BOX BREATHING

Box breathing actually features far more in my life post-pregnancy than it did during. It’s a super simple technique to help combat stress in the moment, and practiced regularly and it can help to reduce it in the long term. It’s even used by Navy SEALs - so surely that makes it a pretty hardcore life skill?!
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So, how do you do it. Easy peasy:
Breathe in for 4 visualising going along one side of a square.
Hold for 4 as you run along the next side in your mind.
Exhale for 4 going along the third side of your imaginary square.
Then hold again for 4 as you run along the final side, taking you back to your starting point.
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Practicing box-breathing can reduce physical stress symptoms in the body, and if you use it with the ‘box’ visualisation it works as a kind of meditation. It's useful any time you feel you need to be more relaxed - handy if you are prone to anxiety in waiting rooms or at appointments. I personally use it almost daily - I’m prone to getting stressed out in the car: whether thats rush hour traffic crossing town for the nursery drop-off or sitting at the temporary traffic lights on our road that always take triple time when I’m in a rush!
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Now, let’s relate breathing back to the hormones at play in birth: we want to encourage our bodies production of oxytocin (the love hormone powering your uterus’s contractions) and we want to keep adrenaline & cortisol (stress hormones) in check, because when our body is producing those, it’s not producing oxytocin. When cortisol & adrenaline are high in your body, your breathing will be fast & shallow - and I’m sure you’ll be able to anticipate what I’ll now tell you about oxytocin, which is that when our bodies are producing that, our breathing is deep & slow.😮‍💨
Amazingly, changing your breathing pattern can shift your bodies production of these hormones, so noticing changes quickly can help you to head off stress responses. This is a great thing for partners to watch for, and midwives/doulas will have an eye for this too. Noticing when you lose control of your breath, if it begins to quicken, can be the first warning sign that you’re not feeling safe and your partner can step in and see how they can support you. Hypnobirthing is so much more than breathing but how we breathe really can have a powerful impact on our experience!
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Outside of the birth world, it still helps to halt production of stress hormones and help you get your body & brain back to a place of calm - hence why when I find myself seeing red at non-stop red lights I use this to try and bring back the zen. Also useful for coping with newborn ‘witching hour’s and toddler tantrums (and I’m sure I’ll need it for the teen years too!).