RENEWAL LAB

THREE-MINUTE BREATHING BREAK

The pioneers of MBCT (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy)—John Teasdale, Mark Williams, and Zindel Segal—have developed training programs to help people attain the being mode. It is best to work with a practitioner to help you fully learn MBCT, but you can easily take advantage of a core activity of MBCT, which is a quick, three-minute “time in.” This breathing break is like practicing thought awareness. You might recognize that you are feeling something painful. You label your thoughts, allowing them to exist in your mind, and know that they will pass. The lifetime of an emotion, even a very unpleasant one, is no longer than ninety seconds—unless you try to chase it away or engage with it. Then it lasts longer. The breathing break is a way to keep negative emotions from living past their natural life spans. You can make it a habit, so it helps anchor you at any time, not just during hard moments. You can picture this exercise like an hourglass—invite whatever is present in your mind broadly, then focus narrowly on the breath, and then expand awareness out to your full surroundings. Here’s our modified version:

1. Becoming aware: Sit upright and close your eyes. Connect with your breathing for a long inhalation and exhalation. With this awareness, ask yourself, “What is my experience right now? What are my thoughts? Feelings? Bodily sensations?” Wait for the responses. Acknowledge your experience and label your feelings, even if they are unwanted. Notice any pushing away of your experience, and soften around it, allowing space for all that comes up in your awareness.

2. Gathering your attention: Gently direct your full attention to your breathing. Notice each inhalation and each long exhalation. Follow each breath, one after another. Use your breathing as an anchor into this present moment. Tune in to a state of stillness that is always there right below the surface of your thoughts. This stillness allows you to come from a place of being (versus doing).

3. Expanding your awareness: Sense your field of awareness expanding around you, around your breathing, around your whole body. Notice your posture, your hands, your toes, your facial muscles. Soften any tension. Befriend all of your sensations, greet them with kindness. With this expanded awareness connect with your whole being, encompassing all that is you in the present moment.18

This breathing break calms your body and offers you more control over your stress reactions. It shifts your thinking away from self-focus and the doing mode and moves it toward the peaceful being mode.

A HEART-FOCUSED MEDITATION: RELEASE MENTAL PRESSURE, RELEASE YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE

Our breath is a window into knowing and regulating our mind-body. It is an important switch influencing the communication between brain and body. It’s sometimes easier to change our breath to relax than to change our thoughts. When we breathe in, our heart rate goes up. When we exhale, our heart rate goes down. By having a longer exhalation than inhalation, we can slow our heart rate more, and we can also stimulate the vagus nerve. Breathing into our lower belly (abdominal breathing) stimulates the sensory pathways of the vagus nerve that go directly to our brain, which has an even more calming effect. Dr. Stephen Porges, an expert in understanding the vagus nerve, has shown why there is a strong link between the vagus nerve, breath, and feelings of social safety. Many mind-body techniques naturally stimulate the vagus nerve, sending our brain those critical safety signals.

Exercises that slow breathing, such as mantra meditation or paced breathing, are a reliable way to lower blood pressure.19 You are slowing down your body’s need to be aroused. You are turning up the volume on your vagus nerve activity, suppressing the sympathetic nervous system and slowing your heart rate even more. The vagus also turns on growth and restorative processes.

For some, focusing on the heart can be more peaceful than focusing on the breathing, and can still slow the breathing rate. The heart has such a complex and responsive nervous system that it is thought of as the “heart brain.” Below we provide a script for a short heart-focused meditation. It also has some words from loving-kindness meditations in it. This has not been tested to examine any telomerase effect, but as you can see above, breathing is the basis of relaxation.

If you’d like, try this script now:

Sit comfortably. Take some long and slow inhales and even longer exhales.

Continue to breathe in, and breathe out, repeating a calming word or hold a beautiful image each time you breathe out slowly. Notice the pause between the breaths.

Become aware of your thoughts: “Where are my thoughts right now?” Smile at each of them as they pass through your mind; then return to your exhalation word or image.

Place your hands (palms or fingers) on your heart. You might say to yourself “Ahhh” as you exhale. Let the burdens you are holding release and flow out of your body.

“May I be in peace.”

“May my heart be filled with kindness.”

“May I be a source of kindness for others.”

Picture your heart radiating love. Picture a pet or person that you feel complete love for. Let that love radiate out toward others in your life.

Continue to breathe in, and breathe out slowly. Notice where you are holding in tension. As you exhale, let yourself feel enveloped in safety, warmth, and kindness.