How it can take only 2-minutes to reduce stress and be calmer

I am in Israel, and our numbers are rising again as we go into the second wave here. Today I am at my co-working office space and not sure for how long I will come into the office. We may go into lockdown again soon. I could almost cut through a slice of the tension that is very prevalent.

I am speaking to Trever, CEO of a small tech start-up. He knows I practice mindfulness and asks me how I do it? He tells me he has meditated in the past and he has gone on retreats in the desert and how powerful that has been. He is frustrated that he cannot get into any routine or practise any meditation. I tell him that I sit and meditate every morning for 30-mins however, not less important is what I do throughout the day.

I ask him how he is feeling? Is he anxious? He tells me he is and he doesn’t know exactly why as he usually is quite resilient. I say to him:

“Trevor, you know emotions are contagious, right? There is a lot of anxiety right now, and we are all picking up on this collective stress. It affects us and penetrates us, and this is why even more so we now should practice exercises that calm us.”

He tells me his wife is anxious, and he thinks that affects him.

“Of course,” I say, “For sure. You sleep next to her, and your energy is affected by hers. In the same way that not everyone can understand how you can send an email to someone on the other side of the world or phone them, our energy also travels, and we need to understand how much we are affected by what is going on around us. It’s a global pandemic and every one of us if not already needs to up our practices of what calms us and we need to do this multiple times a day.”

We have a sympathetic nervous system that is activated when we are in stress. It excretes cortisol and adrenalin. It increases our heart rate, and our blood pressure rises. This is the system that kicks into place if you were to meet a bear in a forest. This system is the body’s way of protecting ourselves.

The cortisol is an anti-inflammatory that helps us fight infection. Adrenalin gets released and blood gets pumped by the heart and to the muscles so that we can run fast away from the bear. Our parasympathetic nervous system calms us down. A number of reactions take place to bring the body back into equilibrium.

The problem today is that with the Covid-19 pandemic, our bodies are reacting, and our sympathetic nervous system is working overtime. The parasympathetic nervous system is not getting activated enough, and this stress is very harmful to us. Physically it is harmful to our bodies, and we know that stress impacts the body physiologically and is the root much illness.

Emotionally we find we are triggered more and are more below the line than above the line, mentally, this stress is tiring and can reduce our problem solving and creativity that we need so right now. One answer is to find short practices that become habits that activate the parasympathetic nervous system to calm us down. These short practices we can do multiple times during our day and can have a significant effect on reducing our stress and increasing our resilience.

There is much research on how breathing can have positive effects and reduce stress. When we are stressed, we breathe shallowly. When we are panicked, we breathe rapidly. By taking deeper breaths, this neurologically sends a message to the brain, and the parasympathetic system kicks in, and that calms us.

If I return to Trevor, who is feeling anxious. We sit together and do this short 2-minute breathing exercise given to me by my dear friend and yoga teacher Tanya Golad, who uses this practice daily. The practice follows. It is so simple. Sit alone or sit with someone and just do it.

2-Minute Breathing Exercise

Guidelines before

1. You can do this exercise sitting or walking.
2. For this exercise to be effective, you will want to:
   a. eliminate distractions and
   b. select a time where you will not be interrupted.
3. Set a timer for 2 minutes.

Breathing exercise

We all know how to breathe so no need to do anything special just follow these simple instructions.

1. Take five in-breaths one after the other and with each breath, feel a bit of tension getting released from your body. Count as you breath in 1,2,3,4,5. These deep breaths are natural ways of calming our bodies.
2. Then Exhale for seven breaths. Count as you breath out 1,2,3,4,5,6,7.
3. When you notice that your mind has wandered, bring it gently back to focusing on the breath and the counting.
   Your mind will wander. That is a certainty. It may wander to sound, thoughts, emotion, physical sensations. When your mind wanders just register where it wandered and without judging return to counting and breathing until the bell on your timer rings.
4. As your timer goes off, thank yourself for taking this time to breathe. Say in your heart “Thank you, this is a time of healing”.
5. Before you move on with your day, ensure you have another time set up to practice this breathing exercise.

How to integrate the breathing multiple times into your day

I highly recommend Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. BJ recommends adding a new habit to something you already are doing. An example BJ uses in Tiny Habits is doing two pushups after you go to the bathroom. Imagine every time you go to the bathroom after this, you sit for 2 minutes and breathe. You would do this multiple times a day.

Find your way and integrate this breathing into your day. The multiple repetitions are important as we are living in very stressful times and now more than ever, I would recommend adding more tiny habits that can support you to be your best self now during Covid-19.

Let me know how this has a positive influence on you? I am also curious to learn how you integrated this exercise into your day so that you do the breathing multiple times.

Take care,

Samantha