How to calm yourself
when you feel overwhelmed
by Melissa Monica
February 26, 2024
Stressed out about mounting assignments or a task list that never seems to end?
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Here’s where the Breathing Anchor — a breathing and visualization method — can help. Usually, we breathe automatically without thinking much about it. This exercise uses conscious breathing, which is where you train your awareness on your breath.
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Here’s how to do the Breathing Anchor.
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Sit somewhere quiet.
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Rest your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
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Breathe in through your nose for a count of four. Make sure to keep your mouth closed.
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Breathe out through your nose while constricting your throat, for a count of eight. While exhaling, visualize an anchor sinking inside yourself.
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Repeat the breath cycle three times or more, visualizing the anchor sinking lower and lower every time.
A stressful situation, like a looming deadline at work, can trigger the fight-or-flight response, which is where your body's sympathetic nervous system is activated by a sudden release of hormones. This survival mechanism is a natural reaction to dangerous or stressful events. But chronic activation of it can take a toll on the body.
“When we're in difficult emotional states, we have a tendency to breathe through our mouth, to breathe fast and shallow or to hold our breaths. All those take us more into the fight-or-flight state,” says Anders Olsson, a Swedish breathing instructor and author of Conscious Breathing: Discover the Power of Your Breath. To reduce the stress response, he advises trying the opposite: Close your mouth, slow down your breathing and breathe deeply using your diaphragm.
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“Your breath is a reflection of your thoughts, your emotions and your physical body,” Olsson says. “Your breathing habits can take you in either direction — towards fight or flight or in the direction towards safe and secure, and rest and digest.”
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He recommends using the Breathing Anchor any time you need to feel grounded, such as before eating a meal, in preparation for taking a test or when you’re about to lose your temper with a friend. “Normally, when we are stressed out, we are up in our heads,” he says. “With the Breathing Anchor, you anchor yourself, and that is a beautiful exercise to do.”