Across History: While it is not always called box breathing, this basic practice has been used throughout history—from ancient Yogis who called it sama vritti (equal flow) to stoic philosophers who practiced breath-counting to "keep the mind within its walls," to Navy SEALs who teach the technique to maintain composure under fire.
The Basics: Box breathing is deceptively simple. The concept is easy to understand:
- Breathe in for 4 seconds—slow and steady until your lungs are completely full.
- Hold for 4 seconds.
- Breathe out for 4 seconds—steadily until your lungs are completely empty.
- Hold for 4 seconds.
The Challenges: As with all things in life, the challenges come from the progressive mastery of the details:
- Stretching your lungs and strengthening your diaphragm to fully inflate your lungs: it is harder than it seems, and there is incredible room for growth.
- Doing the same thing in reverse—working to completely empty your lungs.
- Working on the steadiness to breathe smoothly from completely empty to completely full—and the reverse.
- Holding on full exhale—your body has an incredibly strong reaction to this just past the 4 second mark, so you are making small adjustments to your stress setpoint.
- Maintaining the mental focus for one cycle is relatively easy. With each 16-second cycle (4x4x4x4), it gets progressively harder to keep your mind from wandering.
- Observe every aspect of yourself cognitively, emotionally, and physically during each part and cycle. Observe your heartbeat. Observe the emotions and thoughts that float into your head.
Basic Applications:
- Use it as a reset point between different types of tasks. For example, as a PM, you've just spent the day going to a couple of weekly project meetings and walking the jobs. As you get back to your office, use it as a reset point before turning all those inputs into action items, meetings, emails, and phone calls.
- Use it as a quick reset if you are in a meeting and something comes up that elevates your heartrate. This can be done by stepping out quickly to go to the bathroom, or even during the meeting with practice. Make it a habit to never respond with an elevated heart rate unless you are truly in a street fight.
- For certain types of meetings, it can be an effective reset point for the whole team. For example, in management meetings with multiple topics or types (brainstorming, decision making, report-out, etc.), you can use this exercise with the whole team to reset a little faster.
- End of the day while making the transition from work to home - or your kid's game.
Simple Tools:
- Apple and Android stores have plenty of apps, such as Unbeatable Mind Box Breathing.
- Searching online, you can find plenty of online timers or videos with built-in timers.
- Contact us for a PowerPoint template set for 4x4x4x4 with four cycles. You can modify it for your own colors and use during meetings.
Going Further: Four cycles can do quite a bit to help you quickly reset. Over time, you may want to build on this habit.
- Increasing the cycles into the 10-20 range continues to develop mental focus. Most of the studies about various benefits of box breathing are from sessions between two and five minutes long.
- Once you can maintain mental focus for five minutes, you can experiment with increasing the timing. Move from 4 second boxes to 5 to 6 and beyond.
- Research and experiment with other breathing exercises—there are many. All help with the mind-body connection.
You can do plenty of research to learn about various studies, but the best thing to do is give it a try. It's a relatively simple tool that requires nearly zero investment in money or time yet can yield great returns.
