Through conscious control of our breathing, we can make significant changes to the way we deal with the stresses on our bodies and our minds. There are a lot of breathing exercises available to help to learn control of our breathing.
If it is something you haven’t considered before, take two minutes now to sit and concentrate on your breathing. Take a long and slow deep breath and slowly breath out again. Pause for a brief second after inhaling and after exhaling. After two minutes, notice the difference in the tension in your body and your mind. Try an exercise like this when you feel like you are getting tense. A particularly beneficial time to practice this sort of breathing exercise is just before bed at night. It helps to slow your mind and prepare you for sleep.
Over time with practice, the aim is to change the patterns of your breathing so that you naturally breath deeply and slowly when you are under stress to help minimise the impacts that stress has on your mind and body.