A Simple Breathing Practice to Calm Stress and Anxiety (Especially for Caregivers)

If you’re feeling stressed or anxious these days, you’re not alone.

You might be carrying worry about your loved one’s health. The constant weight of caregiving responsibilities. The toll of heavy world events that feel intense and perhaps shocking. Maybe even the background stress of technological advances — like AI — that are reshaping our work, our economy, and how we imagine the future. 

And for caregivers, stress isn’t just an occasional spike. It’s often a steady undercurrent that keeps you on constant alert, hijacking your nervous system so you feel that you can’t relax. 

Over the past 20 years of caregiving, I’ve had to learn — sometimes the hard way — how to steady myself in the middle of uncertainty, exhaustion, and emotional overload. Along the way, I’ve adopted many grounding practices that help me meet external challenges from a place of inner strength rather than constant reactivity.

Today, I want to share one of the most important and foundational tools I know. It’s simple, accessible, and something you can use in the middle of real life — even when things are falling apart around you.

It’s a breathing practice.

This practice comes from a long-standing Zen tradition, and it’s also strongly supported by modern neuroscience. Research shows that this type of breathing can improve physical health, mental health, emotional regulation, and even cognitive performance.

In Zen, this practice is called hara breathing. You might also hear it called deep belly breathing.

What Is Hara Breathing?

“Hara” is the Japanese term for the lower abdomen — considered the body’s physical, psychological, and spiritual center. In Zen practice, the hara is where we cultivate stability, presence, and groundedness.

When we breathe from the hara, we’re not just calming our nervous system. We’re reconnecting with a deeper sense of steadiness inside ourselves — something many caregivers desperately need but are rarely taught how to access.

The Three Core Elements of Hara Breathing

1. Slow Down Your Breath

When we’re stressed or anxious, our breathing tends to speed up. For some people, it can get so shallow and rapid that it edges toward hyperventilation, even if they don’t realize it.

The first step is simply to slow things down.

This is where the mind–body connection really shines. When you slow your breathing, you send a signal to your body that it’s safe. When your body calms down, your mind often follows.

You don’t have to force anything. Just be mindful and gently invite your breath to become slower and more spacious.

2. Focus on a Long Exhale

The exhale is especially important.

Longer exhales help regulate the nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system — the body’s “rest and digest” response. This counteracts the “fight-or-flight” stress response and tells your brain, In this moment, I am safe.

Here’s a simple way to practice:

• Inhale slowly to a count of 5

• Exhale slowly to a count of 10

You can adjust the numbers to whatever feels comfortable. The key is that your exhale is longer than your inhale, and that your overall breathing is slower than usual.

3. Breathe From the Hara (Your Deep Belly)

Most of us were born breathing this way. 

If you’ve ever watched a baby sleep, you’ll notice their belly gently rising and falling with each breath. Babies breathe from their hara — which is why they can cry loudly and for long periods without exhausting themselves.

As adults, stress, posture, and years of tension often shift our breathing into the upper chest. We hunch over computers and phones. We breathe shallowly without noticing. Over time, this kind of breathing becomes less restorative and more draining.

To reconnect with deep belly breathing:

• Place your right palm about two inches below your belly button

• Breathe into your hand

• Let your belly expand like a balloon on the inhale

• Let it gently deflate on the exhale

You should feel your hand rise and fall. There’s no need to strain — softness and ease matter more than precision.

You can watch this video lesson about my favorite breathwork practices, where I guide you through the above steps.  I recommend that people start with doing hara breathing for 3-5 minutes a day, ideally first thing in the morning. This simple practice can help set the tone for the rest of the day so you are more grounded and resourced.

Ideally, you can check on your breathing throughout the day, maybe right before you start a new task. Just bring gentle awareness to your breathing, and adjust it to the hara breathing technique. The idea is to eventually breathe this way all the time, as we naturally did as babies.  When we breathe in this more restorative way, the more grounded and resilient you become in body, mind, and spirit.  

A Somatic Extension: Head, Heart, and Hara 

In the video lesson, I also introduce a simple somatic exercise I’ve created based on lessons I’ve learned from different teachers I’ve worked with over the years. I call it Head, Heart, and Hara. It combines the above hara breathing with gentle, intentional touch to cultivate grounding, self-compassion, and inner strength.

You continue the same slow breathing with a longer exhale, and breathing from the deep belly — and add one of the following:

Head Place your right palm gently on the crown of your head. This can help anchor you in your body when your thoughts are swirling. Many people notice that the weight of their hand helps them feel more present, more settled, and less mentally scattered. You may feel the weight of your hand is helping you sink deeper into your chair. This helps you feel physically present in the here and now. 

Heart Place your right palm over your heart. You may want to place your left hand on top of it. This supports self-compassion — caregivers often offer compassion freely to others, but struggle to extend it to themselves. 

Dr. Kristin Neff, a leading researcher on self-compassion, teaches a practice of pairing compassionate touch with kind words. You can choose any comforting words to say to yourself (either outloud or silently). I like to say:

“I know you’re going through a hard time right now.You’re doing the best you can.You’re doing a great job.You will get through this.”

If it feels comforting, you can also put your hands around yourself and give yourself a gentle hug — the way you would comfort a close friend who’s struggling.

Hara Place your right palm back over your hara (two inches below your belly button). Focus on breathing slowly into your belly, feeling that balloon-like expansion and release. This helps reinforce a sense of stability and groundedness at your core.  

Why I Recommend This to Every Caregiver

There are many tools, practices, and mindset shifts I teach in my Thrive as a Caregiver group courses and workshops. But if I had to choose one foundational practice to offer every caregiver — this would be it.

Because it’s not about fixing anything. It’s about calming our body and mind, and cultivating our inner resilience with something as simple as our breath. It means being able to stay present and grounded, even when things are hard.

Just yesterday, a chronic illness caregiver in one of my groups shared how she used this breathing practice during an especially intense day:

“Today was intense, and I was constantly supporting my daughter from about 3 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. And our paid caregiver didn’t come,” she shared. “When my daughter could settle for a little bit but wanted me there, I practiced sitting in the chair and breathing and counting, and it really helped me to stay present and calm.”

That’s what this practice offers.

Not a life without stress — but a way to meet stress and anxiety with more steadiness, more compassion, and more resilience.