5 Deep Breaths

That can mean the difference between having a monumental freak out, and calmly choosing to find a better way to deal with it. As soon as I feel my shoulders rising, my jaw clenching, my eyes scowling, and my breathing become quick and shallow, I STOP and take 5 Deep Breaths (you can take more, or less what ever number works for you, I like 5 because I don't get distracted or lose count, with higher numbers I just might). I know that it sounds like something easy(which it is), or that it won't make a huge difference when you have just been very rudely cut off in traffic, and you want your first response to be a finger salute or some incredibly creative words strung together in a creative way, but I swear it makes an incredibly huge difference, you can still get mad, it just won't be as mad, and won't last as long.
I do this for every moment (that I can remember to) when I start to feel stressed out or overwhelmed, or a little irritated, and now it is a becoming an actual habit, I start deep breathing before I even consciously think to do so. When it has taken me a bit of time to realize that I have been freaking out about something, or I have been stressed or feeling any not so awesome feeling, the things I notice are that my neck, shoulders and jaw start to really hurt, my energy is low, I am way quicker to spiral down and add anything else negative to the negative I am already feeling; truthfully this is my first line of defense and it starts me on my upward spiral.

 I am sure there is some scientific evidence that backs up how awesome it is to take deep full breaths, something about oxygen getting to the brain better, maybe some endorphins are released, but I can't remember where I have read about it so I can't properly cite anything.  I know that in the Body Talk philosophy  the breath is the brains way of scanning the body and figuring out how your body is doing, so often when we are stressed and high strung and clenched all over, the brain recognizes that it isn't in imminent danger, so we don't need to have this physiological reaction, so it sends out all the signals to relax everything and I think that's when we realize that what ever is currently going on really isn't that bad, and sometimes when it really is bad, this helps make it a little more bearable.

so that's it, that is where I started, and what I continue to do to easily be a little bit happier, or change the moments where I don't particularly feel awesome, to moments where I actually feel pretty good. ( I have breathed deeply almost this whole post too)

*a simple warning, deep breathing for too long can lead to dizziness and light-headedness, listen to your body, if you start feeling a little dizzy, breathe normally for a bit, then if you feel like you need to resume your deep breathing exercise