Today I wanted to demonstrate and talk about one of my favorite coping skills.

A coping skill is a tool that we use to master, minimize, or tolerate stress. The one I want to talk about today is deep breathing. People use it for anxiety, for anger, or for when they need to stay calm and peaceful. But there is a technique to it, as it turns out.

One popular way to do deep breathing is the 4-7-8 method. Below is a demo of me doing the 4-7-8 method.

The steps are as follows:

• Inhaling through your nose for 4 seconds
• Holding your breath for 7 seconds
• Exhaling forcefully for 8 seconds, with a “woosh”

And repeat as necessary.

I personally like to do it on a regular basis, not just when I’m upset or stressed. Because there is a lot of benefits to it. It may seem like a no brainer, but a lot of people forget to just take a minute and breathe. That is how situations can sometimes escalate, because in the moment you don’t just take that deep breath and relax.

But if you’re practicing your deep breathing on a daily basis, whether you step outside or just while you’re in bed, you can train yourself to use it in those moments. And for those of you that have a hard time sleeping, try using a deep breathing exercises, like the 4-7-8 method.

There are other methods you can look up, but I like this one because it is simple. And just practice it so that you can get yourself trained to do that in the moment and see if that helps you. If you are feeling anxious, or angry, or just annoyed. Try it in all of those moments.

And if you forget the counting, you can Google “breathing exercise” and get a 1-minute guided breathing exercise. It will count for you and tell you when to breath in and breath out.

What is your favorite coping skill? How do you calm down? Tell me in the comments and maybe I will do another video about it.

Download a FREE Tiny Steps Checklist – A Wellness Kickstarter that will help you, get out of your rut and start living a live you don’t need a vacation from.