Feeling Stressed? Try This!

Everyday we wake up and encounter stressful situations ranging from deadlines at work, frustration with logistics of busy schedules, traffic, lineups in grocery stores, etc. The emotionality felt internally very real and palpable: heart racing, stomach in knots, nervousness. But what if I told you STRESS IS NEUTRAL.

The stress you are experiencing within your reality is neutral, for everything within your external environment is objective. All experience is objective. It is your subjective mind that is imposing your perception into the moment at hand. It is your perception of what you feel is stressful, based on your past conditioning, that is generating a very real reaction within your internal environment. Felt sensation of stress is very real, but you are creating it based on what you THINK is happening within the experience.

You have approximately 60-80 thousand thoughts everyday. Your brain is designed to receive, process, respond and reaffirm your thought patterns. When you encounter a ‘stressful’ experience, your limbic brain immediately filters through a past experiences that mirrors what you are experiencing in addition to surfacing the emotionality tied to that memory. This is because the mammalian brain is designed to keep you safe. 90% of your daily thoughts are repetitive and it’s been said 90% of the repetitive thoughts are negative. You are hardwired to initially perceive what is threatening (negative) within your environment, activating the sympathetic nervous system to fight or flight. So within a fraction of a second you are asking yourself unconsciously, “When has this experience happened before?” And “What was the physiological expression that I felt?” This is because the body is an automaton, wanting to remain in a state that is known.

Want to learn to stop the stress spiral? The moment that you begin to feel your physiological reactivity to what you view as “stressful”, I dare you to PAUSE. Your body is signalling you to evolve from your automatic programming. Begin to get curious to your unconscious thought currencies that are fuelling the emotionality. What are you saying to yourself that is generating the stress? Get clear with yourself that the moment is objective. It is your subjective thoughts that are creating the discomfort. Then breathe with your eyes closed.

Breathing is an excellent way to counteract the limbic unconscious reactivity immediately. Breathing with eyes closed invites you to detach from the thought hamster-wheel and begin to form relationship with your sense of feeling. Eyes closed removes the external environment from your vision, blocking your sense of sight to enhance your sense of touch. This disrupts the neurological patterning (inviting neurons to rewire). In addition, breathing techniques focused on shaping the breath in specific patterns stimulates the vagus nerve, sending a signal to the mammalian brain that the perceived threat has passed, inducing calm and ease.

Here are 3 breathwork practices to try when feeling stressed.

4-8-4 Diaphragmatic Breath

Inhale through the nose for a count of four. As you do so invite the abdominals to rise away from the spine, filling up the belly. Lengthen the exhale through the nose for a count of 8, allowing the abdominals the release and soften. Pause for a count of 4 lungs empty.

Lengthening the exhalations, stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system promoting relaxation. Breathing in this fashion also slows the pace of breathing therefore optimizes the heart rate variability and enhances oxygen exchange throughout the body.As well breathing through the nose keeps CO2 levels balanced within the blood. The pathway through the nose also creates a subtle resistance, slowing the breath rate.

4-7-8 Sigh

For for this practice you inhale through the nose for a count of 4, suspend the breath on the inhalation for a count of 7 and then exhale through the mouth lengthening for a count of 8 creating a “HAAAAAA” whoosing sound.

Sighing acts as a physical, mental and emotional reset. A sigh is a break in your constant pattern of breathing to reset your respiratory system. Suspending the lungs when full of oxygen stretches the alveoli. Alveoli are the tiny air sacs within the lungs where gas is exchanged between respiratory and circulatory system. This stretching of the alveoli actually gives the body a sense of relief.

5-5-5-5 Box Breathing

This type of breathwork is perfect when you need to feel in control. Very simple, inhaling through the nose for 5, suspending the breath lungs full for 5, exhaling through the nose for 5 and then suspending lungs empty for a count of 5.

This type of breath works is excellent when you are having difficulty breathing especially when hyperventilating as it instructs your lungs to breathe rhythmically. Suspending breath lungs empty also invites the blood vessels to dilate which improves circulation.

Practicing these techniques, when you are encountering difficulty and emotional reactivity, has been proven to reduce stress, lowering the levels of cortisol and adrenaline within the body. But, breathwork should not only be used when stressed.

A daily consistent practice will empower you to feel in control of your autonomic nervous system as you begin to realize you, through your thoughts, are creating the stress. You begin to form relationship with what you are saying to yourself in these moments. In the witnessing of your automatism, you realize you hold choice. You can choose to place emphasis on stress-based thoughts, flooding your physical with inflammatory chemicals, or you can choose to detach from the thought and feel your breath.

Remember stress is actually neutral. It is how you are viewing the ‘stress’ that is creating the reaction. Feel empowered within each moment, you get to CHOOSE. Feeling stress is your body signalling you to be present.

Erica ArsenaultJune 16, 2025