Keeping the rhythm of your breath steady, which settles the heart and clears the head. You can do this one anywhere, with your eyes open.
Listen to the Meditation
About This Practice
Most breathing practices ask you to observe the breath. This one asks you to regulate it, and the difference matters.
The breathing expert Dr Alan Watkins makes the case that the single most useful thing we can do with the breath is keep it steady. When the rhythm is even, the heart rate becomes more coherent, and blood flows to the brain at a steadier pace.
That reaches the pre-frontal cortex, the part responsible for clear thinking and deliberate choice, and the part that goes offline first when we are stressed. Keep it supplied and you stay able to think. Let the breath become ragged and you are running on the older, faster machinery that reacts before it considers.
This is why the practice is useful in the moment rather than only in a quiet room. It is a way of keeping the thinking part of your brain online while something demanding is happening.
Good for the times when your head feels like it is in a bubble, when nothing is landing clearly, or when you are more scattered than the situation warrants. You can do it while walking, driving, or in a meeting, and nobody will notice.
Micro Practice: Three Breaths
When your head feels unclear, take three breaths.
- Breathe and become present.
- Breathe and observe what is around you.
- Breathe and recognize that there is a challenge here, and that you will be all right.