The stresses and pressures from society demands that our attention changes quickly. We are becoming more addicted to technology, most of the time without knowing it. This creates more mental habits of distraction, attention switching, and places more stress on our mental and physical systems.

We are in fact exposed to more information in one day than our ancestors were in their lifetime. That’s a crazy amount of mental processing. A recent study now shows that our minds have been trained to have the attention span of 8 seconds. That is one second less than a goldfish; let that sink in for a moment. We have become so distracted that we have trained our brain to think like this.

How Do We Cope With All That Distraction?

To cope with this we have now taken on multitasking. But our brain cannot do multitasking. Our brain although great at taking in vast amounts of information in order to complete our daily routine tasks, such as breathing, sleeping, eating, walking etc., does this on a subconscious level.

But when we use our brain to multitask we are activating and requiring our attention to switch from one task to another and back again. For example: switching your attention between listening to a friend and watching notifications from social media on our phone. What will happen here is you won’t catch everything your friend is saying as your brain requires a half second to switch between the two tasks. In that half a second we lose information we should be getting. We probably don’t notice it most of the time.

We are now slowing ourselves down, creating more stress for ourselves and loosing focus. It makes us less effective at doing and learning things and we’re less engaged with others. We are also less happy as a result. Depression and anxiety are on the rise, particularly in young people. Technology is not helping this.

When we are not paying attention we are being ‘unmindful’. In other words our body may be present but our mind is elsewhere. Meditation will help you re-engage, become more aware and attentive to what is going on around you. Mediation is in effect attention training. We are cultivating this new habit. Just like we teach a puppy to walk on a lead we can teach our brain to become more aware.

So even in this attention seeking and busy world we can use meditation tools to refocus our minds. One such meditation tool is the 7 -11 technique.

What Is The 7 – 11 Breathing Technique?

The 7 – 11 breathing technique is a very helpful one for reducing stress, anxiety and even calming you when you feel angry, as it is a very effect anger management tool.  This is a very simple technique that promotes calmness and was first named by Joe Griffin. It is a form of deep breathing technique which requires you to take a deep breath in for a count of 7 and to exhale for a count of 11. It is that simple but how does it work?

What Are Deep Breathing Techniques?

Deep breathing techniques work by stimulating what is known as the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Most of you may have heard of the ‘fight, fright or flight’ response, this is the Sympathetic Nervous System that gets you ready for action and helps us naturally react to stimulus that causes us fear, anger, or threatens us in some manner.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

The Parasympathetic Nervous System is simply the opposite of that. It activates a natural bodily response that can be described as ‘rest and digest’. It stimulates our out-breaths to decrease our blood pressure, dilate our pupils and slows our heart rate, thus lowering emotional arousal in the process.

It’s important to realise that it’s the out-breaths that stimulate the response. So it stands to reason that a breathing technique with longer out-breaths than in-breaths will be more effective at lowering emotional arousal. It can be shortened to 3/5 or 4/6 counts if this suits you better. You may also start with a 3/5 technique and build up to a 7/11 technique as time goes on. As long as your out-breath is longer than your in-breath that is okay, it will still tell your brain to slow down and relax.

Remember for most of us we only use the top half of our lungs, breathing in shallow breaths, which we do automatically when stressed, anxious or angry. This is an automatic process, but we can learn to consciously control our breathing. For relaxation, and to promote well being, we need to fill our whole lungs. This will help to change our mind/body state.

We need to be aware that our automatic method for breathing in and out is very similar in length. But every time we breath in we trigger the stress response and every time we breath out we trigger the relax response. This may be okay, most of the time for us, but when we get stressed, anxious or angry this automatic response no longer serves us.

In order to promote calmness, reduce our stress, anxiety and anger levels, we want to trigger the brain’s natural relax mode. So we need to breathe out for longer than we breathe in. The 7/11 technique is a really simply way to remember to do this. With practice we can make it an automatic response also. An added bonus of 7-11 breathing is that the very act of counting is a distraction technique that takes our minds off our immediate concerns.

Some Things To Consider Before You Start.

Before you begin, it should be noted that we all breathe differently, and at different rhythms. For example my count of 7 and then 11 may be shorter or longer than yours. You need to follow and cultivate your own rhythm; this will trigger your own relaxation response.

A formal practice will allow you to build up an automatic response habit so you can use the technique on the go. A daily 10 minute practice is best, you may find your mind wanders, as it is prone to do, and you will lose count, but just gently return to counting as soon as you notice.

The period and length of time your mind will wander will reduce with more practice. With practice, and most importantly being non-judgemental about our wandering mind, we begin to learn how to stay longer in the present. We become more focused and engaged as a result. So we can then apply this to anything we do in our lives – work, study, relationships, hobbies, etc. In essence it has a ripple effect.

But even if you don’t have time for a formal practice you can still get some meditation in to your daily life. A simple example would be to practice this type of breathing every time you use the bathroom, sitting at the traffic lights or as you complete a regular household chore.

The most important thing here is to have a cue to signal that it is time to meditate. You will need this cue in order to help establish your new habit of meditation as an automatic one. It needs to be regular and consistent in order to stick. I talk more about establishing new habits here.

For example: you could use a regular household chore, such as washing dishes, as your cue to start counting and slowing your out breath. Don’t ignore setting up these cues as they are important to your success in creating any new habit.

Here is how you do the 7 – 11 technique? And it is as easy as it sounds:

1. Breathe in for a count of 7.
2. Breathe out for a count of 11.

Make sure that when you are breathing in, you are doing deep ‘diaphragmatic breathing’. That is your diaphragm moves down and pushes your stomach out as you take in a breath and your stomach goes back in when you breathe out. You can place your hand on your lower abdomen when you begin to make sure you are doing this correctly.

If you find that it’s difficult to lengthen your breaths to 7/11, then reduce the count to breathing in for 4 and out to 6, whatever suits you best. Remember as long as the out-breath is longer than the in-breath you will get the same result.

Continue in this way for 3 minutes, or longer if you have time and are setting up a formal practice, and enjoy the calming effect it will have on your mind and body.

My Book.

Did you know I talk more about different types of meditation and have podcasts that you can use to support a formal practice plus more topics, in my book and workbook The Building Blocks Of Self-Care? You can purchase it here.

Work With Me.

Remember you are allowed to ask for support. No one is an island. If you need extra support then you can also work with me. We all struggle with stress and overwhelm from time to time. If you find this has become a problem for you and you’d like some support then schedule an appointment with me.