The Wave Breathing Exercise for Anxiety
St. Louis Anxiety Counseling for Kids, Teens, and Parents
When you have a problem with anxiety, you 100% need a robust toolkit full of relaxation skills so that you can calm the storm before it over takes you.
Breathing, Muscles, and Mindfulness are three key components to managing your anxiety attacks.
When you feel your anxiety elevator getting higher and higher, you need to jump in with a relaxation tool to get you back to a manageable level.
(Read more: Emotions Elevators)
And if you’re proactively practicing your relaxation skills, you’ll have a much easier time actually utilizing them in the moment, when you really need them. Just like training on hitting the baseball, making the soccer goal, or running your hurdles. You practice and practice and then, when it’s finally competition time and the pressure is on, it should just be instinct.
Further anxiety tips reading:
Wave Breathing Guided Meditation Activity for Anxiety
As anxiety counselors in St. Louis, we help all of our clients, be they kids, teens, college students, or parents, build their relaxation toolbox. Everybody is different, meaning some people respond better to muscle relaxation skills, some people love breathing, some people feel a big impact from guided meditation - and sometimes, those skills don’t feel as helpful or impactful.
We can also combine our relaxation skills, so doing a muscle activity with breathing, or a mindfulness activtity while grounding our bodies.
Or, we can pair a breathing activity with a guided meditation - which is what we’re doing today!
Image Credit: Pierre Borthiry - Peiobty @peiobty, Unsplash
Just like we begin every guided meditation activity, find a comfortable seat, lay down on the floor or on your bed, and let your muscles relax.
After you read through the instructions, you can close your eyes, but go ahead and practice along with the script right now, eyes open.
Take a slow breath in through your nose, and out through your mouth.
Good! Even slower this time.
Slowly in through your nose, filling up your belly with air, and gently out through your mouth, feeling your belly relax.
In… and out.
As you continue to slow down your breath, I want you to picture a gentle wave. Let that wave get bigger with your breath in, and then crest and fall with your breath out.
Let’s make that wave a little bigger. Big breath in through your nose, let that wave get bigger and build, and then breathe out and let it crash down on to the beach.
Continue to breathe, in and out, and let that wave expand and release.
Now that you’re ready, go ahead and close your eyes, continuing to make small waves, big waves, gentle waves, powerful waves with your breath, until you notice a sense of deep calm gently float over your whole body.
Incorporating relaxation skills for anxiety
The more you practice breathing, muscle, and mindfulness activities, the easier it is to stay calm when your anxiety threatens to take over.
And while breathing activities are hugely important, it’s also crucial to make sure that you’re receiving counseling for your anxiety. Relaxation is a big piece of the puzzle… but it’s also just the start.
If anxiety feels like it’s getting in the way for you, it may be time to talk with a therapist or counselor in your area.
If stress often goes along with anxiety and perfectionism, learn more about our specialty.
If stress leads to anger, that’s super common! And, you might want to check out my book, When Anxiety Makes You Angry.
(Pssst, hey, want more meditation scripts? Try…)
Kelsey Torgerson Dunn, MSW, LCSW is the owner of Compassionate Counseling St. Louis.
Curious to learn more about how we use meditation to help with stress, overwhelm, and anxiety? Compassionate Counseling St. Louis provides specialized anxiety and anger management therapy for kids, teens, and college students. We work in Clayton, MO and serve kids, teens, and college students throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Ladue, University City, Town and Country, Webster Groves, Creve Coeur, Kirkwood, Richmond Heights, and Brentwood. You can set up your free phone screening to see if we’re a good fit for your needs right on our website
