Here’s a question you may be asking yourself: How do I develop a stronger mindset when I’m upset, angry, or stressed out? It’s a great question. And in today’s episode of the Winning Mindset Mastery Podcast, April answers it for you. You’ll be surprised at how simple her answer is and how little of your time it takes up. It’s so simple, you may not believe it can actually work. But it does. It quickly calms your emotions, your nervous system, your body. It puts you in a much better place to engage your logical mind and start to reframe what’s happening.
—
Listen to the podcast here
An Amazingly Quick And Easy Way To Calm Yourself
A question I just got asked was, “April, how do I get myself into a place of having a winning mindset when I’m upset about something, I am stressed, I’m angry, and I don’t have the luxury of focusing on something else or going to another place because I’ve got to deal with this head on right now?” That is an amazing question. The answer to that is a really simple exercise that you can do in a very small amount of time. It is one that I did not believe in for years and years.
Breathing Techniques: How do you get yourself into a place of having a winning mindset?
When I was younger and I would get upset or I would have some kind of issue, how often has this happened to you, where someone says just breathe? You’re like, “I don’t have time for this breathing nonsense. I’ve got to solve these issues.” I’ll tell you, it actually works. The way that your body is pulling in and exhaling oxygen has an effect on your emotions, your nervous system, and all of your body. You can use that to take yourself to another place. For years, I was like, “Sure, you can.” I felt about it the same way I did when I was in my early 20s drinking water, “It’s a good thing,” but I didn’t pay attention to it until I started drinking a lot of water and noticed how much better I felt and, conversely, how much worse I felt when I was dehydrated.
The way that your body is pulling in and exhaling oxygen has an effect on your emotions, your nervous system, and all of your body. Share on XThis breathing exercise and recommendation is the same thing. I underestimated how powerful it was until I started using it. If you’re like me and you need a little bit of convincing because you’re just not sure about it, I will tell you what changed my mind. I was in an event where they were talking about the benefits of breathing. They talked about all of these other coping mechanisms that we have when we’re highly stressed or we’re upset, anytime we’re looking to calm ourselves down. They named things like exercise, running, having a drink, eating comfort food, and smoking a cigarette, all the things that people in a stressful environment will say, “I need this.”
They pointed out the one thing all of those coping mechanisms have in common that we wouldn’t guess. That is they all regulate your breath. They said, “Guess what? It’s not the substance, the activity, or any of it that is really having the effect on you. It’s that it regulates your breathing.” They challenged us to try it out, and it’s true. It’s an amazing technique if you can think to employ it when you need it the most.
Breathing Techniques: One thing that all coping mechanisms have in common is that they all regulate your breath.
There are lots of breathing techniques that you can do. One of my favorites is called box breathing. It’s very simple. You breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, and then wait four more seconds to take that next breath. You now see the four sides of the box. You repeat it over and over again for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute, maybe two minutes. The longer you do this, the faster I find it works.
There are lots of other breathing techniques too that you can look up online. Find one that works for you and try this out. What’s amazing about it is because it calms you down and because it takes all of those emotional and physical reactions down a notch, you then are in a much better place to engage your logical mind and start to reframe what is going on.
Breathing Techniques: Breathing techniques calm you down because they take all of those emotional and physical reactions down a notch. You are then in a much better place to engage your logical mind and start to reframe what is going on.
I want you to try this out and give me your feedback. You can go to the website at WinningMindsetMasteryPodcast.com. Down at the bottom, you can Ask April a question. Give me your feedback. Tell me how it’s working for you. If you have a better breathing technique, I want to hear it. Let me know how this works for you because it made such an incredible difference for me. Here’s to your success.
