#16 A Peaceful Pause

Activate Calm - enhance physiological relaxation

Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

Welcome to this month’s edition of A Peaceful Pause. 

A Peaceful Pause is one of my regular monthly offerings for my closed Substack community, along with The Reset.

Each month A Peaceful Pause features a guided audio practice from me. 

There are now a year’s worth of guided meditations in the A Peaceful Pause archive which you can find all in one place here.

If you’re currently a free subscriber, upgrading your subscription will give you access to all my new meditation and yoga practices here as well as my growing archive of all posts. 

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“Deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, soothing physical and emotional stress, and calming both body and mind. Related to this, numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of breathing practices for anxiety, depression, PTSD, asthma and more.” - quote from my book, Rest + Calm

The benefits of slow, controlled deep breathing are widely known. But in the moment (particularly during moments of tension), it can be all too easy to find that your breathing has become shallow and short.

With that in mind, this month’s edition of A Peaceful Pause is a guided practice to encourage you to lengthen your exhalation and help facilitate physiological relaxation.

Among other benefits, the elongated exhale has been shown to improve heart rate variability and to aid the physical symptoms of anxiety.

I invite you to turn to this practice whenever you need it.

Here’s your Activate Calm practice (5mins 40secs):