stress management

The Power of Breath

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When I was in college, I had the great pleasure of studying in Granada, Spain for a year. I loved the culture, met wonderful people, ate great food, but I took up the dreaded habit of . . . I confess . . . smoking cigarettes. It was short lived, though still difficult to quit. I created a little joke around times I would smoke, saying that I was practicing “conscious breathing.” Inhale, exhale, breathe in, breathe out. Fortunately, I now practice and teach a healthy approach to “conscious breathing.” Inhale, exhale, sans smoke. (If you do smoke, however, you might try noticing the sensation of the breath in the body with each inhalation and exhalation. Let me know what happens.)

Ah, the Breath

Adults breathe about 12-20 times a minute. That’s about 17,000 to 30,000 times a day. The rhythm of our breathing varies considerably depending on our activities, our thoughts, and our feelings. It quickens with physical exercise or emotional upset and it slows down during periods of rest or relaxation. When you inhale, your heart rate speeds up, and as you exhale, your heart rate slows down.

Breathing is an incredibly powerful ally and teacher. Luckily, we don’t have to remind ourselves to breath, but paying more attention to our breath can help us manage or regulate stress and have better health.

We know that stress impacts our physiology, including our breathing pattern, often causing us to hold our breath or take short, shallow breaths. During a stressful or painful time, we may hear, “Breathe!” So the person inhales deeply and holds their breath or exhales only partially. And then back to shallow breaths, consumed by the pain or stress. Shallow breathing is the body’s natural reaction to stressful triggers – whether external (a nasty email) or internal (a self-defeating thought).

But what if you stayed with a conscious inhalation and a conscious exhalation for a few cycles? You can try it now and see what you notice. Go ahead. I’ll wait. 🙂

The Parasympathetic Nervous System — “Rest and Digest”

When we breathe deeply or simply breathe normally, with awareness, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The heart rate and blood pressure decrease, digestion increases, respiration decreases, the body calms down, this may even calm the mind (though that is not always the case). Attention on the breath can aid focus, connection, emotional regulation (not flying off the handle, for instance). The parasympathetic system is often called the “rest and digest” part of the nervous system. A deep breath when in a stressful situation or preparing for a challenging situation can help initiate calm and enable better performance.

The sympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, is activated when we’re triggered by a stressful situation. It activates the release of stress hormones (including cortisol and adrenaline) in the body. It’s often referred to as the flight or flight response. This response, too, is critical to our survival, performance, and well-being. Moving between stress activation and relaxation is a normal cycle of the human process. But if we get stuck on stress activation, chronic stress, which many people do, we can take action to calm our nervous system. Using the breath is one such tool — it’s free, always accessible, and requires no additional equipment! 🙂

Conscious Breathing Practice — Let’s Try It!  Watch the video, or read the practice below.

  1. Take a moment to notice that your breath right now, as it is, without altering it. Notice where (if) you feel the movement of the breath in the body. Is it in the nostrils, the chest, the belly, the back? No judgment, just curious observation.
  2. Now, inhale slowly through the nose to the count of 4 (like you’re smelling a flower) and exhale slowly through the mouth to the count of 4 (like blowing out a candle). Do this for 3 cycles of breath. Do you notice movement of the body as a result of breathing?
  3. Now, back to breathing normally.

What did you notice? Did you notice the movement in the body? Any sense of calm? Or anxiety? Sometimes when we first start noticing the breath, guiding our awareness to the body, some anxiety may arise. Be patient, kind with yourself. If you’re breathing, you’re on the right path.

Applying Conscious Breathing to Daily Life

Begin to notice the sensation of the breath in the body at different times in your day. When you sit down at a meeting, talk to a colleague, wake up in the morning, or lay your head on the pillow at night, notice the breath moving in and out of the body. Feel stress? Irritation? Anxiety? Try ‘conscious breathing’.

Beginning to put awareness in the body via the breath is a simple step towards overall well-being. It is a foundational tool that allows us to focus and attend to what we need to with care, calm, enabling optimal performance.

Moving between spending energy and renewing energy can help us live an active, engaged, healthy life!

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3 Benefits of Mindfulness

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After sifting through 6,000 peer-reviewed articles on meditation and identifying 60 key, solid studies, Daniel Goleman, author and science journalist and Richard Davidson, neuroscientist, confirmed three benefits of mindfulness: focus, connection, resilience. They wrote about it in their book: Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes your Mind, Brain, and Body. And Goleman simplified it in a post: “3 Science-Based Benefits of Mindfulness“.

3 Key Benefits of Mindfulness

1. Sharpens focus so you can prioritize and attend to life with attention and clarity.

“Mindfulness strengthens concentration, and every related aspect of attention from keeping your mind on one thing amidst a sea of distractions, to being more present to what’s going on around you.” Daniel Goleman says in his article. The neural circuitry for selective attention of the brain can be trained. The pathways in the brain are reinforced by what we think about. Where our attention goes, energy flows.

