#058 - Use Breathing to Help You Get into the Writing Zone

Hey, friends, this is Shelly Hitz, the owner and founder of ChristianBookAcademy.com and in this episode, I wanted to talk about how we can use breathing to help us get into the writing zone. If you attended our recent Zoom call, it was 15 minute writer group writing session, then you heard about this. But I just wanted to mention it here as well. And research has shown over and over and over again that our breathing, and depending on how we breathe it, can change things in our body and even calm us. It can decrease the stress hormones in our body. And this is amazing. It's the way God created our bodies. I just, it really just blows my mind that God created our breath in such a way that we can use that breath to get into a calm place, to hear his voice more clearly, to get into that writing zone or whatever it is that you need to. Maybe you just need to calm yourself for your family, right?

But the breathing exercise that I use almost every day is a very simple one. You just breathe in.

And breathe out longer than you breathe in. So what I typically do is I'll breathe in for four counts through my nose and I'll breathe out for seven counts through my mouth. And this is something that you can actually like, make it audible when you're breathing out, like make a noise. And I like to try to breathe through my diaphragm. So you can put your hand on your stomach, feel your stomach expand, and then just breathe in.

For four and then breathe out.

For seven.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

One more time, breathe in.

And breathe out.

I like to do this at least three breaths. And what it does is it really helps you to focus first of all on the present moment. You're breathing. Instead of thinking about the future or dwelling on the past, you enter the present moment. And the present moment is where the presence of God is right. And so we can just.

Center ourselves, calm ourselves, bring ourselves back to the present moment with our breath. Like I said, breathing out longer than you breathe in helps to decrease the cortisol, which is the stress hormone in your body. It is a way to ground yourself, to calm yourself. And so I just recommend whether you're working on writing your first draft or you're editing or you're working on publishing tasks or marketing, just remember to take a few deep breaths, breathe out longer than you breathe in. And I really think you're going to feel a difference. Like Even on our 15 minute writer call, I ask people, like, how do you feel after those three breaths? And people are like, oh, I feel relaxed. I feel more calm. You know, I feel a difference. And so it. It's true. I mean, like I said, God created our bodies to be able to do this through our breathing. I also use a free app. I mean, you can upgrade to it. I use the free part portion of it. It's called Breath Work. B R E A T H W R K. So without the O, breath Work. And I use their calm setting. So the calm setting is basically what I just taught you, but instead of having to think about it, you just press a button and then it does it for you. So you can do it for one minute, you can do it for three minutes, and that's the one I use almost every day. But anyways, I hope that this was helpful and I hope that you start using breathing to help you to calm your nervous system, decrease the cortisol, the stress hormone in your body, but then also to help you get into the writing zone, whether you're doing writing for your book marketing or whatever you're working on. And let me know how it goes. I would love to hear it. I hope that this was helpful for you, and I will talk to you in the next episode.