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Just breathe

Do this with me, will you? Wherever you’re sitting right now, settle yourself into your chair and take a breath. I mean really breathe all the way in, so you feel your rib cage expand.

You may feel your shoulders rising—if so, let them drop again. You want to breathe deeply so the movement is lower in your body, down around your midsection, rather than in your upper chest and shoulders.

Now breathe out all the way. Let your lungs empty fully so you have room for the next breath. You might notice the power center in your lower belly kind of turning on as your breathing energizes you.

Used to be, I’d talk about breathing and get eyerolls in response; people thought it was kind of woo-woo. Now everyone from therapists to athletic coaches to doctors are talking about how important it is to breathe well.

When you’re speaking at a conference table, on a Zoom screen, or on a stage, breathing is critical for a couple of reasons.

Your breath and your voice are connected.

When we breathe fully and deeply, our body relaxes. Our voice seems to come from deeper in the body, or at least the energy behind it comes from that deeper place. The sound is richer, fuller, more pleasant—and it has more impact.

When we get nervous, uncomfortable, or rushed and start talking without that deeper breathing, our voice can sound thin or tinny.  We push the sound out from the throat, the resonance is mainly happening in our face, and we can sound high-pitched and even nasal as a result.

If, instead, we feel the whole body relax as we breathe deeply, we find tight areas and release them, and we become more and more present in the moment.

Your breath and your listeners are connected too.

Whether you’re talking to a client or two in the office … the whole team in your conference room … or a huge audience in a hotel ballroom, mirror neurons are at work.

That means your listeners pick up on your behaviors and emotions. A warm tone of voice, a cocked eyebrow, a quick smile—or a smirk. They catch it all, sometimes below the level of their conscious awareness. They just get a feeling from you and about you.

And they may well mirror those feelings. That means if you come across as tense and tight, the people you’re talking with are likely to pick up on that tension and feel some of it too.

States are contagious, and we’re usually better off as communicators when our own state seems comfortable and confident so the people we’re with can feel that way too.

It’s worth developing a deep-breathing habit.

One way to do that is to practice. You might want to take a few minutes to experiment with box breathing.

Breathe out for a count of four, hold for four, breathe in for four, and hold for four. Just relax into that rhythm and play with it for a few minutes.

Some people prefer a longer in-breath and even longer out-breath. So, it might be breathing in for a count of six, hold for four, breathe out for eight, and hold for four.

That kind of practice helps us relax, calm our parasympathetic nervous systems, and over time shift our habitual breathing patterns.  Which in turn influence our speaking patterns.

You might also experiment in your ordinary conversations. Try taking a breath before you speak. Just pause for a fraction of a second to breathe and collect yourself, and then begin to talk.

I’ve been playing around with this; I’ve discovered that if I pause for very long, someone else might jump in and I miss my chance to say whatever was on my mind. But then, sometimes I realize that’s actually okay—it wasn’t that important anyway.

What is important is that I’m fully present, able to talk and, at least as importantly, to listen to these people in this place at this time. I’m here, now.