2. Strengthens connection to yourself and others, enhancing emotional intelligence.

Goleman goes on to say, “A cousin of mindfulness, lovingkindness meditation, makes you more open to the needs of the people around you, and more likely to help them out. This kind of leadership builds great loyalty, so people will feel they want to do their best for you, and show up even when the pressure and stress are mounting. When I ask executives around the world to name the traits of the boss they have liked the most, kindness always comes up high on the list.”

3. Builds resilience so you can recover more quickly from events that may throw you off balance.

Challenges are a part of life — sometimes exciting and sometimes downright awful. Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from challenges and difficulties. “Mindfulness and other kinds of meditation calm the amygdala, the brain’s trigger for anger, anxiety, and a host of similar disruptive emotions. The more you practice, the less reactive your amygdala becomes. And if you do get hijacked from time to time (and who does not?), you recover more quickly – the very definition of resilience.”

Of course, no amount of reading about mindfulness can replace experiencing it. Like strengthening a muscle, learning to play a musical instrument, or learning any new skill, we have to DO IT to feel the impact.

Try It! 

You can take baby steps to practice mindfulness. Choose one of the  practices below and try it for a week. Be curious, be consistent. Then try another practice for another week. Take what you like. Leave the rest. You can also do guided practices on my YouTube Channel. Go, try, subscribe.

Practice 1. Conscious Breathing:

At least once a day, take 3 conscious breaths – follow the inhalation in and the exhalation out. String three cycles of breath together. Try this at least once a day. You can link it to an everyday behavior, e.g., as you start your day, or lay down at night, or when you sit down to eat a meal.

Practice 2. Selective Attention: Every day, focus on one thing for a period of time (1, 5, 10, 15 minutes). It can be a simple task — responding to an email or text, talking with someone, taking a bite of food, walking. Focus, bring your attention to the task, stay with what you’re doing. Notice if there is a tendency to want to shift attention. When your attention does shift (and it will), kindly guide it back to the task at hand.

Practice 3: Notice Sensations in the Body: Our body is aware of things often before our consciousness is. So paying attention to sensations in the body is a way to connect to feelings, needs in the moment. Be aware of bodily sensations. Sensations can feel tight, warm, cool, pulsating, painful, pleasant, unpleasant. Notice, name it, allow it, let it go. You can identify a cue when you’re going to “tune in”, e.g., when you wake up in the morning, go to bed at night, get irritated or angry, sit down to eat, talk with a loved one, open your computer. As a result of what you notice, you may decide to take a walk, exercise, get some tea, redirect a conversation, rest. Listen with kind awareness.

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 Guided practices on my YouTube Channel.

4 Ways to Sharpen Focus

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The physical body can only be in the present moment, with its immediate sensations, aches, pains, joy, sizes and shapes. The body cannot wander to the past or jump to the future (unless you’re a superhero; in which case, you’re probably not reading this post. :))

The mind, on the other hand, time travels all day long — from the present to the past and future, over and over and over again. We’re often rehashing dialogues and experiences from the past or we’re rehearsing for experiences we anticipate having in the future. (Have you ever replayed a conversation in your head and thought about what you should have, could have, would have said?)

While self-reflection and preparation are essential, a distracted mind can have a negative impact on a critical conversation, meeting, or activity. Are you where you say you are?

So when you notice you’re distracted or on autopilot, you can reset and recharge by bringing your attention to the breath moving in and out of the body. This helps anchor your attention to the situation or task at hand, so you can attend to it more skillfully. A few cycles of conscious breathing allows oxygen to flow more easily throughout the body and carbon dioxide to be expelled. This prompts the relaxation response, a key component to support stress resilience. Harvard Health Publications writes:

“Shallow breathing limits the diaphragm’s range of motion. The lowest part of the lungs doesn’t get a full share of oxygenated air. That can make you feel short of breath and anxious.”

Try a One-Minute Pause below 1x/day for a week. Sharpen your Focus.

Practice 1: Conscious Breathing: Sit upright, comfortably, at your desk or wherever you can be quiet for 1 minute. Guide your awareness to rest on the breath moving in and out of the body. No need to change the way you breathe. Simply feel the breath moving in and out of the body, sensing the breath at the tip of the nose, in the movement of the chest or the belly. Try this for 3-5 full cycles of breath.

Practice 2. Slow Exhalation: Inhale slowly and deeply through the nose, and exhale slowly through the mouth. Think of smelling a flower on the inhalation and blowing out a candle on the exhalation. Do this for 3 full cycles of breath.

Practice 3. Stretching Pause: Raise your arms up in the air and hold them above your head in a V shape. Feel your feet on the ground, the stretch, and your breath moving in and out of the body. Breathe in and out for 5 cycles of breath. Slowly lower your arms, and feel any sensations in the body.

Practice 4. Before a Meeting Pause: Try this when you sit down to a team meeting, or you are distracted or unfocused during a meeting. Take a moment to bring your awareness to your body. Simply sense the contact of your feet on the floor, your body in the chair, your hands on the table, chair, or lap. Feel the air on your skin. Notice any sensations in the body — pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Acknowledge any thoughts and emotions.

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