Breathing Exercises for Stress and Anxiety
How Can Breathing Exercises Help Me?
Breathing exercises can seem almost too simple, especially when someone is in real distress. This video explains why they matter, and why there’s much more to it than just “calming down”.
Dr Luke talks through the link between breathing, stress, and the body’s threat response. When things feel overwhelming, the body can get stuck in a high-alert state. Breathing exercises are one way to start bringing that response back down.
This is a great first video if you want to understand the basic idea behind the exercises before trying them – it explains why slowing and deepening the breath can help reduce the intensity of distress, create a bit of space, and make the next few minutes feel more manageable.
Who Uses Deep Breathing?
Deep breathing is not just for people who are already “into it”. This video looks at how widely it is used, from psychological support through to high-pressure environments where staying calm really matters.
Dr Luke explains that breathing techniques have been around for a long time, but they are also used in very practical, modern settings. How deep breathing can be used to manage stress, anxiety, emotional overwhelm, and moments where the body feels like it is starting to run away with itself.
The point here is simple: deep breathing is a tool. It is used by people facing pressure, danger, performance demands, or crisis because it can help the body settle enough to think and respond more clearly.
This is a good video if you need reassurance that breathing exercises are not soft, vague, or pointless. They are practical techniques used by all sorts of people in difficult situations.
Nigel’s Breathing Journey
At first, breathing did not feel like the thing Nigel needed – he was emotionally charged, frustrated, and wanted to talk through everything that was going on. But his therapist noticed how activated he was and helped him begin with his breathing first.
That became an important part of his recovery: not because breathing fixed everything on its own, but because it gave him a way to settle his body enough to start dealing with thoughts and emotions.
If you think breathing exercises are too slow or not like the “real work” this video is for you. Nigel’s experience shows how breathing can become one of the practical foundations that helps make the rest of recovery more possible.
The Importance of Practice
Deep breathing can help during crisis, but it is not always easy to learn when your body is already under pressure. Like any practical skill, it becomes more useful when it is familiar. The more you practice in calmer moments, the easier it is to reach for it when things feel intense.
This is a useful video if you have tried breathing once or twice and felt like it did not do much. The benefit often comes from building the habit, so it is there when you need it.
Guided Breathing Exercise
This video is a guided breathing exercise led by Dr Luke. It gives you a chance to put the technique into practice and follow along at a steady pace.
You don’t need to do anything complicated, and you certainly don’t need to “do it perfectly”. Just follow the guidance, breathe as steadily as you can, and give your body something calmer to work with.
This can be useful when you feel anxious, overwhelmed, wound up, or stuck in high-alert mode. It can also be used as regular practice, so the technique feels more familiar when you need it most.
And if you’ve done it all before, the video below gets straight into the exercise with no introduction:
