Ben Morton explains why knowing about breathing techniques doesn't help without practice. He proposes setting three phone alarms throughout the workday to pause for a 30-second breathing reset using a physiological sigh or deep breaths, turning the technique into an actual habit.
Now, this is where we get super practical. Knowing about these breathing exercises and actually using them when we need them are two very different things. So if you want to close what I call the knowing-doing gap, here's how to do it. Set three alarms on your phone. One for just before you start work, one around lunchtime, and one towards the end of your working day. And label them with something that relates to breathing. Breathe, reset, state, whatever works for you. And when those alarms go off, do the physiological sigh or just take 3 long deep breaths. 30 seconds and you're done. And this isn't about sitting underneath a tree creating a meditation practice. It's about building the habit of pausing before we show up for other people.
