Hello everyone.
Today I'm going to teach you a technique that's really useful in all kinds of situations.
It's a very simple technique and one that you can do almost anywhere at all.
It's called square breathing,
Although it could just as easily be called rectangular breathing or four point breathing.
It's a really useful technique to use perhaps before exams or maybe a big match or a game that you might be playing in.
Or just any other time when you're feeling a little bit anxious or nervous about something and you don't really need anything else at all.
Even if you can't see a four pointed shape in the room that you're in or outside,
You can visualize one.
So as I said,
It's a really simple technique.
So let's start first of all by making yourself comfortable.
And just with your feet on the ground,
You can either be sitting or standing or you could even actually be lying down.
It doesn't matter.
Just make yourself comfortable and feel the surface underneath you.
Wherever that's touching,
Whether it's your feet or your back or the backs of your legs.
And just take a nice deep breath in.
And really sit slowly.
And then if you can see something in the room,
Perhaps a door or a window.
Or if you're outside and you can see something that has four corners to it,
Then that's great.
But if not,
I'm sure you can visualize a window or a door.
Or a book or even a piece of paper.
If you're going to use this in an exam situation,
It's good to look down at the paper and use the four points of the paper for this.
So I want you to take your attention to the bottom left hand corner.
And we're going to start slowly and take a deep breath into the count of four.
And as we do that,
Our eyes are going to travel up to the top left hand corner.
So let's try that just now.
So taking a deep breath in.
And counting to four.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
And just pausing at the top before letting your breath out slowly as you travel from the top left hand corner to the top right hand corner.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
And pause before taking a deep breath into the count of four and traveling down from the top right hand corner down to the bottom right hand corner.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
And pause.
And then release your breath as you travel from the bottom right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
And pause.
And just breathe normally.
Now,
This is something that you can repeat as many times as you need to.
You also might want to play around a little bit with the count of the breath.
Perhaps four is too little or too much for you.
What's also really useful is when you're on the breathing out,
You breathe out one more count than you breathed in.
This really helps to calm our nervous system down.
But you can do what works for you.
And it's important that you experiment and find out exactly what kind of works for you.
Or if you just want to visualize the frame in your head,
The four points.
And just do the breathing that way.
I hope you find this useful.
I hope you get a chance to use it and that it does help.
And just remember that you can use it anywhere at any time in any place,
Inside or outside.
It's a really useful technique to have.
Thank you for listening.
