Balance continues to elude me. My private practice became busier than usual in the weeks before Passover, when my personal life also requires more of my time, so there was no time for writing and this blog was neglected. Not only that, but it also complicated my attempts to get back on track with my efforts to add exercise to my balancing act. I had successfully moved past the obstacles I wrote about last month and was back to meditating every day and exercising 4 times per week. That lasted two weeks and then I got so preoccupied with work and family obligations that it fell apart again. I am back on track with the meditation but the exercise is still a challenge.
I returned to Kelly McGonigal’s book, The Willpower Instinct, for additional inspiration. She mentions that daily breath focus meditation can teach the mind how to handle inner distractions, such as cravings, worries and desires, as well as outer distractions, such as sights, sounds and smells.
I realized that I had gotten away from basics in my meditation practice. I have been focusing more on guided compassion and reflection meditations, and wasn’t taking time to focus on the breath. So I am getting back to basics.
Kelly McGonigal also describes the benefits of slowing down our breathing to 4-6 breaths per minute, 10-15 seconds per breath. Slower breathing improves heart rate variability (the moment-to-moment and beat-to-beat variations in heart rate) and activates the pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain involved in self-regulation). This helps shift the brain from stress mode to self-control mode. According to McGonigal, a few minutes of slowed breathing can give the willpower reserve a boost, helping us to feel “calm, in control and capable of handling cravings or challenges.”
Here are the steps Kelly McGonigal describes in her book:
- Time yourself to see how many breaths you normally take in a minute.
- Begin to slow down your breathing, without holding your breath.
- Focus on exhaling slowly by pursing your lips and blowing out gently and completely. Exhaling in this way will also enable you to breathe in more deeply.
- After a few minutes of breathing this way, time yourself again to see how many breaths you are now taking in a minute. Heart rate variability starts to increase once you get below 12 breaths per minute and continues to improve steadily as your breathing gets slower.
- Daily practice will help you to slow down your breathing even more, which will maximize heart rate variability, pre-frontal cortex activation and the ability to handle self-control challenges.
My plan is to start my mornings with a form of breath meditation that focuses on lengthening the breath, to help me choose to exercise. The initial results are promising. On the first morning I did the breath meditation I not only went to the gym, but I also chose a healthier breakfast than I felt like eating and resisted the urge to procrastinate. The next day I exercised again and had other similar improvements.I will keep you posted and let you know how it works out. 🙂
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You also might be interested in reading:
A Willpower Tug-of-War Between Different Parts of Self for more about “The Willpower Instinct.”
What is an Interoceptive Body Scan Meditation? for more about heart rate variability.