Mel Robbins describes a five-minute daily breathing exercise: inhale for 3-4 seconds through your nose, hold briefly, exhale slowly, repeat 10-20 times. This trains your mind to shift focus sharply between tasks and stay calm in crises instead of panicking.
The single most important daily ritual I have is that at several times in the day, I rehearse my attentional focus by pacing my breathing. It trains my mind to focus, and it trains me to get ready for that what's around the corner. Because when it arrives, when crisis arrives, this is not when you really want to pull something out of your rusty toolkit. You want to have that sharpened. And why I think that's important is when I can cultivate my attentional power, then that attentional power is useful for other things and I'm able to shift it. Like when I'm driving, I'm like, okay, I'm thinking about my next book. I'm going to listen to some music and rock out a little bit. Then I pull into my office and I deliver attention to this. So I'm sort of like not compartmentalizing, but riding the flows of my day and I'm using my attentional power to take on different projects during the day. Sometimes I'm operating, I'm thinking creatively, I'm reflecting on a difficult personal interaction. And so that simple habit of 5 minutes of doing that, it's like doing push-ups. Doors are easier to open, right? It translates. So that 5 minutes of directing my attention, pacing my breathing, you know, keeps, keeps the reins on where my mind is headed. And that way I can deploy it in a strategic fashion.
So walk me through and walk the listener through. Like, how do we implement this today?
Step 1, try, you know. Step 2, it doesn't have to be some private place because a lot of your crises and a lot of your tension is stolen when things are wild, right? It's not going to be in a yoga studio or in a quiet room. So randomly, at times during the day where you think you're stressed out or about to be stressed out or walking into a stressful situation, start with mildly stressful or start with non-stressful, is to just sort of set a timer in your mind. It could be a song. Like, I like to go for— there's a certain song I use, or it could be a timer on your phone. And just through your nose and through your nose, just try to breathe in for 3, 4 seconds. Hold. Hold for a few seconds and then slowly exhale. And then pause for a second and then do that again and see if you can get 10 of those. See if you get 20 of those. This overlaps with Buddhist meditation, paced breathing, directing— you have to try. You're directing your attention to do this, and just that, you're, you're pulling your attention from something that's been spiraling and driving you crazy. So already you're redirecting your psychological energy to something positive. And so the attentional power is really a skill you can cultivate. People can learn to hold their breath. You can learn to hold your attention.
Oprah Winfrey: How to Find Your Unique Purpose, Authentic Power, and Calling in Life
