Pause to breathe

The current state of the world is unsettling and can cause all sorts of emotional responses, some similar to PTSD. Emma Seppälä is a Stanford scholar who conducts research on mindful practices for veterans with PTSD. Seppälä found that breathing exercises dramatically decreased PTSD in veterans. “Breath is such a wonderful way to reduce your physiological activation,” said Seppälä. “Understanding that you can control your breathing is a first step in understanding how you can control your anxiety—that you have the tools to do it yourself. When your mind is racing, when something unexpected happens in a social situation, when you don’t know what to do, you know you can calm yourself by controlling your breathing.”

This week let’s try to manage our physiological and emotional responses with conscious breathing.

HOW TO: Any time you feel agitated or unsettled, stop, close your eyes and bring your attention to your breath. Slowly inhale inflating your chest first and then inflating your belly. On exhale gradually deflate your belly and then deflate your chest. Linger for a moment at the end of the exhalation. Take at least 6 breaths like that (or 12, if possible). Note how you feel afterwards.