Key Messages
How To Maintain A Healthy Balance In Life
The Do Breathe Book provides an informative guide to helping you maintain balance in your life, so that you can both be successful at work and have a healthy private life.
The key to achieving this goal is pretty simple: slowing down and taking some time for yourself.
The book provides sections that teach readers how to cultivate balance through deep breathing, mindful eating, positive thinking, and relaxation techniques.
Taking the time to pause, take a breath, and think about what’s important in life can help reduce stress and create more clarity so you can reach higher levels of fulfillment.
With these steps outlined by the Do Breathe Book, readers will be able to take a step back, relax into themselves, and work their way into a richer, healthier life full of possibility.
Breathing Like A Baby Can Reduce Stress And Increase Focus
We all feel stress in our lives – from missed trains, pinging mobile phones, news headlines, and money worries.
But when it comes to reducing the physical symptoms of stress, many people don’t realize that it can be as simple as controlling and optimizing your breath.
When we’re stressed out, our breathing is rapid and shallow.
That’s a natural response; but what many people don’t realize is that taking more slow, deep breaths actually tricks the body into thinking it’s relaxed – thus reducing cortisol (a hormone released into the bloodstream when we’re stressed) levels in the blood entirely.
It turns out that although many adults have forgotten how to utilize conscious breathing to reduce stress levels – the good news is that all of us were borrn with this ability!
Remember how babies breathe? They take long, deep breaths in through their nose before letting them out slowly again through their nose – which both helps filter the air they’re inhaling and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (which helps promote rest/digestion).
Streamline Your Inputs To Achieve Peak Productivity
The fastest way to boost productivity is simplicity.
It sounds too simple, but it makes sense.
By streamlining and optimizing your workflow, you can reduce mental friction around completing tasks and ultimately increase productivity.
Take a look at the typical ‘productivity hacks‘ out there – bullet journals, desktop calendars, online to-do lists.
These encourage quick organizing and efficiency.
And while organization will eliminate some stress in your life, too many of these inputs can cause information overload that actually hampers productivity.
You don’t need an app or a software program to be productive; sometimes the simplest route is the best one.
Streamline your emails by diverting them all to a single address, switch from paper bank statements to online ones, or mute notifications for any non-essential messages (on either online or physical platforms).
As well as reducing fatigue from having too much coming in at once, streamlining your inputs will make coping with information manageable.
Then move on to creating an offline filing system for key pieces of information you may have trouble keeping track of otherwise.
This could include things like legal or financial documents that may easily fall through the cracks if they’re not marked down somewhere accessible; paper systems are still relevant and useful in this digital age!
To-do lists are equally as important as filing systems when it comes to ensuring nothing is overlooked or forgotten – but make sure each task has clear instructions attached and break each item down into smaller steps so they don’t get overwhelming instead of helpful.
Assign each task a verb so you know exactly what needs doing, add context regarding where/when/how it should be executed, and pin down any essential factors (like paperwork) needed before ticking off an item!
At the end of the day, complexity does not equal productivity – quite the opposite in fact!
The best productivity hack we can recommend for you? Keep things simple.
You’ll thank us later!
Overcome Fear And Reach New Heights With A Growth Mindset
If you want to live the life of your dreams, the first step is to face your fears.
Most of us have irrational fears or anxieties about taking bold leaps in our professional and personal lives.
We focus on the potential outcomes instead of the process, get bogged down by a fear of failure, and then find ourselves stuck because we don’t want to take any risks.
But facing fear is not just for daredevils or superhumans – it’s something that anyone can learn to do.
The key is to shift your mindset from one that keeps you focused on results to one that emphasizes the process and values mistakes as learning opportunities.
To embrace risk and push yourself out of your comfort zone, it helps to set realistic goals with reasonable expectations.
Make sure you set these goals without attaching any expectation of success or failure; with this kind of mindset, even if you don’t achieve what you set out to do, it doesn’t mean the task has failed – it just means that you have had an opportunity to learn something new!
Additionally, try following advice from former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt – do one thing every day that scares you.
Whether it’s turning in a project proposal at work, or finally joining a gym class, small tasks can make a big difference when trying to face fear head-on!
So let go of worrying about failing and embrace the journey – only then will you be able to live the life of your dreams.
The Power Of ‘Now’: How To Live In The Present And Enjoy Life To The Fullest
Learning to live in the moment is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.
You can unlock a new, better version of life when you start to pay attention to and embrace the now.
You don’t need any special skills or materials.
All it takes is for you to open your eyes and really look around; listen, smell and feel what’s going on around you.
As Emily Dickinson wrote, “Forever is composed of nows” – this statement couldn’t ring more true!
Mindfulness helps you focus your energy on engaging with the present rather than letting moments slip past unappreciated.
With mindful thinking comes awareness, acceptance and relaxation when attending to yourself and your surroundings without judgement or worry.
It helps break habits such as dwelling in the past or worrying about the future that can be detrimental to our mental health.
