Sigh It Out
How five minutes of breathwork a day can raise your mood and reduce your stress
Got five minutes?
Of course you do. We all do. Yet many of us feel as though we don’t, in our age of ‘time famine’. ‘I don’t have time’ is the most common excuse we make for… everything.
We tell ourselves we don’t have time for some of the things that matter most: exercise, more sleep, and quality time with the people we love.
These are activities that lower our stress and improve our health. Not doing them leaves us feeling more stressed, exhausted, and vulnerable to burnout. But we feel we’re too busy to do anything about it. “I’d love to… meditate / read / work out / take a walk / sleep more, but… I don’t have time”.
Here’s some great news: there’s a highly effective technique for managing our stress, reducing our anxiety and improving our mood, which costs nothing and takes just five minutes a day.
You have five minutes. I have five minutes. We all have five minutes.
This technique is a simple breathwork practice called cyclic sighing. This involves a double inhale through your nose to fill your lungs, followed by a longer, slow exhale. The extended exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system – also known as the ‘rest and digest’ response – slowing your heart rate, lowering your blood pressure, and making you feel more calm and relaxed.
We can do this together, right now.
Sit down.
Close your eyes.
Inhale through your nose.
When your lungs feel full, sniff – a second, deeper breath to completely fill your lungs.
Exhale slowly through your mouth, for longer than you inhaled.
If it helps, count as you breathe – for example, in for four, out for eight. You can exhale through your mouth or nose, but the mouth works best. Repeat for five minutes.
Here’s a short video to demonstrate:
In a randomised controlled study led by Stanford researchers, study participants spent five minutes a day for a month doing one of three breathwork practices, or doing mindfulness meditation. Cyclic sighing produced the greatest improvement in mood and reduction in resting breathing rate – a marker of how stressed we feel. It also reduced anxiety.
The benefits also became measurably stronger through the study. This suggests, the researchers note, that we can benefit more from cyclic sighing the more days we do it. They write that the ‘physiological and psychological effects of cyclic sighing appear to last over time’.
This is my go-to practice to stay calm whenever I’m nervous or stressed. I also do it whenever I do my favourite recovery practice: meditating in the sauna.
Today, set aside five minutes and try cyclic sighing. The next time you feel overwhelmed, reach for it again.
Five minutes won’t solve every problem, but it can change how you feel and approach your day.
You have five minutes.
drjonbeale.com | @drjonbeale
I like how simple you make this. I do Pranayama for 5 minutes every morning before meditating. Then I'm off to play pickleball. This double‑inhale sigh is new to me. Five minutes is nothing, and the idea that it lowers resting breathing rate makes sense. I’m going to try this and perhaps add it to my morning routine. Thanks for sharing this with us.