The power of BREATH....

I've recently returned to Sydney after 3 months travel, mainly to visit family and friends, some of whom I hadn't seen since pre-Covid days - nearly 6 years for some of my family!

I was traveling on a tight budget, using budget airlines which meant I was prone to some potentially stressful events with large numbers of travelers (Europe in summer), large queues for check-in/bag drop, all situations over which I had absolutely no control.

At times when I began to feel the stress response kick-in I consciously changed my breathing pattern to slower, deeper in-breaths, and made my out-breaths longer than my in breaths to stimulate my para-sympathetic nervous system and trigger my body's rest and digest physiological response.

I could feel the stress melt from my upper body, and clarity returning to my thought processes enabling me to adopt a more realistic perspective of my situation.

Such breathing techniques are also commonly used at the beginning of a meditation practice. So a suggestion for you - the next time you start to feel stressed by something, a late train, someone cutting you off in traffic etc try changing you berathing in this way (slow down and deepen your in breath, make the out breath a little longer than the in breath without casuing any discomfort) and see what effect it has on your stress levels and clarity of thinking.