Box Breathing for Anxiety and Stress

Eyes open, or closed. Here's a quick and simple breathing meditation technique you can use in even the most anxiety-filled moments. 

It's also a great one to teach kids. 

In addition to the audio instructions you can also add a physical movement by tracing a square in the air in front of you.

For more calming resources, free guides, and private sessions, visit ChelHamilton.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome. This is another easy but very powerful technique. Very simple to do, which is one of the reasons why it's great to use when we're having anxiety. Because when we're having a lot of anxiety, it's hard to think about things. So keeping it very simple can be very useful. This is also a fabulous technique to teach to kids.

Intro 0:22

This is the Meditation Minis podcast with your host, hypnotist Shell Hamilton.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

This meditation can be done with your eyes open or your eyes closed, although you may find it easier to visualize in your mind with your eyes closed. So what we're gonna do is we're going to breathe in a box formation. And if you've never done this technique before, it's okay. I'm gonna totally walk you through it. The idea is that you imagine the outline of a box in front of you, just a square outline. And you can either start on the left side or the right side, it doesn't matter. But on your breath in, you're gonna imagine visualizing moving up that side of the square during the breath in. And then on the pause between the breaths, which is usually one to five seconds, we're gonna time it for three to just kind of fix something in the middle. During that time, you visualize moving across the top of the box. And then on the exhale, visualize moving down the box, and then on that pause between, visualize moving across the bottom of the box. So you're just making this square in your mind while you're breathing. And we're gonna breathe in to a count of five, we're gonna exhale to a count of five, and then the two pauses in between will be a count of three. So go ahead, beginning now, breathing in as you imagine moving up the side of that box, two, three, four, five, pausing, two, three, exhaling down the other side, two, three, four, five, pausing as you move across the bottom, two, three, breathing in as you move up the side, two, three, four, five on the paws in between, moving across the top, two, three, exhaling down the side again, two, three, four, five, moving across the bottom on the paws, two, three, moving up as you breathe in, two, three, four, five, pause as you move across, two, three, exhaling down, two, three, four, five, moving across the bottom on the pause, two, three, and moving up on the breath in two, three, four, five, continuing on on that pause, two, three, exhaling, two, three, four, five, moving across the pause, two, three, inhaling, two, three, four, five, and then continuing on. One, two, three, exhale, two, three, four, five, pause, two, three, inhale, two, three, four, five, pause, two, three, exhale, two, three, four, five, pause, two, three, inhale, two, three, four, five, continuing on counting and visualizing in your own mind for another minute. Preparing yourself now to open your eyes. You may find it helpful when you do to roll your shoulders or stretch or maybe wiggle a bit, or maybe you just find yourself feeling so chill that you don't want to move at all. And that's fine too. As you now open your eyes,