We show you how to get back on track with your breathing and reap all the benefits this brings.

It may sound strange, but many of us have fallen into bad breathing habits. Life is busy. Breathing deeply isn’t something you usually add to your to-do list, and if it is then it’s probably the first thing to get postponed. In a culture where everyone wants a flatter stomach, we’ve grown used to holding our abdominal muscles tight. Anxiety and stress have a part to play for sure, but we’ve also lost touch with the big extension that comes from taking deep belly breaths. For many of us, shallow “chest breathing” starts to seem normal, and in turn this increases tension.

Why are good breathing habits important?

3 ways we’re cleaning up our breathing habits

Helpful tools we use to remind ourselves to breathe:

The Elephant App: This app allows you to create reminders for habits you want to break or start. It uses a simple but effective remind, repeat, reward method and works with smart watches if you have one. When you’re reminded to breathe simply start noticing your breath and bring your awareness to the lower belly.

Calendar Reminders: If you’re not a fan of apps, set a repeat event in your calendar that alerts you at the time of your breathing “event”. We like this approach because it also means you see the event in your calendar when you are planning each day. Plus you can put your own spin on it by calling the event something cringe-worthy like “be breath taking” or “take my breath away” or … ok, ok we’ll stop.