How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

DO SOME DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING
I mentioned the calming effects of breathing in 
Chapter 6
as part of the “mindful
pause” advice when you’re overloaded, and in 
Chapter 9
 on the “step back and
reset” technique to help you manage your reactions to a tense conversation. Why
does it keep coming up?
One reason is that when we’re under stress, the tangible shift that’s often
easiest to spot in ourselves is that our breathing becomes shallower and faster. If
you notice this happening in the middle of a difficult meeting, it’s a good sign
that you’re on high alert. And breathing is one of those mind-body loops where
there’s a two-way street between our physical state and our state of mind.
Countless studies suggest that when we make our breathing more relaxed—
deeper and slower, taking in plenty of air each time—our body seems to take
that as a signal that the threat has passed.
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Stress hormone levels drop, restoring
an ability to think more constructively. Ninety seconds of deeper, slower
breathing can be enough to start easing us out of defensive mode.
I’d like to add some extra advice here on technique, though, because there’s a
particular type of breathing that most effectively sparks this soothing change in
your neuroendocrine system. It’s known by some as “diaphragmatic breathing”;
others simply call it “belly breathing.” It involves opening up your lungs to their
fullest capacity by sticking out your belly. Well, technically it means lowering
your diaphragm, but that’s a hard instruction to follow; what’s easy to remember
is to take a breath that’s deep enough to inflate your mid-section.
Nayan, the bank CFO we met in 
Chapter 12
, finds this kind of breathing helps
him handle even his worst days. And he’s had plenty of tough ones. During the
last financial crisis, he worked with several institutions to help keep them
solvent, and Nayan told me “there was a point where there were ‘oh my gosh’
moments every single day, mentally and emotionally. The issues we were
uncovering were so complex, much worse than I’d realized. The number of
hours I was working, the intellectual challenge of figuring out what to do—it
was immense.” To get through this period, he used pretty much all the tools I’ve
discussed in this book, but one that he used every single day was his

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diaphragmatic breathing technique. He says: “My team asked me how I was
keeping so calm in the face of everything,” he says. “So I showed them what I
did. I told them first to tune in to hearing their own breath, and then to start
breathing slowly and deeply. I told them that if they could also close their eyes
and relax their body, starting from toes upward, without trying to control their
thoughts, they were basically doing a simple mindfulness exercise. And you can
do the breathing part of it on a train, in a conference room, wherever.”
My work rarely involves the kind of drama that Nayan was experiencing. But
like him, I use the belly breathing technique almost every day, since I’ve found it
keeps me serene when I’m facing travel delays or overcrowded streets. (And for
those of you concerned about looking less than svelte as you fill your lungs: if
you sit or stand up straighter so that you lengthen your torso as you breathe in,
I’ve found that nobody can see you doing it.) It so quickly neutralizes irritation
that I can’t help wondering whether there should be billboards suggesting people
try it before getting into their cars or onto mass transit. Meanwhile, I hope it
improves your own commute.