Overcome mind blocks with proven breath training techniques

Handouts

Exercises

Summary: In this exercise, you’ll work on discovering how you breathe now. Are you a chest breather? Perhaps you notice your chest moving a lot as you breathe in and out. Maybe you’re a belly breather and notice your belly moving more than your chest as you breathe in and out. This is the first step for good breathing, using your diaphragm muscle.

Summary: In this exercise, you’ll focus on practicing good breathing mechanics using your diaphragm muscle. It’s part of the preparation phase for building and sustaining resilience. It can help you set the tone for the day and be more composed before stressful events that might show up.

Summary: In this exercise, you’ll focus on activating positive feelings like happiness and peace that many people find pleasant. Such feelings can replenish your emotional energy that negative feelings, such as anger, depression, or distress, tend to drain. As part of the strategy for building and sustaining resilience, this exercise, with regular practice, can help you maintain daily resilience, remembering to refresh your composure between activities and events.

Summary: In life, there might be times when things become really stormy. You might feel overwhelmed by painful thoughts or feelings, such as feeling frozen in fear or boiling in anger. And it seems you can’t talk about your experience, move, or do what’s important to you. If it happens, you may use this breathing technique to help you stay present and grounded during an emotional storm to steady the boat, steer straight ahead through the storm, and engage in life guided by your values. This exercise is part of the shift and recover phase for building and sustaining resilience, which can help you recover as soon as possible after a stress reaction and minimize energy drains.

Pacer training

Try the different breath pacers below, following the visual pacer (inhale as the pacer goes up and exhale as the pacer goes down) to determine which breath training rate feels best. After determining that rate, you may download the breath pacer to a computer or phone to train when or where you want. The training will last 5 minutes. However, you may start the video again to train longer if you wish. You may also close your eyes and listen to the breath pacer bell, which signals you to inhale and exhale. The inhalation and exhalation times for each pacer training rate are as follows: