Take a Breath

Photo by the author.

We do it thousands of times a day without thinking. We would die if we stopped. And yet most of us never give our breath a second thought.

This morning I was out for a walk before the day warmed up. The air was cool and crisp, and each breath I took asked for my attention. So I gave it.

Something happens when you actually pay attention to breathing. The noise in your head gets quieter. The to-do list that was crowding out everything else starts to recede. You notice the sky. You notice your feet on the ground. You come back to where you actually are - not where your head was leading you.

I was walking past some cacti when I remembered an art installation I saw last weekend — a timelapse of the Sonoran Desert over the course of a year. As the seasons shifted, the cacti expanded and contracted with their moisture levels. They looked like they were breathing. Slowly. Deliberately. I took a deeper breath after that.

Image by the author.

When everything around you feels like it's moving fast — decisions to make, pressure to figure things out, the sense that time is somehow both crawling and running out — breath is the one thing that keeps its own pace. It doesn't care about our timeline.

Of the thousands of breaths you take today, try giving five minutes to just a few of them. Find somewhere you can sit or stand quietly. Breathe in slowly through your nose for four counts. Hold for four. Out through your mouth for six. Repeat it three or four times. Your mind will still have plenty to say, but it quiets down a little. The chatter settles. You land back in the moment you're actually in, instead of the ten you've been rehearsing in your head.

That's usually enough.

My weekly newsletter includes a "Breathe + Be" section with breathing exercises to bring a moment of calm to your day. If that sounds like something you need, you can subscribe here.