Mastering Fear Breath

This is a breathing/active meditation exercise I used to assist me in mastering my fear of flying.

This simple breathing exercise is called 4x4 breathing.

1) Take in a deep slow breath that takes 4 seconds to complete.

2) Hold the air in your lungs for a count of 4 seconds.

3) Slowly expel the air out of your lungs so that it takes 4 seconds to complete.

4) Hold your lungs empty for a count of 4 seconds.

Repeat cycle for as long as necessary.

This exercise is extremely useful in mastering fear situations and with practice becomes automatic (no zoning out or loss of focus).

Other benefits include increasing lung strength and capacity (which is useful to me as I am an ex smoker), and using 4x2 breathing variation (same as above but without steps 2 & 4) to aid you in switching off for sleep.

Try it.