Why taking a 'deep breath' doesn't work

One thing that makes me chuckle when people are stressed is when someone suggests they “take a deep breath and calm down.” 

It reminds me of when someone says, “Relax.”
You not only can’t relax, but you now want to punch them in the face. 

And that’s where the “pause” comes into play. 

The Pause isn’t about taking a breath or relaxing. It's about creating a gap between what happens to you and what you do about it. Just enough space to let you decide what the next best course of action is. 

• Guy cut you off in traffic? Pause.

• Someone ask you to do something for them? Pause. 

Every skill I've ever developed in martial arts, every technique, every strategy, and every principle, is only accessible from inside that gap. If I rush without thinking, things typically turn ugly. The best training in the world is useless if you can't access it in the proper way when things get real.

And that's true off the mat, too.

You already know how to handle stress, communicate more effectively, and make sound decisions. But when the moment hits, they disappear. The stimulus arrived, and the reaction fired before you had a chance to choose anything.

Here's what that actually looks like.

Guy cuts you off in traffic.
No pause: "You f-ing idiot!" You're gripping the wheel, heart rate up, and it ruins the next twenty minutes of your day over something that lasted two seconds.

With the pause: "Oh! he swerved because of the other guy. That could have been bad." You move on.

Someone asks you for a favor.
No pause: "Yes, of course I'll help you," even though you don't want to, but you automatically said yes because... you have no idea why you said that. Dammit. Now you're doing the thing, resenting it, complaining about it. 

With the pause: "No, actually, I'd rather not." And you're fine with it. You move on and live your life.

Same situations. Completely different results. The only difference is the gap.

It might seem like a pause would slow you down. But over time, it becomes so natural that it acts as a trigger, opening you up to what's really happening so you can make the proper decision. And better decisions mean better outcomes.

When I started treating the pause as a skill, something I could actually practice, in real moments, every day, everything changed. That's because I could finally use what I already knew.

You don't need to take a deep breath. You don't need to relax.

You just need the gap. And the pause gives you that.

So here's what I'll leave you with:

This week, just notice. When something hooks you, like a comment, an email, your kid, traffic, the urge to check your phone, and see if you can catch the moment before you react.

Pause.

You'll miss it most of the time. That's fine.
Just noticing that you missed it is where it starts.

Let me know how it goes with you.