Breathing Exercises for Anxiety: Simple, Science-Backed Ways to Calm Your System
You know that feeling when your chest tightens, your thoughts speed up, and everything starts to feel just slightly out of control? Anxiety can make the smallest task feel urgent, and the simplest decision feel impossible.
But you also have a built-in mechanism that can change that in under two minutes: your breath.
Used correctly, breathing exercises are one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system and regain clarity.
Why Anxiety Changes How You Breathe
When you feel anxious, your body prepares for threat. Your heart rate increases, muscles tense, and your breathing becomes shallow and fast. This response is driven by your sympathetic nervous system – the same system that helps you escape danger.
The problem is that most modern stressors aren’t physical.
You can’t run from deadlines, emails, or uncertainty. So your body stays primed for action with no release, keeping you locked in a state of low-grade alarm.
Over time, this pattern trains your nervous system to expect threat even when none exists.
How Breathing Can Reverse the Stress Response
Breathing is one of the few functions controlled by both your automatic and voluntary nervous systems. That means you can consciously change how you breathe to send different signals to your brain.
Slow, even breathing activates the vagus nerve, which switches your system from fight-or-flight to rest-and-recover. Heart rate slows, blood pressure drops, and brain activity shifts toward areas responsible for clear thinking and focus. With practice, you can learn to regulate your own physiology – not by ignoring anxiety, but by changing the state that fuels it.
Practical Breathing Techniques for Anxiety
Below are four simple, evidence-based breathing exercises you can use anytime you feel your system start to spiral. Each one targets a slightly different mechanism — whether that’s releasing physical tension, slowing your heart rate, or building long-term resilience. Start with whichever feels easiest, and let your breath do the work.
1 – The Physiological Sigh
This is one of the fastest ways to reduce tension.
It happens naturally when you sigh, but you can trigger it intentionally.
How to do it:
- Inhale through your nose
- Take a second small sip of air to fully expand your lungs
- Exhale slowly, trying to make your exhale twice as long as your inhale
Repeat two to five times.
2 – Box Breathing
If anxiety hits in the middle of the workday or before a presentation, box breathing helps you regain composure.
How to do it:
- Inhale for four seconds.
- Hold for four.
- Exhale for four.
- Hold for four.
- Repeat for two to four minutes.
This equal pattern creates stability in your nervous system, lowers cortisol, and restores a sense of control.
You can try it right now or download the 3-Minute Box Breathing Audio Reset to guide you.
3 – Extended Exhale Breathing
Lengthening your exhale is one of the most reliable ways to calm anxiety quickly.
How to do it:
- Inhale through your nose for a count of four.
- Exhale gently for a count of six or eight.
- Continue for one to two minutes.
The longer exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic system and helps your body downshift from a reactive state to one of calm awareness. It’s also a great technique to use before sleep.
4 – Resonance Breathing
Also referred to as six-breath-per-minute breathing, this technique optimises communication between the heart and brain.
How to do it:
- Breathe in for five seconds and out for five seconds.
- Aim for around six cycles a minute.
- Practise for five minutes daily.
Research shows this pattern increases heart rate variability (HRV) and supports emotional regulation, resilience, and sustained focus. Learn more about resonance breathing here.
How to Get the Most from These Techniques
- Practise before you need it. The more familiar it becomes, the easier it is to use when you feel anxious.
- Breathe through your nose. It filters, humidifies, and slows airflow naturally.
- Stay upright. A tall, open posture lets your diaphragm move freely.
- Use short, frequent sessions. Two minutes of quality practice beats ten minutes of forced breathing.
When to Use These Breathing Exercises
Use them whenever you notice signs of pressure building:
- Before a meeting or call you’re dreading
- When your mind starts looping on negative or unhelpful ‘what-ifs’
- After an argument or stressful email
- At night when your body is tired but your mind is awake
A few steady breaths can stop the spiral before it takes hold.
The Science Behind Calm Breathing
Dozens of studies confirm that breathing interventions reduce anxiety by directly influencing physiological stress markers such as HRV, cortisol and prefrontal activation. They also improve emotion regulation and performance under pressure.
The beauty of it is that you don’t need special equipment. Your breath is always with you, ready to reset your state and support you wherever you are.
Next Steps
Learn more about how your mindset changes your experience of stress.
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