Mind Gym (36 page)

Over the next couple of days, pay attention to your breathing at different times and in different situations. Are you breathing from your chest more than your diaphragm?

Once you know how you are breathing, you can focus on how to make it better. What follows are two ways of doing so, thus helping you to relax.

The key to better breathing is to focus on your diaphragm rather than your chest. But you can make it even better by adding a mental process to the physical process.

During your diaphragmatic breathing, try saying or thinking the words “Breathe out tension.” Bizarre as it may seem, it will help you relax. Basically, if you imagine an event, your brain reacts in much the same way as if the event is actually happening. By imagining yourself breathing out tension, you can make your brain respond as if you really were breathing out tension. After all, it doesn’t matter whether the situation is real or imaginary; the important thing is that it helps you relax.

In the suggestive breathing exercise, as you inhale, become aware of tension in your body and say to yourself, “Breathe in for relaxation.” Pause with the breath held inside you, and then exhale, letting go of any tension, saying to yourself, “Breathe out tension.” Be prepared for funny looks if you say this out loud in a public place.

Some people go to the next stage when practicing this exercise, adding visualization to their breathing. As they exhale, they imagine their stress and tension being released from them, often as red mist. This red tension mist then slowly wafts away and eventually disappears from view.

“It was a nightmare,” said Emma about her presentation. “I had fully prepared for weeks and thought I was ready to make an impact. But then, right before it was my turn to speak, I felt a tightening in my chest. It was very difficult to breathe, and I wondered whether I could stand in front of the group. I tried breathing in deeply, but I still didn’t feel like I could get enough air. I continued taking deep breaths, again and again. When it was my turn to present, I sounded really breathy and nervous.”

Emma is describing a common situation. When people feel panic or are put under stress, they have a tendency to gasp—take in a breath and hold on to it. The resulting sensation of fullness and inability to get enough air produces quick, shallow breathing. This can trigger a stress response that makes the situation even worse. Once again, diaphragmatic breathing is the solution. But this time rather than using a suggestion, such as “Breathe out tension,” try what is known as the “ten-second cycle.” First, inhale through your nose counting
one . . . two . . . three
. Pause for four, and exhale through your mouth, counting
five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight
. Pause for nine and ten, and then inhale again.

What you are trying to do is exhale for longer than you inhale. By taking deeper breaths than you need to, you are attempting to reduce the number of breaths you need to take. People tend to breathe more than they need to. Most of us, on average, take a breath every six to eight seconds, but in a recent survey, doctors found that the optimal breathing rate was significantly slower. In the study—published in
The Lancet
, one of the medical community’s highly respected journals—researchers working with patients with heart disease discovered that patients using breathing techniques were able to increase their blood oxygen and perform better on exercise tests.
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The researchers found that a breathing rate of about six breaths per minute, or one every ten seconds, was around the optimum frequency. The closer you can get to this optimum number of breaths per minute, and the longer the pauses between your breaths, the more relaxed you will feel.

The real payoff of better breathing comes when you don’t use it just as a last resort for dealing with stress but regularly, to position your body close to a state of relaxation most of the time.

How can you create reminders for yourself to regulate your breathing? Tim, a friend of ours, uses Post-it notes stuck on his computer to remind him about diaphragmatic breathing and posture. Think about where and when such reminders might be useful, and give them a try. And remember this: if you can improve your breathing, the most basic of human functions, you will be infinitely better equipped to deal with stress, whenever it occurs.

If breathing is the physical tool to reduce stress, then visualization is the mental tool. Consider this scenario:

It’s Friday night after work. You’re on your way to meet a friend for a weekend trip to Las Vegas. Well, it’s a good thing Las Vegas never sleeps, because your plane hasn’t left the tarmac. The pilot apologizes for the delay, and it’s no big deal at first. Time and time again the pilot apologizes. Ten minutes have now turned into ninety minutes. You check your watch, notice the amount of time that has slipped away, and realize that your first night of partying is being held hostage by an overcrowded runway. In such a moment, your stress is instant, and you want instant relief.

Visualization, like better breathing, acts as a sort of psychological medicine. Wherever you are, whatever the situation, it offers immediate relief and a rapid reduction of your stress level. Scientifically proven, the visualization technique may take a little time to master, but it’s well worth it—because when you learn how to do it, it has great power.
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It may be a summer’s day in the park. It may be a deep and luxurious bath. It may be sunbathing on a Caribbean beach. When you have a hectic and stressful day, you have an image in your head about where you’d rather be. This is visualization—in essence, it’s creating your most pleasant daydream.

Here’s how it works. Every time you see an image, your mind gives it a meaning (in terms of what it means to you), and this meaning triggers an emotional or physical response. Look at the two following images, for example. What responses do they conjure up in you? Hunger? Nausea? Yum? Ugh?

