What Your Breath Can Do

Bring you back to the present moment

The breath is always with you, so you can always use it to come back to the present moment. When you focus on your breath, you focus on the present moment.

Meditation

Take a couple of conscious breaths. Just feel the air moving in and out of your body. When your focus is on your breath, you are in the present moment.  You are not thinking about where you need to go, what you need to do or who you need to be. You just are. You may notice a feeling of contentment when you allow yourself to just be.

If you can come home to this contented feeling of being with the breath, you may feel more stable and equanimous. No matter what is happening around you, you don’t have to get caught up in it. You can just be in the present moment. That is a lot easier said than done. That is why we need to practice meditation. We are creating a strong neuropathway so that whenever your mind spins off, your default is to bring it back.

“And as you establish of this home base, of here and now, alive in sensation with the breath as your portal, you can start to notice more deeply. And this is where you begin to recognize how your breath is a perfect mirror of your mind.” Jonathan Foust 

Develop your ability to observe sensations and emotions

By focusing our attention on our breath, we can train our brains to notice sensations. As you take a breath, feel it moving in. Hold the breath for a moment, and then slowly exhale. Try to feel the space between the exhalation and before you inhale. Practice this for 20-30 seconds. Normally we don’t even notice the space between our exhalation and our inhalation. We typically don’t notice this nuance of the space between the exhalation and inhalation.

Meditation

Now pay attention to where in your body you feel the breath most strongly. Simply pay attention to where you feel the sensations of the breath in your body. Notice whether you feel it most strongly in the nostrils, the chest or the belly.

And for the next three rounds of breath, allow your attention to rest on the experience of the breath. Notice what you feel. See if word or two that describes what you feel comes up. Is it different from what you felt at the start of this meditation? Maybe you don't feel any different, but maybe you feel a little more present.

Some of the words we came up with ere: expansion, more centered, more calm, more focused, Allow and gratitude.

“Notice how as you observe how you breathe, it becomes this immediate mirror of how you are relating to your world. How the breath can be this honest friend to reveal your experience of the moment.” Jonathan Foust 

We have talked about how our storytelling minds lie to us.  But our breath never lies to us. We may be telling ourselves that we are OK, but our breath lets us know that we are upset. Think about how your breath might change when you watch upsetting news. It may become more shallow, ragged or halted. When you are feeling relieved, breath might feel deeper, smoother and full.

I invite you to check in with your breath. Is it shallow or deep? Is it ragged or smooth? Is it full or halting?

So, your breath reflects how you feel. It is a feedback system you can use as a bell of mindfulness. When you really start to pay attention to your breath, it is going to reveal your conditioned patterns, providing you with immediate direct feedback. When you are watching your breath, it is telling you what is happening in the moment, not what happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow. Changes in your breath pattern show you changes in your mood. Watching your breath shows you how you are experiencing life.

“And there's a very important distinction here, which is the distinction between observation of the breath and the power that comes when you control the breath. And this is where breath can be a powerful tool for transformation.” Jonathan Foust 

Settle a scattered mind

The goal of mindfulness is to be aware of our thoughts. When we meditate, we see our mind is going a million miles an hour thinking about all kinds of things. Try to focus on your breath and you will notice thoughts popping up without any effort on your part. When our breath pattern changes we may notice that we are spinning off, or hardening to circumstances and people, or somehow closing down to life.

“Control of the breath can dramatically shift a scattered mind into a focused mind. And over time, with practice, you can begin to rewire your response to stress. Just one breath is calling attention back into the here and now.” Jonathan Foust

You can begin again with each breath. You have a choice to get on the hamster wheel and start spinning or to use your breath to calm your body and your mind. Of course, all of us would say we want to calm our body and our mind.  But this weekend, that was not what I was doing. I was getting on my hamster wheel over and over again. Because I did not make that conscious choice. You can control your breath and dramatically change your state.

Regulate your nervous system to calm your body and your mind

How you breathe will reflect your mood. It will reflect your tension level. It will reflect your vitality. IF you are breathing fast and shallow, you are going to wear yourself out. Were you ever told to count to 10 when you were upset when you were a kid? Today people tell us to take a deep breath.  If we are receptive, it works. But if we are too upset, it backfires. That is because we have not practiced.  We have not developed the neuropathway of taking a deep breath calms me down. It is a habit.  And in our orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) we store the reward value of all our habits. If we develop a reward value for taking a deep breath, that is really strong and positive, taking a deep breath will become our habit. If our reward value says lashing out makes me feel better, then we will have the habit of lashing out.

Meditation

Take a few long slow deep breaths, making the exhale longer than the inhale.

Did you notice that feeling a little calmer? We have to practice this in our meditation, otherwise when we need it, it is not available to use. We may not notice the calming when we are already calm.  But when we are upset, it really works. It is the concentration on the breath that calms us down.

Another breathing technique that is very calming is Box Breathing. In order to do Box Breathing, you really have to concentrate. This breathing practice is taught to snipers to develop laser focus in distracting environments. Basically, in Box Breathing you breathe in for the count of 4, hold for the count of 4, breathe out for the count of 4 and hold for the count of 4. As you practice, you may use a different count like 5 or 8. This breathing practice is not natural, so it will feel uncomfortable at first.

Meditation

Settling into your meditative posture. I will count for the first few breaths and then let you continue on your own at your own pace. Breathe in for 4, Hold for 4, Breathe out for 4, Hold for 4.

 Did this breathing practice bring your attention directly and immediately into the here and now?

Andrew Huberman suggests that one of the most transformational breathing techniques is the psychological sigh. It is also called straw breathing.  You inhale through your nose, and then exhale through pursed lips, just like you are blowing through a straw.

Meditation

First, we will try it with a long slow in breath. Be sure to fill your lungs. And then slowly exhaling through pursed lips.

 Next, we will use two sharp inhalations. You are filling your lungs with air. This time when you breathe out, make a sound like a sigh.

 Now let your breath come back to its natural rhythm. Let go of trying to control it. Find a word for what you are sensing in your body right now.

Using these breath practices to control your breath can interrupt reactivity.  But if you have not developed the neural pathways to do them by practicing them in meditation, they will probably not be available to you when you need them.

Controlling your breath can be a powerful way of shifting your state. You can use it to come back to the present moment, whenever you need to gather your focus or cultivate relaxation.