Chapter 8
Phase 1: Disconnect
The hardest part of switching off is taking the first step of simply stopping. You have already stopped to take the time to read this, so high five to you. Take a moment to take a big, deep breath and slowly breathe out. Come on, don't resist it. Breathe in, breathe out. How nice does it feel to just stop? We will explore ‘the power of breath' in a moment, but for now let's embrace how great it feels just to stop.
Stop
If stopping feels so great, why don't we do it more often? The simple answer is we do, we stop a lot. We have many moments when our body is ‘still' — when we're watching television, sitting at our desk at work, lying in bed. Our bodies are still more often than we might think. So what are we complaining about? Well, there's stopping and there's really stopping. Most often when we are sitting idly in an effort to switch off, our mind continues to race. We try to slow down while still engaged in stimulating activities. We watch television while on our tablet, we go for a time-out coffee during which we respond to email, we push our kids on the swing while talking on the phone. Despite our best attempts to slow down, in reality we often don't wind down at all but only build up further overstimulation. When we do this we are not fully in the moment; we are merely distracting ourselves from the here and now. While trying to switch off we embrace activities that ensure we are still switched on.
So how do we really stop? First we have to recognise the need to. We use time pressures as the reason we can't switch off. How often do we say we don't have time to go for a walk or to call a friend, yet when we get the phone call from the school to say our child is sick or our doctor says we need to slow down or we will have a heart attack or our car breaks down on the way to work, we find that after all we are able to make immediate changes to our schedule. When something more important and urgent presents itself, we shift things around.
While trying to switch off we embrace activities that ensure we are still switched on.
If you are longing to stop for a while, block out the time and do it. Rework your schedule, say no to a couple of things or take yourself off to a location where no one can reach you, and give yourself a break — even if it's only for a few minutes. If the stress of your work day is compounding and you can feel the tension increasing, shut down your email for ten minutes and just sit and think, flick through a notepad and draw, take a walk, hide in the stairwell if you need to — just give yourself a chance to stop and disconnect. The more such small opportunities you give yourself, the more you can reduce the compounding effects of daily stressors.
Step back
First, good on you for exploring the idea of stopping. It is liberating even to think it's possible. Next time you think to yourself, I need to stop … do it. Once you have stopped, it is time to take a step back from the immediate demands that are competing for your energy.
We often grapple with challenges in our life by digging deeper for solutions, gathering more information in order to find ways to resolve the issues. Counterintuitively, we respond to being overwhelmed and overstimulated by doing more. It just doesn't make sense. Doing more is not the answer. We need to take a big step back to gain perspective.
Spend some time in a local art gallery and rather than looking at the art, watch how other people view it. They stand in the middle of the room and scan the walls in search of a painting that takes their fancy. They take a step to the left, a step to the right, crouch down, tilt their head or simply stand and stare. When they are ready they slowly move closer to the chosen work to take in the detail — the brushwork, texture, craft. When they have looked at it from close up for a while, they step back again to appreciate the beauty of the whole painting. If they looked only at the detail they would miss the full beauty of the composition.
Translated into our own lives, when we are caught up in the daily grind of our to-do list and never lift up our heads long enough to gain a broader view, we miss the full picture. We fail to appreciate the effort we have put in, the skills we have mastered, what we have achieved. We lose perspective when caught up in the detail. Finding the time and space to step back can feel out of our reach, so we are drawn into overwhelm and negative thinking. All we can think of is how hard life is, how we are too busy, too stressed, too frantic. How much easier it would be if we just slowed down. Only by taking a step back and gaining perspective can we create the space to choose how we fill our time and apply our energy.
Breathe
The health implications of breathing techniques have been increasingly recognised in recent times. The importance of breathing has been documented in books and articles addressing conditions such asthma, depression, insomnia, chronic pain and stress. Books such as The Power of Your Breath by Anders Olsson and The Healing Power of the Breath, by Richard P. Brown and Patricia L. Gerbarg, have argued for the health benefits of our ‘breath' and how this applies to modern living, offering a drug-free solution to common stress and mood problems.
When we are physically or emotionally stressed we hold tension in our bodies: we clench our jaw, raise our shoulders, hold our breath. Both traditional and modern medicine have demonstrated the existence of a deep mind–body connection. Our body registers what is happening in our mind and our state of mind is influenced by what is happening in our body. That is why we are more likely to experience physical ailments or the flare-up of an old injury when we are worried or upset.
