NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� A simple, uncommon ritual starts each staff meeting at Myosin Marketing. When everyone is gathered , and before they get to the meat of the agenda, CEO Sean Clayton leads his team through .
The practice sets the tone for the meeting, and helps his employees, most of whom , to feel safe, grounded and willing to take creative risks, he said.
鈥淎t first they thought it was really weird, like, 鈥榃hat are we doing?鈥欌�� Clayton said. 鈥淭here were a lot of cameras off and I鈥檓 sure a lot of people were like, 鈥楾his is awkward.鈥�" But after a couple of weeks, there was a shift. Employees of the Austin, Texas company were saying, 'This feels good,鈥欌�� he said.
Deep breathing can be an effective way to , studies show. But , many people don鈥檛 think about how they鈥檙e inhaling and exhaling.
Desk workers sitting a computer tend to take shallow breaths as their shoulders creep up. Workers who spend the day on their feet or health care may be too busy to focus on breathing.
But there's good reason to remember to pause to take deep breaths. Chronic, unmanaged stress, which increases the risk of heart disease , can be as harmful to our health as secondhand smoke, according to the American Heart Association. deep-breathing exercises can lower a person's blood pressure and .
Other benefits: deep breathing is free, can be done anywhere and doesn't require taking a half-hour to . Spending just a minute or two breathing deeply can help calm racing thoughts, experts say.
鈥淚t relaxes my mind. It makes my mind so full of ease,鈥� Lisa Marie Deleveaux, a marketing professional and mother of five, said. 鈥淚t brings you back to the present moment.鈥�
Deleveaux was laid off several months ago and has struggled to find a new job. She wakes most mornings at 4 or 5 a.m., before the children, to do breathing exercises. One is a technique known as alternate nostril breathing, a yoga exercise that involves inhaling through one nostril and out through another, using a thumb or forefinger to hold one nostril closed at a time.
鈥淚f you set a priority for yourself ... you can make the time,鈥� Deleveaux said.
Focusing on breathing for one to five minutes "can help you clear the slate and wipe all these things out of your mind...and allow you to get back to focusing on the one thing you want to accomplish,鈥� said cardiologist Glenn Levine, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. 鈥淭he best analogy is turning your computer off when you have 37 programs (open) and it freezes.鈥�
A good way to do deep breathing exercises is while sitting on a bench outside, Levine said. If that鈥檚 not an option, doing it at a desk works.
鈥淓ither turn off your screen or just put something blank on the screen so people think you鈥檙e still working," Levine said. 鈥淚nstead of focusing on the screen or work, just focus on your breathing. If possible, close your eyes.鈥�
There are other ways to fit in breathing exercises. To get ahead of anxiety before starting a day of cold calls, sales development representative Lindsay Carlisle does breathing exercises with her 7-year-old daughter during the drive to school. They breathe in for seven counts, hold their breath for five, breathe out for seven counts, and then repeat the cycle several times.
鈥淭hroughout that process, my shoulders start to drop on their own, and it really is calming,鈥� Carlisle, who lives in Flint, Michigan, said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not a yoga instructor. I don鈥檛 know what I鈥檓 doing, but it works.鈥�
Suze Yalof Schwartz was an overworked fashion editor when her mother-in-law taught her a three-minute meditation technique that she says changed her life. She gave up her fashion career and founded Unplug Meditation, a Santa Monica, California, company with a meditation studio, an app and programs for corporate clients.
鈥淲hen we slow down our breath, we send a signal to our brain that everything鈥檚 OK, even when it鈥檚 not," she said.
A 16-second breathing technique she's taught to firefighters, police officers, doctors and others is called the box breathing technique. You breathe in for four counts, hold for four, breathe out for four counts and hold for four.
鈥淚t is the best thing that you can do at work before you have a meeting, before you send out an email that you wish you didn鈥檛 send, before you have a difficult conversation, because it just calms you down, gets rid of your negative energy," Yalof Schwartz said.
Employers such as , Mattel and Netflix have hired Unplug Meditation to teach breathing or meditation.
It's for workers to find space for deep breathing exercises. For example, in retail jobs, workers often mix with customers. Yalof Schwartz recommends doing breathing exercises when ringing up a sale or folding clothes. You can also take a deep breath right before walking through a door.
Office workers can set a timer on their phones to remind themselves to breathe deeply. That's what Carlisle, the sales representative, does. She also keeps a Post-it note on her monitor that says 鈥淏reathe.鈥�
鈥淭he anxiety is always going to be there,鈥� Carlisle said. 鈥淏ut at least I know I have one small tool. ... It sounds so simple and silly, but it works.鈥�
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Cathy Bussewitz, The Associated Press
