busy brain to yours!

What products are included in the Mindfulness Kit?

A Soothing Bath and Shower Gel that is formulated to calm your mind and condition and hydrate your skin

A lavender Essential Oil Roll On to ease tension and invite calmness and relaxation

A Relaxing Pillow Spray to encourage a peaceful night’s sleep, that can be repurposed as a meditation mist

A Lychee Flower Scented Candle to uplift your spirit and awaken your senses

A Daily Mindfulness Practice Guide to break down the art of mindfulness into simple little rituals you can practice at morning, noon, and night.

Want more tips for peace, mindfulness, and joy?

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