"sigh of relief"

Lately I've been trying out a simple and natural technique: the sigh of relief.

It's exactly what we reflexively do after a stressful situation. Take a good-sized in-breath, and then let it out while simultaneously letting go of stress and tension. That's it.

There's a reason we naturally do this. There's a reason it feels good. It helps regulate your HPA axis. It seems trivial, but that's because it's such a natural thing to do and it because it's such a small activity. But, again, our bodies are inclined to do it for a reason. Our bodies are programmed to help themselves. We have to facilitate that, and not get in the way.

Simple and convenient. I think this is a great tool.

I do this breathing every time I experience an adrenal shock. With my current dangerous and frustrating circumstance I find my stress axis is slipping into overdrive again. I keep getting adrenaline shocks every time I think about what's wrong. And after a while that'll spread out to even getting adrenaline shocks imagining that cars in lanes next to me might swing into my lane without warning. I'll be in freak-out mode where I'll keep being alarmed at even unlikely scenarios. Need to head that off.

The sigh of relief I think should help some there, but it seems, just to my intuition, that it works best as a post-alarm-surge therapy. It might ease the mind a little and reduce overdrive/hypersensitivity, but I bet there are other more effective techniques for that. I'm looking for those next.
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