I’ve been talking a lot about self-care this week. It seems that in trying times, the superpower I can offer people – whether it’s friends, clients, or strangers on the internet – is the question, “what are you doing to take care of yourself?” Mostly, I’ve just been spreading this list of 100 self-care activities that I wrote a year and a half ago, far and wide.
But one thing I haven’t been talking enough about is breathing. Breathing is something I first learned the power of about a decade ago from a wonderful therapist named Elisa Willits-Spolin, and is something I’ve deepened and cultivated since taking up yoga about a year ago. Breathing is the superpower we all have to take back control of our emotions when everything feels like chaos.
Let’s start with a warm-up, by practicing playing with the breath. First, notice the pace of your breathing, and check in with yourself. Ask, “how do I feel, physically and emotionally?”
If you’re prone to panic attacks, please skip this next step. For everyone else, look at a clock for 20 seconds and change your breathing to fast, shallow breaths for that duration. What do you notice? Did your heart rate increase? Do you feel nervous or anxious?
Okay, everyone rejoin us in this exercise. Now, for 30 seconds, take long, slow breaths. Let the air fill not only your chest, but also your diaphragm. If you put your hand on your stomach, you should feel your belly expand and contract from the depth of your breaths. Now what do you notice? Did your heart rate slow? Do you feel calmer than you did a moment ago?
When you’re feeling stress, your breath naturally quickens, and when you’re feeling calm, your breath naturally slows. But what I think is really amazing – and what you probably just learned from the exercise above – is that you can reverse engineer it by changing your breath!
This is great news – it means that any time you want to calm your nerves, all you have to do is slow your breath, and your heart rate and mood will follow. I’ve written previously about how to practice mindfulness meditation – and this is a very important skill.
But sometimes the idea of “focus on your breath” is too nebulous. Sometimes your mind is so busy, or you’re feeling so anxious, that you can’t just focus on your breath. Breathing is so natural and mindless that when something else is easy, we describe it as being “like breathing”. So I’ve found that it can be helpful to use one of these games to force yourself to really notice your breath.
1. Notice something new.
If you’re a singer, or if breathing is something you’ve been paying attention to for a while, you already know this – but if these concepts are completely new to you, you may not be aware of the way your stomach expands and contracts when you breathe. Take one of your hands and place it on your belly, and test, with your inhalation, how much you can expand your stomach. Then, when you exhale, pull your abdomen in as much as you can.
For those who already know that, here’s something you’ve probably never noticed before – at least I hadn’t, and it blew my mind. When you breathe, the air that goes into your body is cooler than the air that comes out. How have I been breathing for over three decades and never tuned into that??
What else do you observe that you’ve never noticed before? The ears, nose, and throat are all connected. If you breathe in through your nose, can you feel anything in your ears? Can you play with how constricted or open the back of your throat is?
Once you notice something new, it makes it easier to get all the other noise out of your head and think about JUST your breathing. The brain craves novelty, and gloms onto it with glee.
2. Square Breathing
An old supervisor taught me about the four parts of the breath: a breath in, holding the air, a breath out, and the gap between breaths. Square breathing teaches you to focus on each of these parts, and to give equal value to each.
Counting slowly to 5 in your head, inhale. Now, also for 5 seconds, hold the breath. Now count to 5 while you exhale. Now count to 5 with your lungs empty.
If you’ve never tried this before, it’s likely to be a bit uncomfortable at first – especially the gap between breaths. Your body starts to panic a little bit – it’s accustomed to the instant gratification of taking a breath right after finishing the last one. But the gap is important. It’s a metaphor for what we so often experience in life – finishing one thing, and waiting for the next to begin. And the more you cultivate this practice, the easier it will become.
3. Take one more sip.
In this game, fill your lungs and diaphragm as much as you can. Breathe as deeply as you can breathe. Deeper. Even deeper than that.
Okay. Now take just One More Sip of air.
Now let it all out. Empty your body of air completely, until there’s none left. Now empty it out a little bit more. A little bit more. Now just one more tiny bit.
I bet you’ve got more lung capacity than you thought!
4. Lion’s Breath
This might be my favorite kind of breath. It reminds me to let loose and be silly, and to not take things too seriously. It’s also an awesome jaw stretch. Okay, here we go.
Take a deep breath in through the nose. Fill your lungs and your diaphragm.
Then, open your mouth wide, open your eyes wide and look up, stick out your tongue, and exhale loudly. You should look approximately like this:
(That’s a screen shot from Yoga with Adriene, which is a wonderful free online yoga program.)
5. Alternate Nostril Breathing
If everything we’ve done so far is really easy for you and you’re looking for something more unusual, alternate nostril breathing might just be what you’re looking for. It’s exactly what it sounds like – you take turns breathing through each nostril.
Take the thumb and pinky finger of one hand, and put one on each nostril (for example, your thumb on your right nostril, and your pinky on your left nostril). Lift your thumb, and breathe in deeply through nostril #1. Then replace your thumb and lift your pinky, exhaling through nostril #2. Inhale through nostril #2, replace your pinky, lift your thumb, and exhale through nostril #1.
Tune into what this feels like for you. Is one nostril more congested or constricted? Is it easy or difficult to keep track of which nostril you’re on. This is a great exercise, because it really requires you to focus, which anchors you in the here and now.
Any others?
I’d love to hear of any other breathing games or techniques you like to use! Please leave a comment with your favorites.