Resilience - Is Easier Than You Think

How do you create emotional stability? And what has this to do with resilience? How can simply breathing enable a better state of personal state operation?

I was a little ball of stress. Sure, I thought I had life sussed and could laugh and relax but what I didn't know was that I was operating at a level of stress that had become familiar and comfortable. Keep that up for much longer and I was going to stress out my whole physical system, physically, mentally and emotionally. And of course, the ripples would spread to my family and friends.

When I first encountered balanced breathing as a way of controlling my mood/hormones/day I was pretty sure that I didn't need to know about it however a little gadget attached to my earlobe, an Emwave, showed me on a laptop that my breathing was too fast and too shallow. It showed me that my Heart Variability Rate was not the best at all! It was time to drop the level I was working at and stabilise my inner balance and 'self-security'.

Breathing in a particular way gives the body coherence. Coherence is not about relaxation, but about inducing a state of calm alertness. To do this Balanced Breathing, the in breath is done to a count of 6 and the out breath to a count of 6. Smoothly in and smoothly out. Any thoughts can float through, as you get back to your counting. Keep it smooth. Maybe even visualise a sine curve and a ball floating down the curve in time with the count for the out breath and up the curve in time with the count on the in breath. That's right. And keep going for five minutes. This will give you four to five hours of inner balance. It's that easy!

But you can do even more than count for 6 in and 6 out for five to ten minutes a day. Research from HeartMath shows that even what you are thinking and feeling whilst doing the balanced breathing can make a greater difference. 'Generating positive emotions facilitates a body-wide shift to a specific, scientifically measurable state.   It is characterised by increased order and harmony in both the psychological (mental or cognitive) process and the physiological (somatic or bodily) process'. So it is nicely researched and supported by science.

That sounds worth doing doesn't it!

As you can see using controlled breathing whilst focusing on a particular emotion creates a distinctly different pattern of heart rate. Then as you can imagine, a pattern of heart rate that is looking like a lovely smooth sine curve is a nicer physiological pattern to be living in. So look at the example of the heart rate when the participant is experiencing appreciation as shown in this example! (I could give you a boring scientific looking graph but this is brighter - there are plenty of examples of proper graphs on the HeartMath website).

Coherence is a state of optimal function. It is a state of order and harmony within a system - our body is a system and it is optimal to have the parts of our body synchronised and communicating.  When we are in this state of coherence we experience greater emotional stability, increased mental clarity and improved cognitive function – we feel better and we perform better. It is to do with the vagal nerve which is really important for our whole mind and body system in it's activation of the sympathetic or parasympathetic responses - how we respond.

When you are in a state of coherence the brain and body perceives order and stability (peace) and as it is not needing to put it’s efforts into vigilance, it leaves room for increased activity in the cortex - the brain. Hey presto!

The ‘smart’ centre is able to do it’s job! 

DHEA is also produced – that useful hormone for vitality, well-being, optimism, resilience and better performance.

Otherwise, out of coherence, the amygdala is activated and the ‘stress’ enables the fight, flight or freeze reaction. The cortex is reduced in activity and the mind/body system is only able to react. Cortisol is the hormone produced here and during stressful times this gets to build up and up. Is it any new news that these modern 21st Century times we are in give us stress constantly with no let up? The to do lists, the constant bombardment of advertising at us, the checking of the social medias, the rushing around, the mortgage, the cat to the vet ..... the list goes on and on. Cortisol is useful when we need to really get a move on but when it is produced for 16 hours a day, it goes on to create harm in the form of health problems.

Research shows that the levels of stress in our world is not going to decrease, rather it is increasing and so we must take steps of our own to be resilient in the face of this stress, and to practise our 'emotional' muscle (ie chose appreciation or gratitude when we can). A response effect is a lot healthier and more useful way to be working with! (Vs a reaction effect).

So when all hell breaks loose, you can try to remember to choose to control your breath and pick and use the emotions you want. I now check in with my breathing regularly during the day. I breathe in for 6 and out for 6 .

And here is a tip - when I started to count, it was nice and even - yay for me! - but I was only even at a count of 3. And trying to count to 6 caused me to get dizzy. So I practised counting to 4, then 5 then eventually, with only a bit of practise 6. (There is no benefit to go beyond a 6 count).

Before I coach a client, I do five to ten minutes of this breathing too - so I am able to be present and calmly alert to anything that person brings to the session.

So creating resilience is rather simple isn't it. And regular practise, like building a good muscle, makes it stronger and more natural. It is also an obvious activity to start doing - it can be done quickly (you can sit in the parked car if you want) and it doesn't involve gadgets or gym memberships - you could even sit on the loo and practise if that helps!

I am a coach who specialises in getting you in tip top resilience which involve other skills and practises. You can reach out to me to learn or refine your skills.

Make smarter decisions, enjoy better relationships, build your emotional window of tolerance and enjoy better long term health with a body in balance. Breathe in balance.

Be the best version of yourself. The ripples spread far.