4 Ways to Soothe Your Brain and Body

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We have to breathe to survive, but we can use breathing techniques for A LOT more than basic survival. Breathing is something I practice in sessions with clients when we are talking about challenging material, and I also have my clients do exercises on their own as a proactive way of regulating their nervous systems and brain chemistry. These techniques can be used to decrease burnout, and they are especially applicable for those managing trauma in their lives (read my post about how trauma effects the brain and body here).

In this post, I’m going to talk about how to practice breathing in the most helpful way for your brain and body. These techniques work best when practiced regularly. So make it a habit!

With the intention of self-soothing in mind, it’s important to increase GABA (also known as Gamma-amino butyric acid), the neurotransmitter responsible for inhibiting our central nervous system from becoming dysregulated.

In short, GABA is responsible for the following:

  • Increasing calmness

  • Increasing relaxation

  • Increases ability to sleep soundly

  • Decreases anxiety and stress

The more we can increase GABA the better we feel, and with the habituation of using GABA increasing techniques, you’ll feel more agile at soothing and relaxing yourself quickly. Ready to increase your GABA and shift into a calmer psychophysiological state? Try the following!

Nadi Shodhana: Alternate nostril breathing is balancing for the nervous system and promotes GABA release.

  1. Sit in a relaxed position.

  2. Close one nostril with index finger of one hand.

  3. Exhale fully and inhale extending lower stomach outward.

  4. Switch nostrils with same finger and exhale from lower stomach.

  5. Inhale a deep breath into your lower stomach.

  6. Switch nostrils after the inhale breath with the same finger and exhale fully.

  7. Inhale and repeat, always switching nostrils after the inhale breath.

  8. Repeat for 4-5 minutes.

Belly Breathing: It can take practice for us to go from shallow chest breathing to breathing all the way down into your diaphragm. Try it this way.

  1. Lie down on your back with your feet flat on the floor and your knees pointed up towards the ceiling. Place you arms behind your head and rest them on the floor.

  2. Inhale to a count of 7, concentrating on bringing your inhalation all the way down to your stomach.

  3. Exhale to a count of 7, concentrating on blowing the air out of your lips as if you’re blowing out of a straw.

  4. Repeat for 10 rounds of breath.

Butterfly Hug (Artigas, 98): Another self-soothing strategy for the nervous system, the butterfly hug can be used during therapy sessions, or on your own as you tune into the feeling of the taps side to side or while you picture a calm, safe place.

  1. Cross your arms over your chest, so that the tip of the middle finger from each hand is placed below the clavicle or the collarbone and the other fingers and hands cover the area that is located under the connection between the collarbone and the shoulder and the collarbone and sternum or breastbone. Hands and fingers can be as vertical as possible so that the fingers point toward the neck and not toward the arms.

  2. If you wish, you can interlock your thumbs to form the butterfly’s body and the extension of your other fingers outward will form the Butterfly’s wings. Feel free to partially close or close your eyes, or you can keep your eyes open.

  3. Alternate tapping your hands from left to right. The movement of your hands will look like the flapping wings of a butterfly. Let your hands move slowly at about 1 beat per second.

  4. Breathe slowly and deeply (abdominal breathing), as you slowly tap from side to side.

  5. Notice the taps from side to side and if you wish you can picture a calming place as you do this exercise. Perhaps it’s sitting hear a mountain stream or on the beach.

  6. Repeat for as long as you like (Artigas & Jarero, 2014).

Heart Breathing (Brothers, 2019): Heart breathing promotes psychophysiological coherence.

Coherence refers to a calm, synchronized, balanced psychophysiological state.

  1. Place your hands over your heart and take a long, slow breath in through your nose, and as you breathe imagine breathing in to your heart space.

  2. Hold it, then slowly exhale through your mouth until you can’t exhale any more breath.

  3. As you exhale, imagine doing so through your heart.

  4. Keep your attention on inhaling and exhaling into your heart.

  5. Repeat for 3 minutes (Brothers, 2019).

Authored by: Anna Zapata, LPC

Anna Zapata