Article: Breath work can help relieve stress quickly and in any situation. Deep breathing lowers blood pressure and heart rate and oxygenates the body. All these help promote feelings of relaxation. Belly breathing is just what it sounds like: breathing from the belly. Place one or both hands on your belly and breathe right into your hands. Many of us only breathe into our upper chest cavity, which actually activates the stress response. This cause more feelings of stress. Take ten minutes to sit comfortably with your hands on your belly and just breathe. Try to focus your mind on your breath, letting all your stressful thoughts pass through your mind as though they are cars on a highway. Listen to the sounds your body makes as it breathes. Feel the rise and fall of your belly underneath your hands. Pay attention to the places in your body that are holding tension, such as your neck, shoulders, arms, or knees. Breathe all the tension through your hands into your belly. Grounding breaths are a type of deep breathing in which you imagine the stress in your body leaving through your feet. Here is how it's done: Sit with your feet planted firmly on the ground. Imagine there is a string holding up your head from above. Now, imagine two heavy, metal rods that are attached to the bottoms of your feet and connect you to the earth. Feel the heaviness of the rods weighing your body down. Focus on your feet and breathe from the top of your head all the way down to your feet, all the way down through the metal rods and into the earth. Once you have done two or three breaths like this, imagine all the things you are stressed about flowing from the top of your head out through the bottoms of your feet. Let them flow down through the metal rods and into the ground. For example, lets say work has been particularly stressful for you. Imagine all the stressful things about your work flowing out of your head and down through the rods. The task that kept going wrong, your irritation with a coworker, and the problem with the printer should all flow into the ground. Give yourself permission to release your responsibilities for these 10 minutes. Your goal is to be in your body and let go, clear your head, and lighten your mood. This type of breath work focuses on your entire body and helps to relieve stress physically. It helps encourage healthy spinal and organ movement, as well as the flow of oxygen and lymphatic fluid throughout the body. It is a process of breathing deeply, imagining the break entering each part of your body. As you do, you'll release the stress in each area. Here's how it's done: Begin by belly breathing. After taking a few deep belly breaths, begin relaxing yourself from head to toe. Breathe into your head, noticing your skull, forehead, eyes and ears. Consciously relax any tension you might become aware of in these areas. Next, focus on your shoulders. Then move down your arms, and elbows, and imagine breathing out through your hands. Breathe into your torso, feel and relax your rib cage, sternum and digestive organs. Breathe into your hips, and again, keep noticing and breathing away any tension you might become aware of. Breathe into your thighs, relaxing and releasing. Then breathe into your knees, calves and finally your feet. There are many guided breath work videos and podcasts available on the internet. Do a quick internet search, try out some different styles of guided breathing and see if they work for you.. Having a voice and instruction to keep your breath focused can help you stay focused. There are also apps that you can download on your mobile device so you can take your guided breath work videos with you anywhere. This can be a great place to start practicing breath work if you are finding it difficult to focus and sit still. This combination can be very useful when dealing with stress. It is also easy to combine these two techniques. For example, you might imagine you are inhaling a cleansing color, such as white or blue, and exhaling a grey plume of smoke. With each breath, try to feel the cleansing color absorbing into every part of your body. When exhaling, imagine all stress being released in the grey plume. This method of breath work can be helpful if you have had some kind of stressful conflict at work or in your personal life. It also works well if you are feeling overwhelmed by your responsibilities, or just over burdened by life in general.

What is a summary?
Practice belly breathing. Take grounding breaths. Try full body breaths. Use a podcast or internet video. Combine breath work with visualization.