How to Breathe!

Learning to become mindful about how you breathe is essential to mastering stress.  Unless you are a vocalist or public speaker, you may not have learned how to breathe in a stress reducing manner.  When you breathe with shallow, chest focused breaths, you may be even increasing your anxiety and feelings of stress. When you breathe correctly, using your diaphragm, you will find that your feelings of anxiety and stress are reduced.   It does take practice to learn how to breathe correctly. In this article, I’ll take you through the first steps in learning how to breathe from the diaphragm.  After you’ve mastered the first steps, in my next article I’ll give pointers and next steps on how to become your own expert in deep, mindful breathing to reduce stress.

You have probably heard about mindfulness – a stress reduction intervention that includes diaphragmatic breathing.   Researchers studying mindfulness, including mindful diaphragmatic breathing techniques, are finding positive results for people struggling with stress, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, pain, depression and other diagnosis.  Even if you are not diagnosed with a condition but struggle with managing stressors in your life, mindfulness and diaphragmatic breathing can help you cope and master your stress.

Your first step in learning diaphragmatic breathing is to choose a time and place where you will not be interrupted by noise, people or circumstances.

Next, you will need to find a place where you can lie down on your back. If your disability prohibits you from doing this, position your body in the most relaxing open posture you are able.

When lying down on the floor on a rug or blanket, take on a “dead body” pose – legs straight, relaxed, slightly apart, toes pointed outward, arms at your side, not touching your body, palms up and eyes closed.

Focus attention on your breathing – place your hand on the spot just beneath your rib cage. Note where your body rises when you breathe. If your are breathing from your chest, make note and see if you can instead breathe from below your rib cage.  Scan your body for tension -  your chest, abdomen, throat and neck.

 Begin Deep Breathing.

Draw your legs up so that your knees are bent in a way that is comfortable to you. Your toes should be turned outward.

Scan your body for stress/tension.

Place one had on your abdomen and one had on your chest.

Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose into your abdomen.  The hand on your abdomen should rise as you inhale. Your chest should move very little.

Exhale through your mouth, making a quiet, whooshing sound.   Relax your mouth, tongue and jaw.  Take long, slow deep breaths, focusing on your hand rising on your abdomen (focus just below your rib cage) with each inhaling breath and lowering with each exhale.  Focus on the sound and feeling of your breathing.  Do this 5 minutes at a time to begin with.  As you become more comfortable and familiar with mindfulness breathing, increase your time to 10 minutes or longer.

At the end of each breathing session, scan your body for tension.  Compare your feelings of stress and tension at the end of your session compared to when you began. Journal your progress.  Practice these steps for as long as it takes to master.  You will know you have mastered diaphragmatic breathing lying down -  when your chest rises very little and your abdomen rises most. Your diaphragm is then doing the work it should be doing!

After practice, remain in position, let go of your focus and concentration, relax and congratulate yourself for a job well done.

On Forgiveness

Have you ever considered that forgiveness can be good for your health? One of the biggest health advantages to forgiveness is the lowering of your stress cortisol levels (Luskin, Forgive for Good, 2003 ISBN-10: 006251721X).  When you release the anxiety, anger, and distress with the purposeful act of forgiveness, you help decrease stress hormones in your body. In order to get a better grasp of how to forgive, you may need to re-think your beliefs about forgiveness.

1. Some people mistakenly believe that forgiveness is giving power to the other person. They may think that forgiveness somehow negates the wrong.  But think about it; this may not be the case in many situations. When you are victimized by a person who harmed you or a loved one, stole from you, or in some way, hurt you physically or psychologically, his/her deed or deeds might still be very wrong. The deed or deeds may have occurred without the intent to hurt or with the intent to hurt you.  So forgiveness doesn’t somehow negate the wrong. Instead, forgiveness actually empowers you to feel better both emotionally and physically.

2. Your act of forgiveness is based on your intent and the will to forgive.  You cannot forgive unless you give yourself a place of power.  What is this power? It’s the will and intent to let go of what someone has done or not done to you.  It’s an opportunity, actually, to give yourself new freedom and to no longer be tethered emotionally and psychologically to your hurt and anger.

3. Once you forgive, is the forgiveness permanent?  What’s the difference between saying you forgive and really forgiving? That’s up to you.  If you ask anyone who has had success in giving forgiveness, they will most often tell you that it was a process and that there are times when the hurt re-surfaces and you have to willfully forgive again and let it go. 

