Instant Anxiety Relief: The Physiologic Sigh

Feeling anxious, tense, or on edge? Your body has a built-in tool to help reset the nervous system—and it only takes a minute.

In this guided session, you’ll learn the physiological sigh: a simple breathing technique backed by science that can quickly reduce anxiety, lower your heart rate, and calm your nervous system.

Transcript

Hi, I'm Yasia Bryan. I'm a psychiatric physician associate and a chronic pain coach. So we're going to jump right in today to the Physiologic Psy. The physiologic sigh is a helpful tool when we feel really overwhelmed. And that can be from feelings of stress, Anxiety, Either situationally or internally, Or when sensation becomes really intense and it feels like it's too much for us to hold. Whether that be. . . Pain discomfort emotion anything at all So I'm going to briefly, Quickly demonstrate for you, And then I'm going to guide you through and do the breath with you. So first thing, If you can, Try to find a place where you can ground and anchor. So feeling your feet on the earth. Your sits bones on a chair. I like to place one hand on my belly and one hand on my heart. And this way I feel that there are a bunch of anchor points, My feet, My sits bones, My belly, My hand, All grounding me. Take whatever version of that you need and what feels best to you. From here, We're gonna take an inhale through the nose. And hold it. And then we'll stack another breath on top of that. Filling and expanding through the lungs, The belly, And the pelvis until there's no more room for expansion. You are completely full. And then an exhale through your mouth. That is slow to medium in pace. So we don't want to, But we want to. Slow to medium. So we're going to do that three times together. So anchor yourself, Hands, Belly, Sits bones, Feet, Whatever version of that feels good. Allow your shoulders. To relax a little bit. Breathe out all of your air first. And begin. Breathe in through your nose. Hold, Breathe in again. Expanding fully in every direction as much as you can hold slow exhale through your mouth. And repeat, Inhale. Pause. Inhale again. Filling to completion. Exhale through your mouth. And letting go of any tension, Rumination, Anything you need to through that exhale. One more time, Breathe in. Pause. Breathe in again. And audible exhale through your mouth slowly Beautiful. Oftentimes just doing three rounds of this breath is all we need to kick us out of that really driven fight or flight state. But feel free to do this as many times as you need to until you feel more regulated in yourself. Thank you for being here.