Our breath is an essential biological activity that we share with both the automatic and controllable part of our nervous system. Otherwise we would not wake up when we fell asleep.
One of my readers asked me for an exercise to help with anxiety, thank you for that question.
This is one I learned from Dave Asprey’s Bullet Proof Podcast. Probably ancient, it is currently used by special ops, first responders, school teachers and crypto hodlers.
Box Breathing method brings our focus back into our bodies and our senses, while calming the fight flight response
- Breathe in for 5 seconds
- Hold that breathe for 5 seconds
- Breathe out (exhale) for 5 seconds
- Hold your lungs empty for 5 seconds
It only takes 1 minute to repeat the cycle 3 times. That is often enough to make a big difference.
This method is a reality check. Much of the fear anxiety and stress we feel is not from an immediate physical danger.
Yet it brings into play the same biological imperatives as a life and death event would.
Our flight and flight response and our fear and threat reactions are controlled by this same deeper programming.
When we take control of our breathe, we simultaneously begin to override our automatic programming.
This is great when the automatic programming is damaged by trauma or simply not optimal for the situation at hand.
The more attached to things and ideas we are, the more fear we will experience.
The tighter we hold to those “objects and objectives" the more pain we will feel.
This is nature’s way of inviting us to let go and return to flow, first a gentle twinge and if we still do not let go it can escalate to gut wrenching horror.
Nature is nothing if not consistent…
So the the trick is to recognise the twinge of discomfort and check in nice and early on what it is that is not quite right. Is it an outside threat? a real warning of imminent danger?
Or is it one of those “objects and objectives that is under threat.
Is it an opinion, a story or a prop in a story ( a prop is an artefact used in a stage show to add emphasis).
Whats the story morning glory?
When we have experienced a threatening situation we may unconsciously develop behaviours that prevent it from happening again. This can obviously be helpful, but it is not always so.
A person who felt humiliated in an early relationship, may sabotage future opportunities to develop trust. The mind develops beliefs to protect us, that negative voice that says “he/she would not like me” or "I could never handle that job”is actually there to make sure we do not expose ourselves to rejection/ humiliation/ shame, guilt etc.
These protection programs work so well, that we may waste decades being swept off in emotional reactivity that is totally not relevant to our current situations.
Life is about learning and while we are avoiding threat, we are at the same time attracting new opportunities to test those negative beliefs. We keep attracting similar relationships and scenarios until we change the way we think and feel about ourselves.
So while all these turbulent waves of emotion keep arising. While the signals of reality keep coming in through our senses. While they totally do not match the inner world of our negative, judgemental, fearful inner voices. We will suffer in conflict outside of flow.
The best thing we can do is question our deepest beliefs, and any opinion we have that leads us to be upset. Check in see if we can absolutely know its true and if it is even something we can control, let alone feel ashamed, guilty or responsible for.
As Katie Byron says "if we are upset, we are in somebody else's business".
As Don Miguel Ruiz says "don' take anything personally"
Box Breathing method is not a replacement for rest, nutrition (minimal seeds and seed oils), counselling, body work and meditation. It is a fantastic tool for achieving high performance and to prevent bad situations from getting worse.
I hope you did not find the long winded deeper look to boring, this stuff can be life changing in a really nice way.
=8-P (as I often get asked, this symbol is a face in the wind with tongue hanging out)