Video: Breathing Techniques to Manage Coronavirus Stress & Anxiety

Breathing Techniques to Manage Stress During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

  • Hello I'm Joan Childs psychotherapist and author and presenter. I am here in my home office being homebound and unable to be in my other office, so welcome to my home office.

    In my previous video that I posted on the YouTube I told you there were some techniques that I could teach you that you could do at home to help you during these challenging times that were all in. Many people have called me with the fact that they are anxious and feeling afraid having some even panic attacks their mood changes and they even depression is a very common response to what we're all going through these are rough times and for all of us and especially that when you human beings are not comfortable living in the unknown and we are in the unknown and we don't know how long we're going to be on the unknown, but we're all in this together and I want to share some techniques that I know that are very helpful and stabilizing and changing your mood and changing your any anxiety that you might have.

    The first thing I want to teach you is breathing. Breathing is probably the most fundamental rhythm of life it's holding on and letting go something you learned from the moment you were born when you took your first breath you had to hold on to take in the breath and you had to let go to release it to exhale.

    So we're going back from the beginning from your birth then all the way through so there are several ways there that people have learned how to breathe in order to if part of meditation and it's to calm down our central nervous system there's a yoga technique that I like to use and I kind of adapted it to what I feel is one of the best ways that I can help people de-stress from things that they really are not in control of and we are not in control of what's going on now.

    So let me teach you this one breathing technique. I'm not going to do it I'm just going to teach it to you you'll have to do it at home but basically it's very simple you breathe in to the count of four you hold your breath to the count of seven and as soon as you account it silently to seven you release it to the count of seven in addition when you take your breath in to the count of four you expand your lungs and you expand your belly, when you release it when you exhale and you contract your lungs you tuck in your tummy, do that seven times very slowly. I'm going to do it once for you so that you can you can just watch this video and learn to do it yourself it will calm down your central nervous system you will feel more relaxed if you do it for seven times.

    So taking it a breath to the count of four and close your eyes when you do it I want to close mine so you can see it taking in a breath to the count of four holding it for the count of seven and then you can breathe it out to your lips so there's no breath left and you do that seven times hold in for the count of four expand your lungs expand your belly and then we hold it for the for the count of seven and when you release it you tuck in your tummy until all the air is out, do that seven times and I can promise you that alone is a de-stressor. It's a relaxation response technique it's a yoga breathing technique and there's a meditation technique and it works if you use it and practice it.

    Seven times is all you need if you do it more than seven times when at night it's good because you'll fall asleep okay so that's your first exercise that I'm going to teach you. Tune in for the next video and I'll teach you some NLP an NLP technique called collapsing anchors all right have a good evening stay safe stay well and stay at home bye.

Video Series: Managing Stress & Anxiety

 

 

Joan E Childs, LCSW is a renowned psychotherapist, inspirational speaker and author of I Hate The Man I Love: A Conscious Relationship is Your Key to Success. In private practice since 1978, she specializes in individual and couple’s therapy, grief therapy, EMDR, NLP, inner child work and codependency. Learn more about her services at www.joanechilds.com.

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Written by : Joan E. Childs

Joan E Childs, LCSW is a renowned psychotherapist, author and inspirational speaker. In private practice since 1978, she specializes in individual and couple’s therapy, grief therapy, EMDR, NLP, inner child work and codependency. Learn more about her services at https://joanechilds.com/services/

2 Comments

  1. Frodo 13 April, 2020 at 5:16 pm

    This is so kind and generous of you! Thank you and Stay Safe!

  2. Lewis Small 17 April, 2020 at 12:01 am

    Just tried it, wonderful stress reliever
    Thank you so much

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