Arriving on the Breath: A 90-Second Practice to Find Presence
Allowing a deeper, fuller breath is the fastest, most efficient way to draw ourselves out of a cycle of stress and anxiety and help us feel more centered and calm.
However, there are so many things that inhibit and restrict our breath. Just saying, “Take a deep breath” doesn’t work for most of us.
Restricted, short, shallow breathing patterns are our body’s response to help us survive in times of danger. But our habitually restricted breath actually begets more stress, even in the body. In turn, our posture and tension also contribute to constricting our breath capacity. The tighter, and more shallow breath cycle perpetuates a feeling of low-level anxiety that most of us live with all the time. Anxiety is a good thing when we need to survive, but it is not helpful when we need more clarity, agency, responsiveness, or choice. It’s not helpful for ourselves, our relationships, or our communities.
Interrupting Cycles of Stress & Anxiety
In my new book, The Power of the Pause, I share a six-step technique to help us regulate ourselves when our systems are hijacked by fear and stress. We begin with Landing, which is finding safety in the support underneath us. (Practice Landing here.)
Once we Land, we shift into Arriving, which interrupts our stress response with a deep, full, slow breath.
Deep, full, slow breathing is tied to our relaxation response. The relaxation response is governed by the parasympathetic nervous system, which in addition to helping calm our minds, brings our body back to a regulated state and returns all the essential systems—like heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, immunity, and respiration—to a state where they are running more optimally for health and healing.
We can think of our breath like a trip switch that manually overrides our nervous system. When we welcome a deep breath, it shifts the nervous system into the relaxation response—so we arrive in the present and our systems get to running more efficiently.
Arriving on the Breath: A 90-Second Practice to Find Presence
In this 90-second practice, we’ll welcome our breath into our body, and bring our mind onto our breath. Through this process, we are learning to create a safe space for ourselves, so we can show up more in the middle of stress, fear, and anxiety. I hope you’ll download it and return to it throughout your day when you need it most.