It starts by becoming aware of your senses and learning how to engage with them – Smell that flower, notice its colour, feel its petals on your skin as you brush against it, experience its scent fully before walking away; Savor each delicious bite as you eat that slice of cake; Feel a wonderful warmth after taking a sip of tea… The list goes on!
Once your sense-awareness has been activated, open up to acceptance: Embrace whatever thoughts and feelings come up but don’t judge them or attach them too long.
Then make informed decisions based on what your senses tell you about the situation at hand before finally responding accordingly.
Learning how to live in such moments gives us many small chances throughout life for joyous experiences if we just take the time to appreciate them.
So today, why not make every moment count?
Take Care Of Your Energy Reserves And Make Relaxation A Priority For Mental Clarity
The connection between mental clarity and physical health is clear – one cannot go without the other.
Our body’s energy reserves are precious and need to be conserved, but we often take them for granted.
Instead of taking the time we need to truly build up our energy reserves and recharge, we push ourselves far beyond our limits with little thought of the consequences.
We reach for unhealthy sugary snacks or drinks to stay alert over long periods of time, or run on little sleep until exhaustion crashes down around us.
If you find yourself constantly feeling mentally foggy or exhausted, it pays to take a closer look at your physical health as well.
Is your diet heavy in refined sugars or delicate carbohydrates? Healthy brain foods such as wholegrains release energy slowly into your bloodstream, helping to sustain that alertness for longer periods of time.
Eating fish and blueberries are also great sources of nutrition for enhanced brain function.
It goes without saying that getting enough rest is essential too.
Without proper rest our physical and mental energy can be quickly depleted.
While there may not always be time during work hours for a power nap, catching one when you have some free time is still beneficial – famously so according to Winston Churchill!
Don’t merely rely on coffee or sugar as your only source of “energy” – nourish both body and mind with food that keep you functioning well throughout the day.
How To Refine Your Powers Of Attention And Boost Productivity
It’s true – mental focus is a skill that you can hone.
Think of focusing as a muscle – your power to concentrate and to stay concentrated on one single task until it is completed develops the more you exercise it.
Luckily, there are many different ways that you can treat your mind to regular ‘focus workouts.’ One way is to use time-management tools like the Pomodoro Technique, which was developed by entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo and involves short bursts of 25 minutes of work with 5 minute breaks in between.
This technique helps us stay focused on tasks for shorter intervals and makes it easier to avoid distractions.
In addition to this time management strategem, yoga meditation exercises can also help with trying to develop deeper, long-term focus.
Neuroscientists have recently proved that meditation definitely helps people concentrate better, pay attention longer and ignore distractions better.
Unlocking Flow For Optimal Creative Experiences
If you want to tap into the intense creative power of flow, you have to seek out your own struggle first.
This requires getting yourself out of your comfort zone and actively engaging with difficult tasks.
Making a conscious effort to do this can lead to a feeling of accomplishment and self-confidence, which precedes releasing yourself from the stress and pressure of struggling with the task at hand.
Once you’ve pushed yourself past the limits of your comfort zone and worked through your struggles, it’s essential that you put in the work to let go.
Deep breathing or mindful thought can be helpful here for calming down enough to enter those peak states of flow.
When done together, these steps allow you to achieve what Csíkszentmihályi has called an autotelic experience – one where people feel immersed in creativity without worrying about any specific outcomes other than just achieving them in themselves.
How To Break Bad Habits And Establish Good Ones: A Look At The Habit Loop
Breaking bad habits doesn’t have to be as daunting as you might think.
In fact, it helps to understand the concept of the habit loop and how it works in order for us to break out of our autopilot pattern.
The habit loop consists of a cue that triggers your brain into action, followed by the routine (or habit) itself; then ends with a reward or the satisfaction that your routine brings.
By identifying the cue and reward involved in our habitual behavior, we can begin to make changes that could help break these bad habits.
For instance, if you check your phone first thing in the morning out of boredom, rather than automatically reaching for your phone try keeping a book nearby instead and read a few pages before getting up–this way you can still get a positive reward from taking a break from work while avoiding mindless scrolling on social media.
Or if you eat chocolate every afternoon in the break-room, it may not necessarily be about eating chocolate (the routine) but rather enjoying a break and having an opportunity to socialize with colleagues (the reward).
So maybe keep other snacks close such as fruits instead, or take quick walk around office or stop by someone’s desk for quick chat–you might even find it more refreshing!
Wrap Up
The final message of the “Do Breathe” book is that life can be challenging, but we have within us the capacity to remain in control and find our own inner peace.
The actionable advice of this book lays out simple steps which anyone can take to instantly improve their outlook on life: By taking purposeful breaths, getting into a power pose, and focusing on mindfulness.
These strategies work because they access something that lies at the core of all human experience – our breath.
Taking mindful breaths refocuses us, helps us detach from stressors and puts us back in touch with our own inner strength.
Harnessing this simple power within us can help us achieve greater balance and contentment with life as a whole.
