Ten minutes can change your life

Use this daily breathing exercise to reduce stress and feel calmer

If you want to improve your ability to cultivate calmness, reduce stress, and think clearly, I recommend this daily ten minute mindfulness breathing exercise. It changed my life.

Take10 is a simple breathing exercise from Andy Puddicombe's book, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness. By just focusing on counting your breaths you can gain the benefits of mindfulness meditation.

According to the American Psychological Association, a review of more than 200 scientific studies found that mindfulness-based therapy was especially effective for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression.

Here’s how you perform the Take10 breathing exercise: Set a 10 minute timer, take five deep breaths to prep, and then count each rising and falling breath while you focus on each one. Count 1 with a rise, 2 with a fall, upward to a count of 10. Then start counting from 1 again. Read the helpful instructions here.

When I first read this it sounded too simple. Until I tried it. I then struggled to reach the count of five without my mind also thinking of a pressing thought.

Practice will make you better. After doing this every day for a week I could focus until the count of 10. As I approached the ten minute mark I felt my shoulders and jaw relax, stress melt away, my breath become deeper and shallower, and a pleasurable tingling all over my body. I felt grounded and calm, and was able to better focus.

The beauty of this mindfulness breathing exercise is its simplicity. You don't have to feel guilty or upset for losing focus on your count. Just gently bring your attention back to your breathing and restart, counting your next inhale at 1, exhale at 2, and continuing upwards until 10.

Take10 is flexible. You can do this breathing exercise at home, at the doctor's office, in the car, while waiting in line, on the sidelines at your kid’s activities, on the subway, or in the dark. I know because I've done them all :)

And when you get more comfortable you can increase the duration. I started at 10 minutes. I now do 20 minutes every weekday morning and 30 minutes on weekends.

I used to consider meditation to be intimidating and requiring a lot of preparation. Take10 is not. If you try it, it might change your life. Good luck! You can find the exercise instructions here.

If you'd like to learn more about mindfulness meditation I recommend getting the book The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness. It is an easy and practical introduction to what Andy Puddicombe calls mind-training.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book:

"It's the mind that defines your experience. This is why training the mind is so important. By changing the way in which you see the world, you effectively change the world around you."

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