3-Minute Breathing Space For Life's Chaos

The 3-minute Breathing Space is a simple and effective mindfulness practice, designed with a practical focus and flexibility in mind.

It consists of 3 equal parts:
1. Taking an inventory of present moment physical sensations, emotions and thoughts.
2. Narrowing the attention to focus on the breath.
3. Expanding the breath to include a sense of the entire body & any sensations that are present.

The 3-minute Breathing Space can be adapted to be done in 30 seconds or 30 minutes! All you need is those 3 parts in more or less equal duration.

The practice was originally designed for the 8-week MBCT program (Segal, Williams, and Teasdale (2002)).

Transcript

Welcome to the three-minute breathing space.

It is a simple yet powerful practice designed with a practical real-world focus and flexibility in mind.

It consists of three equal parts.

In the first,

Taking an inventory of present-moment physical sensations,

Emotions,

And thoughts.

Next,

Narrowing the attention to focus on the breath.

And third,

Expanding the breath to include a sense of the entire body and any sensations that are present.

And it can be adapted to be done in 30 seconds or 30 minutes.

Let's begin.

Beginning to take an inventory now of any physical sensations that may be present in the body.

Perhaps scanning through the body and just noticing anything that's already here as part of the experience.

Not necessarily trying to create sensation by moving,

Simply noticing what is already here.

And also including now any thoughts and emotions that might already be present.

And again,

Seeing if it's possible to simply notice what is already here without trying to change or influence anything.

And now shifting the attention to focus on the breath.

Perhaps giving a little bit more energy to the attention to help it narrow its focus.

And noticing the sensation of breathing as it's coming in and out of the body through the nose.

Noticing any time the attention wanders.

And if it does,

Anytime you notice that,

Simply choosing to bring the attention back once more to the breath.

And now merging the experience of the breath with the entire body,

With a sense of the body as a whole.

Everyone experiences this slightly differently.

You may experience the body as a whole,

As a sense of space that the body is occupying.

Or perhaps a sense of the entire body breathing.

Or it might be something different.

So using your creativity and imagination to find out what works best for you,

As you notice the body as a whole.

And again,

This practice can be adopted.

And so you may wish to do this in a shorter or longer period of time,

Depending what is called for.