4. When you forgive over something or someone who has had a hold on your sense of wellbeing for some time, you might feel better; you might not for a while.  Remember that in many situations, forgiveness is a process, not a one-time event and you will most likely feel better each time you make the effort to forgive.  Time is a great healer; remember that your intent and will to forgive will eventually catch up with your hurt feelings and you will feel better, both emotionally and physically. 

When You are Bullied at Work

Did you know that when you are bullied at work, it might feel very much to you like the experience of a domestic violence victim? The bully (abuser) inflicts suffering and fear whenever he/she chooses.  This random targeting, keeps the victim off balance, creating a coping mechanism of hyper vigilance accompanied by fear. The bully carries out this workplace violence on a whim, at times appearing to offer support and safety.  The target (victim) of the bullying is by nature of the relationship, forced to remain close – boss to subordinate, co-worker to co-worker.

 
This repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators may take on one or more of the following forms:

• Verbal abuse

• Offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating

• Work interference — sabotage — which prevents work from getting done

“Bullying” has also been defined as repeated behavior from superiors, subordinates or peers that is intended to demean, humiliate or intimidate an individual. It is a way to make the workplace so intolerable that it may force an employee to quit. 

If the bullying is done by a group, it is called “Mobbing.” According to studies by The Workplace Bullying Institute, an estimated 53.5 million employees, or approximately 35% of the U.S. workforce, have experienced bullying. A different study released by the Employment Law Alliance and recently reported in the Wall Street Journal found that 45% of respondents had been bullied at the office (examples consisted of verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority, and deliberate destruction of relationships.)
 

The consequences of bullying are far-reaching. Although it occurs four times more often than illegal discrimination, workers are often too afraid to report the incidents. 

•  If you are the victim, you may suffer from depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, post-traumatic stress syndrome and loss of productivity.

• The responsible organization, management and supervisors experience a decrease in staff morale, profits, quality of work, and reputation.

• The responsible organization may also experience an increase in employee turnover, absenteeism, and increased workers compensation claims, including claims for stress-related disability.

What can you do if you are a victim of bullying?  Here are 5 things you can do, based on experts recommendations: 

- Document what happens to you, and when. It is important to know who has witnessed these events. Keep this journal at home, and not on work equipment or premises.

- Seek legal counsel to see if the mental or verbal harassment is actionable under the law, even if it may not constitute illegal discrimination under Title VII. Get a strategic plan in place with your attorney and put it into action;

- Consider using your company’s internal grievance system, anti-violence policy, code of conduct or ethics hotline; if you are a union member, seek out support from your union representative. 

- Get psychological counseling to help you with coping strategies and possible medical treatments and time off/leave to fortify you against the abuse; and
- Realize that you have done nothing to justify this type of abuse

And what are some of the first things you can do, if you find yourself a victim of workplace bullying?  Learn about workplace bullying, get help identifying the triggers that contribute to your stress, and find ways to feel empowered, not victimized. If the bullying is keeping you from enjoying your work, your relationships and your life, get psychological help to get you back on track.  Here are some links to websites that might help.

http://www.workplacebullying.org/2013/02/07/consequences/
http://www.bgsu.edu/downloads/hr/file50881.pdf
http://www.apaexcellence.org/resources/goodcompany/newsletter/article/311
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/225955.php

Short Memory, Long Memory

Do you find sometimes that you have a ‘short memory’ for the really good things that have happened in your life – and a longer memory for the not so happy times? 

There have actually been scientific studies that help explain this  - that much or our memory for the ‘bad times’ is neurologically based. Boston College psychologist Elizabeth Kensinger and her colleagues published a study in 2007 that showed how this phenomenon occurs.  The outcomes of her research showed that when the remembered event was aversive, the negative events were remembered in much greater detail and with more accuracy than for positive, pleasurable events (for example, September 11 terrorists attacks).

In the study, the use of  Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), studies  demonstrated increased cellular activity in emotion-processing regions of the brain at the time that a negative event was experienced.

Kensinger  suggests that recognizing the effects of remembering a negative event at much greater detail and accuracy may at some point protect us from harm - by guiding our choices and allowing us to plan for similar future (negative) events.  This is especially true if we consider an evolutionary framework, where attention to potentially threatening information was key to survival.

What negative, frightening or threatening memories do you have?   And to counter those memories, what positive, supportive and good memories do you keep?  If you are struggling with the negative, use these scientific findings to give yourself a break! Acknowledge the negative, the details, the specifics and realize that they present themselves to you with more clarity because your brain is doing what it knows to do!  And ask for help –  seek out therapy -  if your memories are keeping your from experiencing joy in your life and your relationships.