Keep Breathing

Deb Lang­hans shares some thoughts about keep­ing your men­tal health…

Deb Langhans - Contributed photo

Are you hold­ing your breath these days? With all the med­ical, eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal upheaval upon us, is it any wonder?

Breath is life. It might be our most faith­ful life­long com­pan­ion as well as a barom­e­ter of how we’re per­ceiv­ing our world: When we feel stressed, as in such times of uncer­tain­ty and insta­bil­i­ty, we hold our breath and breathe more shal­low­ly. But we don’t have to stay in that fight/flight/freeze response; we can use our breath to calm and ground our­selves so our per­spec­tive and expe­ri­ence become more positive.

One tried and true ancient breath­ing tech­nique I fre­quent­ly teach my clients is called 4–7‑8 Breath­ing. If you’re not famil­iar with it, I encour­age you to try the fol­low­ing: Inhale through your nose to the silent count of 4 (a lit­tle less than 4 sec­onds in dura­tion); hold that breath for 7 counts; exhale through your mouth—an audi­ble release is nice—for 8 counts. Repeat this breath cycle 3–5 times. When you’re more famil­iar with this process, you can do more cycles. (If I awak­en at 3 a.m. in the morn­ing unable to tame my rac­ing thoughts, I do 10 of these 4–7‑8 breath cycles and typ­i­cal­ly fall right back to sleep!) 4–7‑8 Breath­ing actu­al­ly allows you to chem­i­cal­ly shift your body from the sym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem to the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem or relax­ation response. It’s a fan­tas­tic ally you can car­ry with you and call upon wher­ev­er and when­ev­er needed.

Though we’re all expe­ri­enc­ing chal­leng­ing times, we can learn to bet­ter han­dle them by min­i­miz­ing our stress and max­i­miz­ing our inner resources. Breath is one pow­er­ful way we can make that ther­a­peu­tic shift. There are many oth­er proven skills and prac­tices that can become healthy habits. Our fren­zied thoughts and dif­fi­cult emo­tions don’t need to define or con­trol us! If you’re inter­est­ed in learn­ing how to help your­self become more empow­ered, espe­cial­ly dur­ing times like these, I invite you to con­sid­er the ser­vices at Jour­neys to Heal­ing: wholis­tic life coach­ing, reflex­ol­o­gy, mind­ful­ness coach­ing, grief recov­ery and Inner Jour­ney Col­lage©. I’ve also begun devel­op­ing a series of “well­ness” prod­ucts that help rein­force healthy habits. Check out my web­site: www.journeystohealing.com. I can also be reached @ bethechange5@rockisland.com & 360.317.4526.

Please con­tin­ue to hon­or the state and coun­ty pro­to­cols that keep us and our larg­er com­mu­ni­ty safe dur­ing this pan­dem­ic. And when­ev­er you dis­cov­er your­self hold­ing your breath and feel­ing over­whelmed by it all, remem­ber that ther­a­peu­tic 4–7‑8 Breathing.

Here’s to focus­ing more fre­quent­ly on what we can con­trol!

My best, Deb (Lang­hans)
Jour­neys to Healing

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