Stress is costing us. A 2014 global meta-study by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work found that stress-related health conditions are costing governments from $730 million per year here in Australia to €617 billion across Europe. These astonishing figures show that combatting stress-related health problems is an overwhelming international challenge.
With stress having such a fundamental impact, could breathing techniques offer one small but significant piece of the puzzle of how to reduce our daily experience of stress?
Simply put, breathing is a way to stop, slow down and reconnect to self.
Harnessing calm, deep, paced breathing is not a new-age, hippy practice. It has been practised as a daily ritual for centuries across many cultures. It is a central aspect of Buddhist meditation, yoga and the Chinese practice of Qigong. Christian monks use breathing as a way to bring awareness to the body to calm the mind, heal the body and focus on establishing the body–mind–soul connection. Simply put, breathing is a way to stop, slow down and reconnect to self.
It has so many other benefits too:
- It keeps us alive!
- It regulates blood pressure, circulation and heart rate.
- It strengthens our immune system.
- It improves quality of sleep (and you won't get kicked out of bed for snoring!).
- It helps your body to effectively burn energy from food.
- It improves sex drive.
- It helps us to cultivate a sense of calm and relaxation.
- It helps us to manage our physical response to stressful situations.
Joseph Pilates, who founded the practice of pilates in the early 1900s, placed great emphasis on breathing techniques and mind–body awareness because he observed how people who practised his methods experienced improved health. Today, pilates is being used around the world by millions of practitioners in small studios, dance centres, gymnasiums and therapy clinics and at home. With ever higher expectations and demands for speed and efficiency in the way we work and live our lives, the importance of focusing on our breathing to help us to slow down has become even more critical.
Pilates, yoga and meditation all demand a conscious awareness of our breathing patterns. Indeed, a focus on the breath is often the starting point for teachers of these disciplines. The approach to breathing varies with each practice: one modality might focus on nasal breathing; another on long, deep breathing through the mouth; another might engage sound. Whatever the method, each discipline focuses on ‘the power of the breath' and bringing our conscious awareness to it.
Because breathing is largely unconscious, we tend to take its power for granted, forgetting its importance, but by becoming more aware of our breathing we can learn to improve our body's function and performance.
The frequency or rate of our breathing changes depending on the pressure we put on our cardiovascular system, such as when we undertake high-intensity physical activity. It can also be increased by psychological factors such as stress or when we are surprised or nervous. Fast, shallow breathing is typically associated with moments of high stress on both the body and the mind.
When we breathe more slowly and deeply in a controlled way, with every deep breath we take we experience an increase in carbon dioxide, which prompts the dilation of the cerebral blood vessels and increases the oxygen supply to our brain. This promotes calm and a feeling of increased awareness and alertness. Slower breathing is good for us, particularly in those times when we are feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated.
Tess Graham is an Australian physiotherapist and founder of BreatheAbility International, an organisation focused on improving our wellness through breathing techniques. She teaches, ‘To sleep well and be well, you must breathe well. This is just a simple law of nature'.
So if breath is the very thing that gives us life; the importance of breathing properly has been known for centuries; and these techniques have been shown to have significant physical, mental and even spiritual benefits, why are we not giving them the attention they deserve?
Physiotherapist and pilates instructor Jenna Kennedy believes it is because of our ‘no pain, no gain' attitude to health that we feel we need to push ourselves to the limit to gain maximum benefit from any fitness session. ‘In my practice I have witnessed people walking into their first class expecting a grunt-and-groan style session,' Jenna shares. ‘Instead, they are welcomed with information about their breathing and an introduction to creating an awareness about how their body is feeling. This important awareness of breath and tension in the body is crucial in creating a strong foundation on which we can build flexibility and strength to overcome injury or chronic pain.'
We can start to train ourselves to exercise greater control of our breathing, not only in a fitness class or on a yoga mat, but also in daily life when we experience stress or tension.
Slow, controlled breathing increases our physical energy by balancing the chemical exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Focusing on breathing also helps to minimise external distractions and turn our attention inward. As we try to slow down and step back, it is a great time to turn our focus inward to the thing that drives us and sustains our energy — our breathing.
If you need help with these techniques, consult a practitioner who understands the importance of breathing well and can provide you with the tools and strategies you need. Integrating them into your own life is a great way to prepare for the next phase, which is to re-energise yourself.