This one seems to have several names, I’ve heard it called the physiological sigh, I've heard it referred to as the double breath and I've also heard it referred to as frog breathing when I've spoken to therapists who work with children.
This is probably the simplest technique to learn and is probably the most helpful when you just want something to quick to settle yourself if you are feeling a bit unsettled. So if you are watching my videos on trauma, or watching something else about trauma, and you can feel those first signs of unease then give this a go.
It’s a double inhale followed by an extended exhale.
The double inhale helps to fill up the lungs as much as we can. Often a single inhale isn’t quite enough so we do a double exhale to really try and fill all those little sacks in the lungs with air.
And then the longer exhale helps to expel a lot of carbon dioxide in that breath,
Generally speaking inhales start a physiological process that speeds the heart up and exhales start a physiological process that slows the heart down.
And if we take a look at some of the other well known breathing practices like the 7 11 technique where we breathe in for 7 and out for 11. Or window breathing where we inhale on the short sides and exhale on the longer sides, we can see that commonly there is an emphasis on longer exhales, and this is why.
So let’s do this, we are going to do this 3 times.
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