To practise diaphragmatic breathing, if you are not already doing so: try gently pressing your stomach outwards towards your hands as you breathe in and then let it relax away from your hands as you breathe out. It will take effort to do this so be patient with yourself. I highly recommend focusing on this breath pattern for a few minutes any time you feel stressed and want to relax. I also suggest doing it for ten minutes before you go to bed at night, and again if you wake up during the night. It is also a great practice to do first thing in the morning to set the tone for a grounded, peaceful day ahead. Trust me – while your hectic day doesn’t feel like you have time to do this, it will be life-changing if you do. It’s ten minutes. It’s doable. Surely worth a try?
Super-stress buster
Another simple but effective breath practice to relieve stress is to take a deep breath in through the nose and then exhale through the mouth. I call this practice the sigh-of-relief!
Try it now.
Inhale through the nose for a count of four; exhale through the mouth for a count of six. As you exhale, in the words of Elsa in Frozen, think to yourself ‘let it go’ – or as my mum thought she sang, ‘let it snow’! Whichever works for you.
If this length of breath doesn’t work for you, use a count that suits your natural breath length without bringing strain to it. The exhale should be slightly longer than the inhale.
You might have already noticed that when other people are stressed they do a lot of sighing. Without even realizing it, they are using this tool to help manage their feelings! Next time you get overwhelmed by anything, try taking three or four of these breaths; or more if you need to. It’s also a very useful tool to use in times of extreme distress, when in pain or when a panic attack is coming on.
Please don’t underestimate the potential that breath practices have for changing your life.
They are fantastic for managing the pressures of everyday living. I use the breath on countless occasions: in moments when I need to be fully present; when I am triggered in fear or am overwhelmed; when I am in pain; or when I start to get impatient. I have found that using the breath to put space between how I feel and I how respond to life has been life-changing. It has helped me to interrupt my habitual fight-or-flight reactions. In particular, I used
these breath techniques to help me get through the devastation I felt when my husband and I split up. Having never suffered from panic attacks before, I started to get them when something reminded me of him. It was thanks to these breath practices that I managed to stop the panic attacks before they got hold. It affirmed to me just how effective they are.
# The hack
Practise daily belly breathing – ideally for at least ten minutes. But if you’re anything like me, then start with taking just five to ten breaths, or whatever you know you will stick with on a daily basis. You don’t have to want to do it or enjoy it; you just need to do it. It’s so effective in managing stress – if you really want to get a handle of your stress, then I honestly recommend doing it.
Use three or four of the sigh-of-relief breaths any time you feel stressed or overwhelmed, as part of your daily survival kit.
Life is full of choices. Ironically, as much as that brings vast freedom, it can also create stress from not knowing what to choose. There can be the fear of making a wrong choice, a feeling of overwhelm from having so much choice, or you can forget that you have a choice at all. The fear of missing out (FOMO) can rob us of ever feeling satisfied or at peace with the choices we make. It can be quite a revelation to replace FOMO with JOMO, the joy of missing out (an acronym first coined in 2004 by Anil Dash, a blogger and CEO of software company Glitch).2 You really don’t have to choose everything in life – obvious, I know. But we forget that we are the ones with the choice. Knowing this will allow you to filter your choices, enabling you to live more authentically, to do meaningful work, and to feel fulfilled and alive. It is truly liberating to filter out what you don’t want and zone in on what you do. Learning to tune into your preferences over and above anyone else’s is a freedom that we sometimes forget we have. Just because things are possible or available doesn’t mean we should have them, do them or be them. It just means that we could if we choose to.
Learning to recognize what is leading our choices helps us kick stress into touch and to unlock the life we want to lead. The more self-aware we become, the more we feel the tangible difference between making choices through a sense of fear and making them from our loving, true self. When we are stressed we often make choices through fear. This can leave us trapped in a negative cycle of events. Every choice has an effect and is creating the reality we live. That’s why the breath practices (see #hack 4) are so valuable when we are stressed. They help to interrupt any knee-jerk, fear-based reactions and choices and enable us to make more supportive ones.
We only have so much time, and what we choose to spend that time on is more of our choice than we realize. We only have so much energy too, and how we use that is also our choice. Then there is how we spend our money. All of these choices are creating the life we are living. What we think we spend our time, energy and money on and what we actually spend them on are not always in alignment.
What do you actually spend your time, energy and money on?
Is that in alignment with what’s important to you? With the life you want to live? If it’s out of alignment, it isn’t because you mean it to be. It’s because you haven’t taken control of, or owned, your choices. If you, your choices or your life aren’t really how you want them to be, then before you get disheartened know that they can change. Everything can change.
The reason I know this is because I’ve done it myself. I have completely changed my life and who I am. I was previously in a career that I thought was my childhood dream, until the day that it wasn’t. After much denial and avoidance of facing that fact, I had to admit to myself that it was no longer what I wanted. While I could have stayed in it, I knew that it didn’t fit any more. I was becoming more and more unhappy. I also realized that the person I found myself to be was not the one I wanted to be, or even liked. I was often impatient and tunnel-visioned. I could overthink things and become over-reactive and over-emotional. So I set about changing it all. I plunged into self-development and changed my life beyond all recognition. I always had the belief that I could choose my path in life. That gave me the confidence to literally leave one life and start another. I have also always believed that we can change, especially when we want to.
The great thing about living in a world with so many possibilities is that it’s never too late to change direction or to create a lifestyle we wish to have. It’s never too late to change who we are or how we are. From my own experience, I know that it takes effort and a commitment to change and that it’s not necessarily a smooth ride. It starts with taking an honest look at ourselves and our lives, and requires us to become more self-aware. We have to take full responsibility for every choice we make and for how we are responding to life. All of this takes courage and not everyone is up for that. As you are reading this book though, I suspect that you are up for it. Whether you want to be less stressed, don’t like who you are, or you’re living a life that just doesn’t quite fit, you can change it all. I know you can. You just have to choose to.
# The hack
Start recognizing, and owning, that you have a choice. It’s your life. Start to pay attention to what’s driving your choices, and whether you are actually making choices that are in alignment with who you really are. Learn to say yes when you want to, and no when you don’t!