Depression Tip Number Nine: Breathe💙

You often hear about "breathing" and "breathwork" in relation to anxiety. People will say the way to calm down from anxiety is to take control of your breath, but it applies equally well to depression because whereas anxiety is thoughts about the future and future events, depression is ruminating on the past events and going over and over and over them.💙

And if you actually take control of your breathing, and there are many variations that people will espouse for how to take control of your breathing, generally it involves taking longer, slower breaths and maybe pausing between the inhale and the exhale ("box breathing") and concentrating on the actual breathing itself.💙

So this allows us to calm our nervous system. And what the breathing does is it gives you an immediate sense of calmness, which is great because it also then gives you space away from the anxiety or away from the depression, away from the thoughts that your mind has latched onto and won't let go.

So breathing is a really important technique to try to develop as a skill. If you're triggered by something external, take a pause and focus on your breathing, and then you can choose how to respond to that external event.💙

Similarly, if a thought comes to you, something that triggers you regarding the future or regarding the past, you can take a moment, focus on your breathing, longer breaths, in and a pause, out and a pause and repeat.💙

And then you can use that space that you've created to decide what to do about those thoughts. So are you going to indulge in that ruminative pattern again? Are you going to indulge in that worry about the future? Or are you gonna focus on what's in front of you right now?💙

So hopefully you can see how useful it is to take control of your breathing, to bring your stress levels down, and to put some distance between the anxiety or depressive thoughts that you're experiencing.💙