As an effective strategy with nearly immediate benefits, the five-breath exercise is an easy one to keep in your back pocket for stressful situations. I use it all the time. But it’s sort of like eating a salad once in a while after indulging in too many burgers on a regular basis; because you’re employing it as an immediate change or a way to regroup, the impact on how you feel is pretty apparent. Taking meditation up a level, then, involves doing it more regularly in small increments and building from there, which is where a lot of people get stuck based on the assumption that it’s not “doing” anything.
For this challenge, start by deciding what type of intentional breathing works for you. I like the count method because it gives me something to focus on, but there are plenty of other types, such as alternate-nostril breathing, mantra or visualization tactics, or inhale-exhale breathing for a set period of time. You can try all of these until you land on one that seems to resonate or feels more approachable, and then set a timer for every day of a week to practice that breathing. If you’re brand-new to meditation, I recommend starting with two minutes each day, and if you’ve experimented with meditating before, anywhere between two and five minutes total is fine. Don’t feel compelled to overachieve here and try to meditate for twenty minutes a day—and I don’t say that to be discouraging, only to emphasize that I’ve done that exact thing before and failed, and I’ve seen other people make the same mistake. Worry less about the amount of time, and focus on consistency. If you can do it around the same time of day, great, but if you can’t, don’t sweat it.