Backstory: Alexandra Epple’s blog, Spirit Journey (you met Alexandra in a 52+ interview about a month ago), inspired this nudge. In her “The Gigantic Breath Cycle of Your Life” post, she wrote a couple of lines that struck a chord with me:

“Our society is not set up to honor exhales. We are set up for creation, achievement, progress…all of which equate to inhaling.”

A healthy cycle of breathing, she went on to explain, is inhale, exhale, pause.

I suck at this. “Pause”? Oh, sure, I do that when I’m sick or exhausted or forced to shelter in place for an extended period of time. But the rest of it is challenging for me. “When we find ourselves in the exhale cycle,” Alexandra continued, “it takes courage, awareness, and reminders to allow yourself to be in that space.”

I know I need to be more intentional about healthy breathing–about healthy living–until it becomes my new natural rhythm. Starting today, I’m going to practice this.

What Happened: We live in stressful times. I mean…really. My stress level the past several months has been Off. The. Charts. And even though some things have somewhat calmed down, I know that I continue to carry that stress with me every day, even if nothing new is added to my load.

But this week I practiced dealing with it a little better. Every time I felt the worry (and some times panic) start to bubble up, I stopped in my tracks, closed my eyes, visualized a positive outcome for whatever I was worrying over, and let out a long, deep exhale. Then I moved on.

Monday I had to work at it some. I’d carry around a worry — about my husband’s safety, for example — and feel myself gearing up for a meltdown. Then I’d catch myself and go through my new routine. By Tuesday, I was dropping into the stop-visualize-exhale drill before the worry got its claws in me. I barely even thought about it, I just did it.

So I am heading into this holiday (Happy Independence Day to my U.S. readers!) feeling quite calm. And, if I start to feel less calm, I know I can handle it.

The Ah-Hahs: I could meditate, practice yoga, get hypnotized, take anti-anxiety meds, drink more whiskey…or, I can exhale. For me, it really can be that simple.