Welcome to our blog! Keith Carlson has worked as a nurse since 1996. He received an Associate Degree in Nursing from Greenfield Community College in 1996, and a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2001.
Take a Breathing Break
Speaking with a coaching client today, it became apparent to me that sometimes nurses just need to breathe. Just breathe. The breath can be the gateway to a refreshed mind, and sometimes our stress of the moment can be redirected with conscious breathing techniques. It’s not always so simple, but it’s magical when it is.
In the course of a shift or work day, we can get so caught up in the minutiae that we lose sight of the bigger picture. We also lose sight of our own well-being and personal balance amidst the fray.
Nursing’s task-oriented nature does a good job of keeping our noses to the grindstone, but it can also have us unwittingly wearing blinders that keep us from noticing the signs that we’re sinking into stress, overwhelm, irritability, and often a sense of panic.
Breathing is a portable and available tool that is always at your fingertips, so to speak, although many of us (myself included) consistently forget that it’s there for us to use whenever the need arises.
Yes, we all breathe from moment to moment, but during those moments of overwhelm or near panic, do you notice what your breathing is like? Is it deep or shallow? Is it rapid or slow and even? Is it labored or easeful? These are characteristics of the breath that it would behoove you to recognize, notice, and consciously change when necessary.
A Simple Technique
The simplest and easiest technique for conscious breathing is the belly breath. Some of you may already be familiar with it, but it is never a bad thing to review again as a reminder to actually use it!
We all know that the lungs take up a large space in the chest cavity, and the diaphragm separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity. When we breathe high in our chests, we are not expanding the lower lobes of the lungs at all, thus our air exchange (and the ability of breathing to oxygenate and calm us) is compromised.
So, if you place your hand on your belly and breathe in, this is the somatic signal that you need to expand your belly as you inhale. As your belly expands, the diaphragm drops and your lungs are able to expand as the chest cavity expands. This facilitates increased air exchange in the lungs and improved oxygenation for your vital organs and cells that are simply hungry for that air (including your stressed brain!).
While I will not attempt to review the literature here in this brief blog post, plenty has been written about the relaxation response that takes place when an individual engages in conscious breathing of this kind. With more oxygenation and the sense of peace that can be initiated by conscious breathing, you can slow or stop the process of panic and overwhelm that has begun, and bring yourself back to a centered and calm state of mind.
Breathing in this way can be accomplished without the hand on the belly, but the hand can serve as an initial somatic reminder to breathe more fully and deeply. Once you have it down, you can initiate this type of breathing anywhere and any time, and no one but you will know it’s happening! (Try keeping a small stone or other special object in your pocket while at work as a reminder to breathe consciously!)
This is only one of many simple breathing techniques for calming the mind and body. The beauty of this technique is its simplicity, portability, and ease of use in any situation. Try abdominal breathing any time, but try it especially when you’re under stress. It just might be the key to bringing your stress response down a few pegs at a time when you need help the most.
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