Breathe Easy: Quick Stress Relief For Teens

In this 3-minute video, discover simple yet powerful breathing techniques designed to help teens manage stress and anxiety. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by school, social pressures, or daily life, these easy-to-follow exercises will help you find calm and regain focus. Perfect for when you need a quick mental reset, this video empowers you to take control of your emotions anytime, anywhere.

Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): Oliver Massa, Gentle Awareness

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Audra from the Wellmind Collective,

And I'm here to talk about stress today.

I'm going to give you some quick tips and breathing techniques that will help move you from that stressful state to a calm,

Peaceful state.

So the first thing is,

Is that we have to know that stress is something that you feel before your mind even clicks in that you're stressed.

So when you're stressed,

You do shallow chest breathing,

Which is when you do that,

You feel a certain energy in your body,

A little tension possibly in your chest and in your shoulders.

You know your body better than I do.

However,

That's where they generally manifest the stress.

So once you're feeling that,

That's a clue to you to say,

Okay,

What do I need to do?

Well,

One is we need to shift from that shallow chest breathing to deep belly breathing.

So we're just going to do a couple of those.

And what I need you to do is put your hands on your belly.

And when you breathe in,

Make sure your belly is rising.

And when you breathe out,

Your belly is going back in towards your spine.

So let's take two deep breaths.

Deep belly breathing alone can help move you from a fight or flight sympathetic nervous system state,

Which is stress to a parasympathetic nervous system state,

Which is that calm,

Peaceful state.

So if you do about 10 rounds of deep belly breathing,

That generally can get you more to the parasympathetic nervous system state.

However,

There's a quicker way and a better breathing technique that does get you there in a much more effective way.

And that is box breathing.

So it's called box breathing because it looks like a box because you breathe in for four,

You hold it at the top for four,

You breathe out for four,

And then you hold your out breath for four.

So we're going to do two practice rounds of this box breathing.

But when you are feeling stressed,

Make sure you do five to seven rounds,

Check in with yourself.

And if you need more,

Do more.

So close your eyes or lower your gaze.

Let's get started.

Breathe in for 1-2-3-4,

Hold for 1-2-3-4,

Breathe out for 1-2-3-4,

Hold for 1-2-3-4,

Breathe in for 1-2-3-4,

Hold for 1-2-3-4,

Breathe out for 1-2-3-4,

Hold for 1-2-3-4.

Now just return to your regular breathing and open your eyes.

I hope you feel peaceful and calm.

Thank you for joining me today.

Have a great day.