What is Square Breathing?
Square Breathing, also known as “Box Breathing“, is a relaxation exercise that can be used to center yourself when you feel overwhelmed and act as a “reset” for your breathing. This skill gets its name because the process involves four steps that are repeated in a cycle until the desired breathing rhythm is achieved. As shown in the image below, the sequential steps for this skill form a square when they are laid out in a sequence.
People with high-stress jobs can greatly benefit from learning this breathing technique especially if that job entails life or death situations such as first responders, healthcare workers, and 911 dispatchers. One reason this is true is because this relaxation technique can be done almost anywhere and takes less than 60 seconds to do a few sets at a desk, in a car, or locked in your bathroom (looking at you parents who have been cooped up with kids for over a year now). Even if you do not work in a high-stress job, increased stress related to a loss of safety and security to visit relatives and enjoy life outside your home has been universal since mid-March of 2020.
Why is this a useful skill?
While everyone can certainly see the connection between prolonged and repeated exposure to stress and poor mental health outcomes, physical effects to long-term stress can be overlooked. To understand the physical long-term effects, we must understand the connection between repeated activation of the body’s fight or flight response and the long-term physical health consequences.
Your brain is naturally adept at reacting to situations (stimuli) that it perceives as dangerous and/or life threatening and engages your autonomic nervous system quickly to respond effectively to potential threats. Your autonomic nervous system is responsible for bodily functions that occur without conscious thought like your breathing, your heartbeat, or when your stomach digests food.
When there is a perceived threat, your body starts sending stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, your heart beats faster, and your body gears up to either fight off the threat or flee from it. Normally, this process is meant to be adaptive and protective, but if your body is thrown into survival mode on a constant or excessive basis, it begins to wear on your body both physically and mentally.
A simpler way to think of it is the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” because poor health outcomes related to stress occur gradually and after long-term exposure. This wear and tear can put you at higher risk for high blood pressure, headaches, stroke, heart attacks, cancer, depression, and several other poor health outcomes and negative symptoms. For more information about this subject, check out this TedMed talk about the Adverse Childhood Experience study and provides a wealth of information about long-term effects of prolonged exposure to stress.
How is it done?
Like a lot of relaxation techniques, square breathing will be most effective in a quiet space without any distractions. Adding tactile elements to this technique such as having bare feet on the ground, holding a soft pillow, or sitting up straight in a comfortable chair will enhance the mindfulness aspect of this skill.
- Close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose while counting to four slowly. Focus your attention on the air filling up your lungs.
- Hold your breath and count to four
- Exhale slowly for four seconds
- Repeat cycle until you feel centered or calm returns
Square Breathing Demonstration
Let’s be real, we have all been living in a heightened state of stress for over a year now. Although we do seem to be approaching a light at the end of the tunnel as the government rolls out the vaccine, we are still living with a lot of uncertainty and associated stress, and there is still plenty of grief to go around. This article isn’t professional counseling or clinical advice, so please reach out and seek treatment if you need it! If you would like some extra support, please feel free to book an appointment to see if we would be a good match.
