Why Shallow Breathing Could Be Sabotaging Your Success
Can you imagine if the quality of your breath directly affected the quality of your work, decisions, energy and… success? Well, that indeed may be the case; shallow breath keeps you in “autopilot” mode while mindful breath brings you into the present moment to work consciously and strategically. Our constantly connected digital lifestyles have given many of us a new normal where we operate in a chronic state of digital distraction. It’s almost impossible not to experience this in today’s business world.
The first step in changing the way that you direct your attention is to become aware of your digital habits and your breathing patterns. Begin to notice if you allow frequent notifications to nudge you. The next step is to tackle it head on with mindful breath and a commitment to take charge of your daily thoughts, focus, energy and priorities and not letting your digital devices dictate where your attention goes at any given second.
Breathing on your shallow breath “default setting” keeps you from going inward, being present, mindful and focused and instead leaves you in a state of sort of mindless motion where you end up handing over your creative energy and momentum directly to the most recent pop up. Sound familiar? When your phone’s illumination and bells/whistles interrupt your work flow and thought patterns all day long it’s a sure fire recipe for sabotaging your goals and minimizing your priorities.
If you’ve been slow to reach your goals, feeling brain fog and/or “monkey mind,” it’s likely a result of trying to work at the pace of technology. If you give this idea just a moment of honest introspection, you’ll probably see that digital distraction has likely taken a toll on your time and energy in ways that you may not have fully calculated. I speak not from a pulpit on this topic but from a place of shared experience and my love/hate relationship with my phone in particular. It takes some due diligence every single day to stay on top of who wins the attention game right now. When your devices chirp and vibrate and it feels like you’ve been hypnotized to immediately stop without question and shift focus to that you’re sabotaging your goals.
Devices: 1 Humans: 0.
There’s one simple defensive tool that can interrupt those digital distractions so that you stay in charge of your attention, priorities/ goals and energy. It’s mindful breath. Even one deep breath can help move your internal attention from “autopilot” energy and multitasking mindset. Go ahead, give it a try right now. Take one slow, long deep breath. For that brief moment, you were present and focused on YOU and the act of taking that breath fired up the part of your brain that regulates emotion. Powerful, right? In the time it takes for just one slow deep breath, you can gauge how clear your thoughts and energy are and if you’re not pleased with what you find, take a few more mindful breaths and decide to move forward with renewed clarity and focus on your real priorities.
In an article titled Neuroscientists Have Identified How Exactly a Deep breath Changes Your Mind, Morgan Cerf of Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University says, “Breathing at different paces or paying careful attention to the breaths were shown to engage different parts of the brain. Humans’ ability to control and regulate their brain is unique: e.g., controlling emotions. These abilities are not trivial. When breathing changed with exercises, the brain changed as well…These findings provide neural support for advice individuals have been given for millennia: during times of stress, or when heightened concentration is needed, focusing on one’s breathing or doing breathing exercises can indeed change the brain.”
Mindful breath can gently shift you back to your “manual” breath setting where you create the type of breath you want for that particular moment/event. There are specific breath techniques that will help you feel more calm and grounded or more empowered, focused, confident or creative. Being present (both physically and emotionally) is a powerful way to work and live but it’s become secondary to being present physically but not full “there” mentally. We’re too busy watching and texting, talking and scrolling…always multitasking and rarely fully present for one thing at a time. It can affect not only your safety (walking into traffic while texting!?) and your health (anxiety and lack of human connection) but your goals, mental clarity and productivity. Mindful breath can stop the vicious cycle of digital distraction and get you back in touch and empowered with your own inner strength and self-awareness. Mindful breath connects the mind and body like putting two matching puzzle pieces together; it feels right. You can easily interrupt the habit and begin to strategically breathe throughout the day in a way that enhances your mood, perspective, focus, creativity and positive energy. It’s never too late to rewire your brain with a new healthy habit of mindful breath. Now:
Devices: 1 Humans: 1
Mindful Breath is Meditation at The Speed of Life!
People often say, “Mindful breath sounds a lot like meditation and I don’t have time to meditate.” My response, “No problem!” You don’t have to master the art of stillness or reserve chunks of time to move from shallow breath to mindful breath. You can do it by becoming self- aware of your thoughts and energy in as little as 30 seconds. For many people, it’s easier to understand when I make mindful breath analogous to food because we are all pretty particular about our food these days. Mindful breath should be part of your daily consumption as well! Food has become very individualized and customized today; vegan, non-GMO, organic, paleo, Whole 30, Keto…If we gave the same amount of attention to the quality and varieties of our breath and mindset during the day, we’d think, feel, work and live with optimal energy and a much stronger sense of well-being and even success.
Shallow breath is like sugar. Mindful breath is like kale. We’re told to eat the rainbow when it comes to food because there are so many fruits and vegetables to choose from and the same goes for mindful breath. It goes way beyond the idea of just three deep breaths but that’s the easiest way to begin to see the power of mindful breath. It’s like when you began to move from iceberg lettuce to kale because you knew if you were going to have a salad, kale offers more bang for the buck. It’s that simple. The quality of your breath does affect your work, your mood, your communication…your success.
Get to know your breath like you know your food. When you know that eating junk food brings on brain fog and leaves you sluggish, you wouldn’t choose to eat that before an important meeting when you need to be quick on your feet with smart, fast responses, right? You’d likely fuel yourself with something that makes you feel light, confident and clear. There are breaths and mindset tools that do the same thing. Before an important meeting, try alternate nostril breath or a few deep breaths paired with an empowering thought and posture. Create the energy that you want with breath and mindset tools. They nourish your brain just as food/water nourish and hydrate your body.
We haven’t really had to focus on nourishing our brain specifically in years past, but in today’s modern digital lives we definitely need to consider the health of our brain and mindset as it is constantly overstressed. Your brain is a muscle just like your quads or abs and it requires rest after over use too.
Making mindful breath as much a habit as eating requires developing a new level of self-awareness. I recommend doing a self-awareness “check-in” a few times during the day by attaching this check-in to something you habitually do. i.e.: while making your morning beverage, before you check email or scroll your social feed, before you work out, while you make dinner. A self-awareness check-in is a quick and simple inner dialogue with yourself. Ask yourself if you’re shallow breathing and on autopilot energy again. If yes, stop, take a few deep breaths and refocus on your priorities rather than letting them slip away for another day. Give yourself a mental pep talk, review your daily goals and build a new habit of self-awareness where it becomes second nature to notice when you’ve moved into negative energy (whether it’s worry, fear or distraction) and shallow breath mode and shift back into strategic action with a few mindful and empowering breaths.
As you build this self-awareness, you’ll quickly begin to see how much momentum you unconsciously let slip by every single day because your devices dictated where your attention went. Once you become more in control of your breath, you are more in control of your energy, actions, clarity, productivity…and success.
“When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.” — Anonymous
You begin to effortlessly “breathe your goals to life” by utilizing the types of breath that you need to make you feel a certain way. Shallow breath yields shallow results. Go deeper. Tap into the power of your inner strength and breathe to succeed.
Devices: 1 Humans: 2 Keep the score going in the right direction.
How can you win the game of Devices vs. Human? I’d love to hear how you begin to outsmart your devices.
Looking for specific advice on Breath & Mindset tools? Pre-order my book, “Breathe to Succeed” #WorkplaceWellness (Launching May 1)
