A Simple Technique That Will Help You Relieve Stress Instantly

Use physiological sighing to immediately calm your body and mind.

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

If you want to alleviate stress, you can go about it in many ways.

You can ensure that you sleep sufficiently, eat well, and move regularly.

And you can use techniques like mindfulness meditation to manage stress more skillfully.

All of those approaches are great long-term solutions. But you can’t use them to alleviate stress in real-time.

So today, I’m going to share a technique to help you do that.

Physiological Sighing

You have about half a billion tiny sacks in your lungs called alveoli. In these sacks, oxygen enters, and carbon dioxide leaves your bloodstream.

As you go about your day, some of your alveoli will collapse spontaneously. And when they do, the gas exchange in your lungs becomes inefficient.

The oxygen in your blood decreases, and the carbon dioxide increases. So, your body has a built-in mechanism to deal with this issue.

It’s called “physiological sighing”: a breathing pattern consisting of two inhales followed by an extended exhale.