5-minute breathing exercises for stress relief

This might sound strange from an MMA fighter, but breathing is one of the most powerful tools I know. Before a fight, after heavy training, or when stress builds up, it all starts with your breath.

Why breathing works

When you’re stressed, your breathing becomes fast and shallow. Your body thinks it’s in danger. By consciously breathing slowly and deeply, you tell your nervous system: "It’s okay. We’re safe."

This isn’t woo-woo stuff, it’s science. Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system, lowers your heart rate and reduces cortisol (the stress hormone).

Exercise 1: Box Breathing (4-4-4-4)

Used by Navy SEALs and elite athletes:

1. Inhale through your nose, 4 seconds
2. Hold, 4 seconds
3. Exhale through your mouth, 4 seconds
4. Hold, 4 seconds

Repeat 5 rounds. Total time: 80 seconds.

Exercise 2: 6-6 Breathing

This is the technique we use in JunFit:

1. Inhale through your nose, 6 seconds
2. Exhale through your mouth, 6 seconds

No pause in between. Smooth in and out. The app has an animated circle that moves with your breathing, so you don’t have to think.

5 minutes of this technique is enough to lower your heart rate and clear your head.

Exercise 3: Physiological Sigh

The fastest way to calm down:

1. Two short inhales through your nose (sniff-sniff)
2. One long exhale through your mouth

You can do this even in a stressful meeting. Nobody notices. But you feel the difference immediately.

When to do this?

• Morning, start your day with clarity
• Between meetings, reset in 2 minutes
• Before sleep, let go of the day
• After training, recover faster

Breathing in JunFit

The app has complete breathwork sessions of 5, 10 and 15 minutes. You choose a topic (Stress, Focus, Wind-down, Overwhelm or Drive), put on your headphones, and follow the guided session. The animated breathing circle keeps your rhythm.

Breathe. That’s step one. The rest follows naturally., Erko Jun