Do Breathe
Calm Your Mind. Find Focus. Get Stuff Done.
Book Edition Details
Summary
"Do/Breathe (2015) is a calming antidote to the stressors of contemporary life, offering a simple guide to cultivating balance, honing focus, and learning to be present. Do/Breathe takes you right back to life’s basics – like breathing, eating, and sleeping – to show how adjusting fundamental practices, habits, and mindsets can produce positive, lasting change in your life. "
Introduction
Every moment of your life depends on a single, automatic act that you rarely think about: breathing. From your first breath to your last, you'll take roughly 600 million breaths, yet most of us breathe poorly, creating stress, fatigue, and anxiety without even realizing it. In our fast-paced world of constant notifications, endless emails, and mounting pressures, we've lost touch with our most fundamental life force. The way you breathe directly reflects how you live, and when you learn to breathe better, everything else follows. Your mind becomes clearer, your energy increases, and your ability to handle life's challenges transforms completely. This journey isn't about complicated techniques or time-consuming practices. It's about rediscovering what babies know instinctively: how to breathe from the belly, through the nose, with a rhythm that creates calm and clarity. The power to change your life literally lies in your next breath.
Prepare: Build Your Foundation for Better Living
Preparation forms the bedrock of lasting transformation, and it begins with understanding that your breath is the bridge between your conscious and unconscious mind. Unlike any other bodily system, breathing operates both automatically and under your direct control, making it your most powerful tool for managing stress and creating calm. When you breathe poorly, your body triggers the fight-or-flight response, flooding your system with stress hormones that were designed for life-threatening emergencies, not modern-day pressures. Consider Richard, a creative director whose mornings began with exhaustion before he even got out of bed. His shallow chest breathing, triggered by thoughts of overwhelming workdays, created a cascade of stress that colored every interaction. His breathing pattern had become so dysfunctional that simple decisions about what to wear became sources of irritation and delay. This is the reality for millions of people who unknowingly sabotage their days through poor breathing habits. The transformation begins with three simple keys: breathe from your belly, breathe through your nose, and make your exhale slightly longer than your inhale. When Richard learned to place a book on his stomach and watch it rise and fall with each breath, he discovered muscles he'd forgotten he had. The deep diaphragmatic breathing activated his body's relaxation response, slowing his heart rate and clearing his mind. Within minutes, the scattered anxiety that had dominated his mornings began to dissolve. To establish this foundation, lie down with a book on your belly and practice making it rise with each inhale and fall with each exhale. Count to three on the inhale and six on the exhale, breathing only through your nose. Start with five minutes daily, and notice how this simple practice creates space between you and your stress. Remember, you're not just changing how you breathe; you're rewiring your nervous system to respond rather than react to life's challenges.
Practice: Master Mindful Daily Habits
Mindfulness transforms ordinary moments into opportunities for presence and peace, and your breath serves as the perfect anchor to the present moment. The essence of mindfulness combines relaxed attention with acceptance, allowing you to observe your experience without the constant mental commentary that creates stress and distraction. Most of us live on autopilot, driving from place to place while our minds race through endless to-do lists, completely disconnected from the richness of the current moment. A mother discovered this truth during simple moments reading with her young daughter. As she began to pay attention to these interactions, she noticed how completely absorbed she became, losing touch with the rest of the world and feeling totally present in the activity. What had once been just another task on her parenting checklist transformed into a source of deep connection and joy. The same books, the same child, but an entirely different experience because of where she placed her attention. This shift happened because she learned to engage her senses fully rather than thinking about her senses. She noticed the weight of her daughter's body against hers, the sound of pages turning, the smell of her child's hair. When thoughts about dinner or work deadlines arose, she gently returned her attention to the sensory experience of reading together. These moments of mindful presence became highlights of her day, creating lasting memories and deeper bonds. Begin by choosing three routine activities to do mindfully each day: brushing your teeth, drinking your morning tea, or walking to your car. During these activities, engage all your senses without judgment. When your mind wanders to other concerns, simply return to the physical sensations of what you're doing. Practice the body trace exercise by mentally following the outline of your body from head to toe, observing how each part feels without trying to change anything. Create pockets of stillness throughout your day by replacing some screen time with gentle activities like taking a candlelit bath or stretching on the floor.
Perform: Flow Into Your Best Self
Flow represents the pinnacle of human performance, where challenge meets skill in perfect balance, creating states of effortless excellence and deep satisfaction. This isn't about achieving some mythical work-life balance, but rather mastering dynamic balance, the ability to ride life's waves with skill and joy. True performance emerges not from forcing outcomes, but from the integration of being and doing, creating what can be called "welldoing." A dancer described her experience of flow during a particularly memorable performance: her concentration became complete, her mind stopped wandering, and she felt totally involved in the movement. Her energy flowed smoothly, creating feelings of relaxation, comfort, and vitality simultaneously. She no longer saw herself as separate from the dance; she had become the dance itself. This state didn't happen by accident but emerged from years of building skills, managing energy, and learning to release control at the crucial moment. The path to flow follows a predictable four-stage cycle. First comes struggle, where you feel challenged and stressed, testing your commitment and courage. Many people abandon their goals here, but those who persist discover the second stage: release, where you let go and trust your preparation. This leads to flow itself, the zone of optimal performance, followed by necessary recovery time to restore your energy for the next cycle. Create your own flow experiences by setting clear challenges that stretch your current abilities without overwhelming them. Eliminate distractions by turning off notifications and creating dedicated focus time. Practice the coherent breathing technique for five minutes before important tasks, breathing in for a count of five and out for five, creating harmony between your heart and breath rhythms. Track your natural ninety-minute energy cycles and schedule demanding work during your peak periods. Remember that sustainable high performance requires honoring both the doing and the being, the effort and the rest, the inhale and the exhale of a life well-lived.
Summary
The journey through better breathing reveals a fundamental truth: transformation doesn't require dramatic changes, but rather a return to what your body already knows how to do perfectly. As Marcus Aurelius wrote while on ancient battlefields, "When you arise in the morning think what a precious privilege it is to be alive; to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love." Every breath offers you this opportunity to choose presence over pressure, response over reaction, and calm over chaos. Your breath connects you to your planet, to your body, and to your deepest potential for both peace and performance. The techniques in this book aren't just about feeling better in isolated moments; they're about creating a foundation for sustainable excellence in all areas of your life. Start today by teaching one other person to breathe well, because when you change how you breathe, you don't just transform your own life—you begin to transform the world around you, one breath at a time.
By Michael Townsend Williams
