Calm Your Nerves & Relieve Distractions with this Simple Breathing Exercise

Picture this:

You’re standing outside at a music festival in Ohio with an acoustic guitar draped over your shoulders, about to take the stage with an artist you’ll be accompanying. You stand at the side of a large festival stage, waiting for the sound guy to call you up. An attending crowd of thousands of people will soon watch & hear your every move on the guitar. No messing up now!

It’s dark and your hands are cold. Thoughts of “how do I start the second song?”, or “am I going to be able to hear myself in this festival sound system?”, or even “is the artist going to swap a song last-minute and choose a song that I’m less familiar with?” start scrolling through your head.

A view from the exact stage where this moment took place.

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This was a position I found myself in a couple months back. The scenario felt uncertain, unfamiliar, and my nerves were through the roof. I needed to do something about it in the few minutes I had before I took the stage. I turned to a simple breathing exercise I had recently learned about, and to my surprise: it worked. It quickly calmed me down, relieved some physical tension in my shoulders & my upper body, and relaxed my mind. I was then able to take the stage and crush the performance.

I’ve been skeptical of breathing exercises up until this point, and I’m now sold.

We Need Ways to get Calm & Relaxed in a Distracting World

Our worlds are filled with distractions, between phones, other technology, and social media continuously bombarding our senses.

These conditions can make focusing on creative tasks difficult. That is why it’s great to have ways to calm the mind, dial in your focus, and enter a head space that is more conducive to creativity.

I’m going to spill the tea on the simple breathing technique I recently discovered that has been able to achieve some awesome benefits for myself, for many others, and hopefully will for you too!

The Benefits

One of the best parts of this breathing exercise is the fact that it can be done anywhere, anytime (just not underwater... LOL), and does not draw attention to yourself.

You may notice that this exercise helps you:

• Clear your mind and enter a calm, focused state

• Reduce anxiety & nerves before a performance scenario

• Boost creativity and relaxation

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Let’s Dive in

Here are the 3 basic steps to this exercise:

1. Inhale for 2 seconds through your nose

2. Exhale for 6 seconds through pursed lips

3. Bonus: Hold your breath for 15 seconds after about 10 repetitions of steps 1 & 2

This pattern of breathing slows your heart rate and activates your parasympathetic nervous system — basically telling your body that it’s safe to relax.

That’s it!

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Some Additional Things to Think About

As you're doing the exercise, let your mind focus on your breath

• What are you feeling as you inhale or exhale?

• What do you feel as you hold your breath?

• Do you notice any changes about how you physically feel during the course of this exercise?

Give it a shot.

On stage with artist Lou Ridley during our performance that same night. I was able to achieve a calm headspace prior to taking the stage thanks to this breathing exercise.

You may do this exercise for as long or as little as you want.

The most important part of this exercise is that it HELPS you in some way! If you aren’t feeling its benefits right away, that's totally OK - feel free to experiment & adjust as you see fit!

Try this breathing exercise before your next recital, lesson, performance, or creative session — and notice how much more focused and relaxed you may feel. If it helps, share your experience in the comments

-Alex