How to calm your mind in just a few seconds.

Posted on April 29, 2019 by Ravi Rade, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Anger, fear, frustration. Such negative feelings keep coming to our mind. And they will keep coming. It’s the part of human experience.

Now sometimes these feeling become permanent. Like chiseled on the stone. You might have noticed some feelings from your life are stuck with you forever.

Sometimes these feelings are like writing on sand. They go away in a while. You would notice, you get angry but after a few hours or days, you are ok.

Time helps, as times goes on, we do calm down.

But the problem is…it takes time.

And sometimes, it takes too long and we end up reacting with anger creating damage.

You might have experienced how 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation can help to calm our mind.

But what if we train ourselves so that we can calm down much faster?

In just a few seconds?

Longer, consistent mindfulness meditation is always good. Feel free to join the LinkedIn group, Mindfulness Consistent Practitioners to achieve consistency. You can attend online mindfulness meets hosted by me.

But that takes dedicated time. And during the day to day life, in office, home, with friends and family, we may not have several minutes.

And we can’t do meditation while talking to someone or in the meetings. Can we?

So what can we do in just a few seconds, without anyone noticing it?

The answer is micropractice. It’s called three breath practice.

“Whenever you want to calm yourself down, bring your attention to the present moment, just take three deep breaths. Each breath with a purpose.”

On the first breath, simply bring attention to the sensation of the breath. This helps to change the focus from tense emotions to that pure part of yourself, the breath.

Let’s practice. Go back in time and think of a moment when you got angry. Think of the situation. See yourself in that situation.

Now notice, how was your breathing pattern? Something was different than normal. As soon as we get angry or fearful, our breathing pattern changes.

So the first step is simply to bring attention to the change of breathing pattern and then change the pattern to normal breathing.

Now here is your regular, consistent meditation practice will come handy. If you practice every day, you will know what your calm breathing pattern is. And since you know it, it becomes easier to bring yourself to that stage. Making a point again, everyday regular mindfulness practice is important.

So let’s try it. Pretend that you are angry, breath like you are angry and then take a calm deep breath. And see what happens.

Give it a try.

Now the second step. Second Breath.

Let’s consider, what are emotions? Emotions are physiological sensations in our body. Something happens somewhere in our body when emotion comes up.

For example, if you are angry, maybe your fist get tighter, hand muscles get tighter, the heart starts pumping faster. You sense heat in your head. You might clench your teeth, stretch your face. Probably the whole body feels tense.

So to counter our strong emotions, a simple solution is to relax your body.

So when you take a second breath, simply relax your body. Let go of all the tension. Relax your hands, relax your shoulders, relax your jaw, relax your entire body.

Imagine yourself like melting ice cream.

And on third breath, simply ask yourself a question.

What is important now? Focus on ‘now". There are always several important things. But ask yourself. What is important ’now’. In this present moment.

For example, in the workplace, somebody has agitated you. Ask yourself. What is important “now”. Getting even with that person or getting work done? Of course, it could be important to get even with that person. Of course, it could be important to teach that person a lesson. But can that be done later, after giving it a thought?

What is important “now”?

Asking this question quickly focuses our mind, usually something to positive, useful, constructive.

So let’s try this together. It takes only 10 to 15 seconds.

Imagine a situation when you felt triggered and see how you could use this three breath practice. Go back to the time when you were angry. Bring the thoughts, emotions, body sensations, the breathing pattern of anger.

Now take a first deep breath. Noticing the breath, changing the breathing pattern to calmer breath.

Now take a second deep breath. Relax your body. Let all tension go. Let it melt like ice cream on a hot sunny day.

Now take a third deep breath. Ask yourself a question. What is important now?

Changing focus is the key to the mansion of a happy life. And if you want to stay in that mansion, all you have to do it keep the focus on those positive, useful, constructive thoughts.

Our strong mental muscles for focused concentration to be used here. How do we make our mental muscles stronger? By mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness audio: To complement this article, I have created accompanying guided mindfulness audio. So anytime you want to learn to notice your breathing pattern, simply put on that audio using a headset, let your mind and brain work to learn how to become calm in just a few seconds.

If you would like to get mp3 version of that audio, contact me and I will send that audio to you.