Imagined images can trigger exactly the same reactions as real ones. In the same way that the image of a rotten apple can trigger disgust, the right type of visualization can trigger a state of relaxation. All you need to do is create images that you associate with calm and tranquillity. And unlike the real world, where a quick trip to the soothing shores of the Caribbean is out of your reach, visualization can take you wherever you want to go, immediately.

Emile Coué, a French pharmacist, came up with the idea of visualization, along with a whole host of positive thinking techniques.
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Coué knew that the imagination is one of the strongest mental “tools” at your disposal. His stroke of genius was realizing that your imagination is more powerful than your will. Basically, this means that you can’t will your way into a relaxed state of mind, but given practice, you can imagine your way into one.

Some people think they can’t visualize. This is, of course, nonsense. They think visualization is more complicated than it actually is. At its simplest, visualization is imagining something that isn’t actually there in front of you. It does require some effort—more than, say, watching a film, which is an almost entirely passive experience—but it is not difficult.

Here is a very simple example of visualization: Close your eyes. Imagine you are standing in front of the door to your home. What color is the door? Where is the keyhole? Is there a handle or doorknob? If so, what does it look like?

Well done. You have just visualized. Sure, it was a simple visualization, but you did it.

Now make your visualization more sophisticated. For instance, add in movement and start “visualizing” with your other senses (so far the focus has been entirely on sight). Read the following points, and then close your eyes again.

•   You take your key out and hold it in your hand. What temperature is it against your skin? How heavy? What do the edges feel like?

•   You put the key into the lock. What does this feel like? Does it slide in gently or is there some resistance?

•   You turn the key. What do you hear?

•   You push the door open. How does this feel? Where is the pressure? In your arms or elsewhere? The door opens; you step in. What is the smell?

You probably were able to clearly visualize at least one of these points—without ever leaving the comfort of your own mind. Maybe your strongest experience came from visualizing the feel of the key in your hand. Maybe your strongest was visualizing the smell of chocolate chip cookies in the oven as you pushed open the door. With practice, all the outcomes to the questions in each point will be crystal clear.

Here are some general tips that will help you visualize all these points and beyond:

You will visualize better if you are not distracted by what you are actually looking at or hearing in real life. Find a quiet place to close your eyes.

Earlier in this chapter we showed you how to breathe properly. Breathing prepares you to move into a state of relaxation, in which you are more likely to visualize effectively.

Although the technique is called visualization, include also sound, touch, taste, and smell. When thinking of an apple, for example, what is the sound when you bite into it? Is its texture smooth? Does it taste fresh? Is there a soft, sweet smell?

Vividness comes from adding details, and your eyes are attracted to movement (how things operate or how far away they are). By adding depth, contrast, and movement, your visualization becomes much fuller and three-dimensional. Imagine again taking a bite out of an apple. What do the teeth marks look like after you’ve taken that bite? How deep are they? What is the contrast between the outside and the inside of the apple? If you put the apple down, does it roll gently across the table before stopping?

Don’t just see an apple, for example, but think how you might feel when you bite into it: satisfied, happy, content? Negative emotions in a visualization can add stress, so keep your mind searching for the good stuff.

Your visualization doesn’t always have to be real. Anger could be a dark cloud rolling away into the distance and disappearing. Or, if it relaxes you, why not visualize in a specific style—like an impressionist artist painted your visualization or it’s a movie shot to represent a specific genre.

In order to get the most from visualization, approach everything that occurs from a positive perspective. Rather than the sea being “rough,” make the sea “strong.” Music isn’t “loud”; it’s “empowering.”

Visualizations are not the time to critique, analyze, scrutinize, or evaluate. If you judge your visualization, you are more likely to restrict your imagination rather than unleash it.

As with most things, your ability to visualize will get better with time and effort.

You can’t force visualization to happen; it takes time, and at first it may feel a little awkward and clumsy. Persevere. There will come a day when it will be a powerfully positive tool in your life.

Of course, it is impossible to read the guidelines for these visualizations and keep your eyes closed at the same time. Here is another, more in-depth visualization that you can use as practice. It focuses on a situation that we are all too familiar with. If you really want to experience it, use an audio recording device to record the steps and play them back when you’re ready. (You could even speak it into a video on your smartphone; your eyes will be closed when you listen to it, so you won’t be watching it anyway.) This example makes more use of all your senses and might take some practice to get right. But by learning to focus on the small details, you’re going a long way toward improving your visualization.

Step One:
Close your eyes and imagine a familiar bathroom sink in front of you.

Step Two:
Imagine the water taps and some soap. Note the contours of the sink and how the color of the porcelain changes shades at different points. Look at the taps: the design, the reflection they may give, and the shadows they make. What color is the soap? What shape? Does it look like it is stuck to the sink, or is it loose?

Step Three:
Now reach over and pull the drain lever to plug the sink. Then turn on the taps. Hear the splash of the water falling into the sink. How does the sound change as the sink starts to fill? Look at where the edge of the water touches the side of the sink. Is it a straight line or a wave? How quickly is the water level rising? Notice how the light flickers on the water’s surface. When the sink is fairly full, turn off the taps.