5-Min Stress Relief: Are Breathing Exercises The Best Quick Solution?

If you’re wondering how long to do deep breathing exercises, don’t worry, it doesn’t take much time. when you think of breathwork or breathing exercises you might have a mental picture of a monk sitting on a peaceful mountain top for hours, or an adventurer sitting in shorts on a glacier diving into icy waters. Well, let me just say those things are great, but certainly not my life or at all practical for me.

I need quick practical techniques to keep me from losing it when I’m trying to rush out of the house for an important presentation, as my cat is coughing up a hairball on the rug, and I realize I’ve forgotten to put out the trash. I’m sure sitting on a peaceful mountain top is wonderful, but I need quick and easy stress relief techniques in my life. Great news, deep breathing exercises can absolutely fit the bill when it comes to being quick, easy, and fast stress relief.

Breathing exercises are so amazingly flexible that you can find techniques no matter what the situation is. If you’re on the highway and someone is being a total jerk and cuts you off, no problem, there’s a breathing exercise for that. If you’re at home and it looks like a disaster area in your kid’s room, no problem, there’s a breathing exercise for that. If you’re at work getting ready for a presentation and your laptop decides to install security updates, no problem, there’s a breathing exercise for that too! You don’t have to drop everything you’re doing for breathing exercises. You can practice anywhere you are when a stressful moment pops up.

No matter what term you choose to use, breathing exercises, yoga breathing, breathwork or pranayama, these practices are a great way to relieve stress, reduce anxiety, melt away tension, and give you relief any time anywhere in the moment.