Breath for Success: Breathing and Workplace Wellness
There’s a reason why industry giants like Goop, Apple, and Nike are focusing on the mental health of their workforce with increasing fervour. To keep up with the demands of daily life in-and-outside of the office, leaders are realizing that mindful practices increase wellbeing, which leads to higher productivity and ultimately, happier people. It’s this exact reason that companies are implementing breathwork into their weekly rituals. As an accessible exercise that most can easily do at their desk, we’re big supporters of this wave in workplace wellness.
Why choose breathwork for mental wellness?
Your breath is your lifeline. It’s that natural reflex that keeps us in a constant state of flow, pumping blood to our hearts and stimulating our brains. So, it only makes sense that controlling it should alter your state of consciousness and physical and mental wellbeing. As babies, we take deep, relaxing breaths from our abdomens. But as we age, the way we breathe tends to change (for the worse) based on our environments. When we’re stressed or alarmed, our bodies operate in “fight, flight, or freeze” mode, and we take short, fast breaths to prepare for danger.
So, if you’re in a prolonged period of stress, you’re doing damage to your overall mental and physical health.
How do you do it?
At a basic level, you start by getting into a comfortable position and beginning to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. The key is to focus only on the breath, and how your body feels and reacts to this practice. This is how breathwork calms the nervous system: by bringing focus to your body, stimulating the relaxation of the parasympathetic nervous system, and allowing all mental stressors to melt away.
How can I practice breathwork at the office?
You don’t need to take a yoga class to get back to your breath. Many companies are actually offering times and spaces in which their employees can take a quick break to meditate. But there are small shifts you can make without these resources. Bill Reilly, marketing director of Apple Pay, said in a Harvard Business Review profile that he took three deep breaths each time he sat down at his desk to help him relax during a busy work day. Eventually, those three breaths turned into several minutes a day, then into a 30-minute meditation session. He found it rebooted his perspective and helped him be a more creative innovator and problem-solver.
Here at ElevenEleven, we’ve implemented a few rituals of our own, which always include a moment of breath to start the day—this can be a morning meditation, 10 minutes of silence, or taking three deep breaths before we touch our phones. Each of these practices reminds us to check in with our breath first and foremost. Before calls with candidates and clients, we schedule a few minutes for breathing so that they always get our best, freshest selves. We also use the Plum Village App, which chimes every two to three hours to remind us to breathe and recenter.
If you’re into tech, you can take a page out of ours or Apple’s book—their headquarters encourage the use of the Breathe app for Apple Watch. There are also apps like Calm and Headspace, which focus on meditation and breath in short periods of time. The reason companies are focusing more and more on incorporating breathwork into their culture is that it leads to less stress—which has been estimated to cost employers $300 billion in missed work and health care.
When you breathe correctly, your cardiopulmonary system supplies your body with the right amount of oxygen, replenishing the brain and other vital organs with essential nutrients. Essentially, breathing helps you control the traffic—keeping what’s good in, and clearing what’s bad out. Since we have implemented meditation and breathwork in our daily routines, our productivity has skyrocketed. So next time you find yourself feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed, take a seat, unplug, and get back to your breath.
The 4-7-8 method is an easy exercise that focuses on relaxing your body and mind:
Close your eyes and take 3 deep cleansing breaths.
To begin, breathe in through the nose for 4 seconds.
Hold the breath for 7 seconds.
Breathe out through the mouth for 8 seconds.
Repeat as necessary, with a minimum of three rounds.
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