Workplace anxiety is common; over 40% of Americans say they are stressed at work. Getting the job done can be daunting for most people, which is why many people suffer from excessive concern about a variety of work-related issues. Work stress can be positive, and is even normal, however high anxiety, on the other hand, has a negative impact on a person’s general health and can cause problems in both personal and professional life.
In an interview with Jean Fallacarra, a renowned serial entrepreneur, scientist, and athlete, known for his contribution to the health, fitness and wellness industry through his startup Cyborggainz Neuroscience Calisthenics, we unraveled the benefits of how being mindful can result in reduced anxieties and greater productivity.
It’s no news that the post-Covid-19 effects and social justice issues have further added to the anxiety that many of us experience on a daily basis, and studies show that this stress is preventing us from doing our best work. According to research, different emotions are linked to different types of breathing, therefore changing how we breathe can affect how we feel. When you’re happy, for example, your breathing will be regular, deep, and slow. Your breathing will be erratic, short, rapid, and shallow if you are anxious or furious. Basically, when you follow breathing patterns linked with various emotions, you will start to feel those emotions as well.
Deep breathing is categorized as one of the best ways to lower stress in the body. What Fallacara adds to this is that being conscious can aid in the development of deep breathing techniques – which is often called mindful breathing. The positive effects of mindfulness-based breathing techniques have sparked a burgeoning corpus of scientific research into the psychological processes that underpin them. A number of research studies have concluded that practicing mindfulness meditation is linked to improved performance on a variety of cognitive activities.
This mindfulness entails observing your emotions and what’s going on in your body without assigning a positive or negative label to it. Now what this does is that it gives the person the liberty to explore the emotions personally without altering elements such as judgment. It allows a person to come to a conclusion that is unadulterated and a result of all the pros and cons. It’s a well-known fact that an anxiety-ridden mind tends to dwell towards simple and ‘present’ solutions. But what deep breathing does is that it eliminates the entire idea giving the person space to understand the situation without any bias.
A firm advocate and practitioner of Mindful Breathing Techniques, Fallacara lastly highlights how not only did this help him overcome the hurdles in his life but it also gave him the power to make better decisions, which honestly he would have missed before. Fallacara claims that stress management and resiliency provided him with the tools he needed to put his failed alarm system to rest and live a better life while maturing through life-altering transformations – in which Mindful breathing techniques definitely played an integral role.
