Mounting scientific evidence from hundreds of universities—including dedicated centers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom—strongly suggests that mindfulness gently builds an inner strength, so that future stressors have less impact on our happiness and physical well-being.
How Mindfulness Reduces Stress
- You become more aware of your thoughts. You can then step back from them and not take them so literally. That way, your stress response is not initiated in the first place.
- You don’t immediately react to a situation. Instead, you have a moment to pause and then use your “wise mind” to come up with the best solution.
- Mindfulness switches on your “being” mode of mind, which is associated with relaxation. Your “doing” mode of mind is associated with action and the stress response.
- You are more aware and sensitive to the needs of your body. You may notice pains earlier and can then take appropriate action.
- You are more aware of the emotions of others. As your emotional intelligence rises, you are less likely to get into conflict.
- Your level of care and compassion for yourself and others rises. This compassionate mind soothes you and inhibits your stress response.
- Mindfulness practice reduces activity in the part of your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is central to switching on your stress response, so effectively, your background level of stress is reduced.
- You are better able to focus. So you complete your work more efficiently, you have a greater sense of well-being, and this reduces the stress response. You are more likely to get into “the zone” or “flow,” as it’s termed in psychology by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
- You can switch your attitude to stress. Rather than just seeing the negative consequences of feeling stressed, mindfulness offers you the space to think differently about the stress itself. Observing how the increased pressure helps energize you has a positive effect on your body and mind.
The Stress Breath Practice
Andres Gonzalez offers a breathing practice for anxiety and stress that may arise in any situation.
The stress breath is great for any type of stress or anxiety: test anxiety, performance anxiety, any type of anxiety at all. It’s also a good exercise for heating up your body. With this breath, you can pull in a lot of energy and store it in your body.
Use an everyday object as a signal to do the stress breath. I use my keys. When I drive to work in the morning and take my car keys out of my ignition, that’s my cue to do the stress breath. I’ll do 12 right before I go into the office so I can leave home at home and focus on work. And then when I drive home, I park my car, take my keys out of the ignition, and that’s my cue—I do 12 more before I go into my house. That allows me to leave work at work so I can be a hundred percent with my family when I get home. It’s like hitting the reset button with your brain.
Mindfulness for Stress
The 3 Basic Elements of the Stress Breath
1. Fog the mirror
The most important thing about this breath is that it’s audible. Take your hand and hold it up in front of your mouth and act like it’s a mirror that you’re fogging up. So, you’re exhaling with a haaaaaaaa sound as if you’re fogging a mirror.
2. Make it audible
Now, do the same thing, but only have your mouth open for two seconds and then close your mouth while still pushing out the same way—but now push out through your nose. Practice making that same sound as you inhale, so the sound comes from the back of your throat (almost like a Darth Vadar breath).
3. Hold and lock
When you inhale, hold your breath, and then lower your chin to your chest. Hold there for a count of five and then lift your head as you exhale. Let’s put it all together…
The Stress Breath Exercise
- Inhale nice and deep, using the “fog the mirror” technique, so the sound is vibrating at the back of your throat.
- Hold your breath and bring your chin down to your chest.
- Count back from five.
- Exhale (audibly through your nose) while you bring your head up.
- That’s one cycle. Do twelve in a row, if you can, during the day and then again at nighttime.
Why the Stress Breath Works
The reason the breath has to be audible is because the vibrations from the sound signal the vagus nerve—that connection between the mind and the body—triggering a shift in your autonomic nervous system from the sympathetic (stress response) to parasympathetic (restorative response). So, if you just walk around breathing audibly, you’re basically doing the stress breath.
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