The stress breath is tremendous for any sort of anxiety or stress:
test anxiety,
performance anxiety,
any type of anxiety at all.
It’s also a good exercise for heating up your body. Here in Dhaka, some kids may not have heaters at home or proper jackets, so this is good for warming them up. With this breath, you can pull in a lot of energy and store it in your body.
Use an everyday object as a signal to do the stress breath. I use my keys. When I drive to work in the morning and take my car keys out of my ignition, that’s my cue to do the stress breath. I’ll do 12 right before I go into the office so I can leave home at home and focus on work. And then when I drive home, I park my car, take my keys out of the ignition, and that’s my cue—I do 12 more before I go into my house. That allows me to leave everything at work at work so I can be a hundred percent with my family when I get home. It’s like hitting the reset button with your brain.
The Three fundamental Parts of the Stress Breath
1. FOG THE MIRROR
The most valuable thing about this breath is that it’s audible. Take your hand and hold it up in front of your mouth and act like it’s a mirror that you’re fogging up. So, you’re exhaling with a haaaaaaaa sound as if you’re fogging a mirror.
2. MAKE IT AUDIBLE
Now, do the similar thing, but only have your mouth open for two seconds and then close your mouth while still pushing out the same way—but now push out through your nose. Practice making that same sound as you inhale, so the sound comes from the back of your throat (almost like a Darth Vadar breath).
3. HOLD AND LOCK
The HLF twist on the stress breath happens during the pause between the inhale and exhale. When you inhale, hold your breath, and then lower your chin to your chest. Hold there for a count of five and then lift your head as you exhale. Let’s put it all together...
The Stress Breath Exercise
1
Inhale nice and deep, using the “fog the mirror” technique, so the sound is vibrating at the back of your throat.
2
Hold your breath and your bring your chin down to your chest.
3
Count back from five.
4
Exhale (audibly through your nose) while you bring your head up.
That’s one cycle. Do twelve in a row, if you can, during the day and then again at nighttime.
Why the Stress Breath Works
The reason the breath has to be audible is because the vibrations from the sound signal the vagus nerve—that connection between the mind and the body—triggering a shift in your autonomic nervous system from the sympathetic (stress response) to parasympathetic (restorative response). So, if you just walk around breathing audibly, you’re basically doing the stress breath.
How to make the practice trauma-informed:
Something to remember if you’re deciding to practice this with others is to not have a silent space during the hold. That’s why we count. This is the trauma-informed way of doing the practice. You always count down (you never count up—because you don’t know when that’s going to end). And you don’t want to keep that empty space during the hold, because that’s where the trauma can pop up. You’re almost inviting the space for the stuff to pop up. We’re always doing trauma-in- formed when we do this with our kids.