Contact me now at (255) 352-6258 or complete my booking form to secure your appointment today.
In my effort to document the mindfulness meditation class I’m taking, I introduce skill #1, something easy: Deep breathing.
I know, you think you know how to breathe. In fact, my guess is you’re probably doing it right now (at least I hope you are). Nevertheless, many people don’t know how to deep breathe and this is a problem during mindfulness meditation. Many people, especially women, shallow breathe and this isn’t the best way to nourish your body. Some people even go so far as to occasionally hold their breath, especially when anxious.
Shallow breathing comes from the chest while deep breathing comes from the belly. (I know all about this because I was a trained signer when I was younger and you have to deep breathe in order to project and hold notes properly.) Women, often, don’t like to deep breathe because they’re scared that breathing from their belly will make them look fat. (Really.)
It’s actually really easy to tell. Place one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest. Now, breathe deeply while watching your hands. If you shallow breathe, you’ll see the hand on your stomach not moving while the hand on your chest will be moving. If you’re deep breathing, you’ll see the hand on your stomach move first, and then the hand on your chest will move when you inhale. When you exhale, you’ll see your chest move first, and then your stomach, sort of in a wave.
If you find you’re shallow breathing, just focus on breathing into your belly and making the hand on your stomach move. It might take some practice if you’ve spent your whole life breathing in a different way, but at least during mindfulness meditation, you should focus on deep breathing. (Deep breathing can also help when you’re feeling anxious.)
Deep breathing is important during mindfulness meditation as for much of it, you focus on the breath; that’s why it’s skill #1. Without deep breathing, I’m not sure you would have much of a mindfulness meditation practice.
Next up is Mindfulness Meditation Skill #2 – The Body Scan.
Natasha Tracy is an award-winning writer, speaker, advocate, and consultant from the Pacific Northwest. She has been living with bipolar disorder for 26 years and has written more than 2000 articles on the subject.
Find more of Natasha’s work in her acclaimed book: "Lost Marbles: Insights into My Life with Depression & Bipolar" on Amazon.
Connect with Natasha at the social media links below.
Shopping for someone with a mental illness can feel tricky—you want a gift that actually helps, not just more clutter. This guide walks you through 15 thoughtful, low-pressure mental health gifts that offer real comfort, reduce stress, and say, “I see you and I’m here,” during the holidays and all year.
After 24 of 30 TMS sessions with no meaningful improvement, I wrote the guide I needed: why failed treatment hurts, how to get through the next 72 hours, and what to ask your clinician now.
Does TMS cause headaches or migraines? Yes, sometimes. This first-person guide explains the pain, how to tell TMS headache from migraine, and the relief tactics—dose ramping, coil adjustments, and other techniques—that helped me keep going.
Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to get the latest from Bipolar Burble, Breaking Bipolar, my vlogs at bpHope, my masterclasses, and other useful tidbits -- plus get a FREE eBook on coping skills.
To paraphrase an old ad, I’m not just a professional, I’m also a client. These illnesses (Biploar 2 for me) have their costs to be certain, but also some rather valuable benefits. None of the more common mental illnesses is likely to offer only a downside: if so, they’d have become far less common by now. Evolutionary theory, and research results trickling in as folks start to look for such, indicate that there are often strengths associated with these illnesses. For example, recent results suggest that ADHD provides better peripheral vision.
No reason to feel defective, really: everything in life is a mixed bag, with costs and benefits. Why would mental illnesses be an exception? My experience and that of my many patients over many years all indicate that we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t try to make a bad situation better with whatever mix of the available treatments that work best for each individual. Also, we can trim the costs of our illnesses considerably without necessarily forgoing the benefits of the unusual characteristics we possess, that society has tended to frame purely as disease the last century or so. In any case, we each owe it to ourselves to make sure that every treatment we accept offers more benefit than cost. We deserve it, one and all, and are completely reasonable to demand it.
Thanks, Natsha, for this important piece. When I attended Harvard Medical School ages ago (early 90’s), Dr Herbert Benson (author of the Relaxation Response) gave a lecture early in Year One. He taught us about meditation and his research on its benefits, and he taught us a little bit about practicing it. Part of the purpose may have been so that future docs might have another useful tool in their kit, but I imagine Dr. Benson knew well how few in the room would ever do so. The main purpose was to help a group of extremely stressed and fatigued people take better care of themselves and thus more likely survive for the duration. I have practiced it now and again ever since, and rare duck that I am, I have also taught many patients. I couldn’t say how many of them made use of it, but they appreciated the respect such teaching shows. I sell it as an intervention that benefits you even when you’re rather bad at it. You can do it anywhere, any time, and potentially without anyone around you noticing, you need no one’s permission or any appointment, so you gain significant power and autonomy over over your onw well being. Again, thanks.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for your comment. It’s great to see professionals floating around here. I appreciate your input to the discussion and I really appreciate your teaching your patients different techniques for managing their illness. You’re right, people might not make use of it, but it can’t hurt to spread the knowledge. At least, that’s why I do what I do.
– Natasha Tracy
I have used deep breathing, and other breathing exercises to avoid anxiety – to also regulate heartbeat. Like most techniques I find it most effective during the onset of an episode.
I am an inveterate skeptic of any and all “alternative” therapies. I would probably not take the mindfulness class because of that — and because I have an innate instinct to reject what I’m told to do. (I have to learn it for myself.) However, I have been deep breathing ever since it was explained to me in a dog training book, of all places!! The idea is that the dog picks up on your own confidence, calmness, etc. and probably won’t understand what you mean for him to do if you’re not in that state of quiet alertness and focus. Deep breathing does that. Once I discovered this works for dog training, I started doing it whenever I felt anxious (or in a panic attack) and it helped a lot then too. Now I do it all the time, and I’m a true believer. Thanks for this series!