Calm during COVID: Mindful breathing

• We face enormous challenges with Covid-19. Like many of you, I feel uncertain, I worry about the loss that people are suffering, and a lot of fear. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was teaching in UC Berkeley, and now, my daughters, and I, and my wife are at home, like many of you, sheltering, and really facing this new, disrupted life during this time. I’m Dr. Keltner. I’m a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and faculty director at the Greater Good Science Center. For the past 25 years, I’ve studied the evolution and the neuroscience of what makes us happy, and I’ve taught this new science of happiness to literally hundreds of thousands of people.

00:35 - What we’ve learned is that, although there are profound things in our lives that we really can’t control, there are actions and practices that we can take that bring us greater strength, greater closeness in our relationships, and even strength in our immune systems and the rest of our bodies. And so, in the upcoming weeks, what I’d like to do is to share videos with you, really short videos, that introduce you to the key ideas in this science of happiness, and then the practices that help us find greater closeness in our relationships, better health, and better well-being. We’ll begin with a practice that really helps us be mindful. Being mindful, or mindfulness, is really defined as an accepting, non-judgmental awareness of what’s in your mind and what’s happening out in the world. It can bring you calmness, and resilience, and strength, as we face challenges like this.

01:26 - I’ve really been impressed with the science of mindfulness and how people facing very serious stress and trauma, people like firefighters, and first responders, and healthcare professionals, when they practice a bit of mindfulness, like we’re going to do, they find calm, and strength, and resilience. We’re gonna do a mindful breathing exercise. It’s just gonna take a minute. We’ll do five breaths together, grounded in science. If your attention drifts a bit, as you do this mindful breathing exercise, just bring it back to your sensations of the breath. What I’d like you to do is to sit upright, relax your body, put your hands, perhaps, on your knees, and, if you like, close your eyes, and I’ll now lead us through five breaths.

02:08 - Let’s take a nice, deep breath in, really expanding your belly and your chest, as you feel the air fill your lungs. As you breathe out, feel our abdominal muscles pull in and the breath leave your nose. Breathing in, feel the breath expand your chest and your lungs. Breathing out, pull in your stomach. Follow the breath as it leaves your lungs and your nose. On this breath in, expand your chest and just relax your shoulders. You may feel sensations as you breathe out of just a relaxation and a warmth. Breathing in, this time, relax your face, your brow, your jaw. Breathing out, just feel the body getting more relaxed. On this final breath, let’s just think about breathing in in a relaxed way, together. Breathing out, you may find, breath, body, you, feeling a little bit more relaxed as you open your eyes. That’s it. That’s mindful breathing.

03:53 - There’s a ton of science around all the ways in which this helps us handle stress. I wanna thank you. I hope that as you go through your day, maybe you’ll sense a little bit more mindfulness when you’re outside, or feeling the sun on your skin, or going for a social distance walk, or doing the dishes next to your family member. I also want to wish you the best of health and happiness. I hope that the Greater Good Science Center can be a companion for you, as we handle these stressful times. If you’re interested in more practices like the mindful breathing exercise that we did, go to ggia.berkeley.edu, lots of free practices.

04:31 - If you want to read up on this or watch videos about different facets of happiness, go to greatergood.berkeley.edu. Thank you. .