I tried doing this one-minute breathing technique every hour—I was surprised at how much of an impact it had

I’m in the third trimester of my pregnancy and things are getting stressful. With hospital appointments, tight work deadlines and an upcoming exam, I need a way to cope.

My usual stress busters—an invigorating run or sweaty workout—are off the table right now.

So, I’ve turned to an alternative solution recommended by both a yoga teacher and a physical therapist: box breathing.

This calming mindfulness technique involves visualizing the four sides of a box as you inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, and then hold your breath again for four seconds—and repeat for a minute.

On a particularly hectic day, I took a minute out of every single waking hour to do the box breathing—to see if it would help. Here’s what happened.

I got better at deep breathing

Box breathing was difficult at first, especially the breath-holding sections, but I found that doing deeper inhalations made it easier.

Getting a juicy inhalation into my belly meant I had more air in my lungs, which relaxed my body and calmed my mind.

I’ve been told by a physical therapist that desk workers often take short, shallow breaths into their chest, creating tension in the upper body. Doing this simple breathing practice helped me break that habit and feel more relaxed throughout the day.

It helped me focus

I struggle to focus when I’m stressed. A task that should take me 30 minutes can spiral into an hour-long affair.

However, having an hourly alarm go off on my wrist (I used my Apple Watch) solved this problem. I powered through my to-do list despite having a squeezed schedule.

I’m not sure if it was the breathwork that helped or the hourly alarm that made me more aware of time passing, but either way, I managed to get through my work faster than usual.

It didn’t impact my metrics

Since falling pregnant, my resting and walking heart rate averages have risen, while my sleep quality and exercise minutes have tumbled.

Notably, my heart rate variability has also fallen. This metric is tied to your cardiovascular fitness, overall health and stress levels, with a higher number being favorable.

I decided to track this metric on the day of my experiment to see if it would have an impact—particularly on stress levels—but there was little change. My average HRV across the week was 47 and on the day of the experiment it was a humble 43.

It did make stressful moments feel easier

Despite there being no real difference to my HRV that day, the biggest benefit from this experiment was that I did actually handle stressful moments with more ease.

When something at work fell through, I was able to focus on a solution instead of obsessing over the problem.

Later, when my toddler deployed one of his usual bedtime delay tactics, I handled it with humor.

This shift is enough to convince me that this breathwork practice should become part of my daily routine, even if it isn’t showing an immediate impact on my vitals—but that could come with time.