This is the final note in a series of fresh “anti-crisis” articles written on the topic of the quarantine day. During a crisis, the main thing is to have time to distract your brain before it starts “thinking heavy thoughts” and pulls you into a funnel with seething nerves. I wrote about my favorite “red herrings” in the second part. Well, the picture of anti-stress measures will be incomplete if we do not talk about the relaxing and restorative resources of our breathing. Breathing is the basis of life. No matter how loud it may sound. Our health and psychological state depend on the quality of our breathing. Moreover, our state of mind is extremely important for maintaining immunity. “Our lungs are the first line of internal defense,” - Michael White (author of the breathing project breathing.com). If you want to change your mood, simply change the rhythm, frequency and depth of your breathing. It works! And the second good news is that breathing can be trained. This means that the skill of relaxing through breathing can be acquired by each of us. So, way to calm down number three: Attention to breathing, the first technique. Belly breathing. Place one hand on your stomach, the other on your chest. Close your eyes. Focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath, inflating your stomach. Your hand, lying on your stomach, rises along with the abdominal wall and shows that you are breathing through the abdominal cavity. At the same time, the second hand, remaining motionless on the chest, will tell you that breathing in the chest is minimized. Breathe, rounding your stomach, as if you are inflating a balloon as you inhale. As you exhale, the stomach relaxes and falls down, as if a balloon is deflating. Remember how a baby breathes. By right of being born human, from the first minute of life we ​​have a number of unconditioned reflexes. Among them is breathing. Healthy belly breathing. But as adults, we lose its depth. Experiment! Start breathing with your belly! And you will feel how this voluminous breathing will make your life more fulfilling and balanced. You will regain your calmness: the same - infantile, unconditional! Second breathing exercise. We breathe according to the scheme 4 – 7 – 8. These numbers mean the length of inhalation, holding the breath after inhalation and exhalation, respectively. To calculate, you can mentally count to 4,7,8 at each stage of breathing or turn on the metronome for reference (there are such mobile applications). So. We inhale slowly, counting to 4. Then we do not breathe (holding our breath after inhalation), counting to 7. And we exhale slowly, counting to 8. Do as many complete breathing cycles 4 - 7 - 8 as you can keep your breathing even and calm. If such breathing turns out to be too intense for you, reduce it according to your feelings to a comfortable length, without breaking the proportions. For example, your breathing cycle might look like this: 3-5-6. There are a huge number of calming breathing exercises. They are used in yoga, psychology, sports, and when teaching various skills (for example, speaking from a stage in front of a large audience). Below you will find a number of links to my other notes on breathing during stress. Choose those exercises that help you calm down personally. In addition to getting rid of tension, proper breathing gives strength to get through a difficult period in life, remaining in contact with yourself and your body. And this is a guarantee that you will not have to deal with the result of your hasty and angry decisions.!