Happiness Break: A Mindful Breath Meditation, with Dacher Keltner

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mindful breathing exercises are a simple, effective, and fast way to shift our mindset and improve physical and mental well-being when practiced regularly.

Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/mpt4rr5x

How to Do This Practice:

Find a comfortable position to start the practice, maintain a good posture and close your eyes.
Take a deep breath in for a count of four. Hold that breath, feeling it in your lungs and body for another count of four. Push the air outwards, exhaling for a count of six.
Repeat this exercise as many times as you would like.

Today’s Happiness Break host:

Dacher Keltner is the host of the award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness and is a co-instructor of the GGSC’s popular online course of the same name. He’s also the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the UC, Berkeley.

Check out Dacher’s most recent book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/4j4hcvyt

More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

What Focusing on the Breath Does to Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3u8h53pw

Is the Way You Breathe Making You Anxious?: https://tinyurl.com/mryr2jup

A Five-Minute Breathing Exercise for Anxiety and Mood: https://tinyurl.com/3ve66u2k

How Four Deep Breaths Can Help Kids Calm Down: https://tinyurl.com/5xr2sb99

What does mindful breathing do for you? Email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/taub93tp

Help us share Happiness Break! Rate us on Spotify and copy and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/taub93tp

We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Happiness Break, our series on the Science of Happiness, where we take a break
0:07.0	to take care of our own well-being.
0:09.9	For the past 25 years, I've studied the evolution and the neuroscience of what makes us happy,
0:14.9	and I've taught it to hundreds of thousands of people.
0:18.1	And what I've learned is that there are simple actions and practices that don't take a lot
0:22.3	of time that can bring us greater strength, closeness in our relationships, and help us
0:27.6	handle the trials and tribulations of life.
0:33.8	One of the simplest and most effective pathways to well-being is mindful breathing.
0:41.3	Simply breathing deeply and more slowly activates the vagus nerve, which helps with heart
0:46.1	health and being open to other people.
0:49.3	This deep-in breathing also decreases the activation of the amygdala and calms down chronic stress.
0:56.0	If in breathing right before bed helps us sleep better, it can help us concentrate better.
1:00.1	It helps us regulate the stresses of daily living.
1:03.3	So today, we're going to do a slow mindful breathing exercise.
1:08.1	What I'm going to do is lead us through a breathing practice that has been widely applied
1:12.8	in different scientific tests.
1:14.9	You breathe in to account of four, you hold that breath to account of four, and then
1:19.2	you breathe out deepening the exhalation to account of six.
1:25.8	Let's begin.
1:39.3	Find a comfortable position sitting or standing.
1:43.2	Close your eyes if you feel safe, and put your hands in a place where they're relaxed
1:47.7	either on your knees if you're sitting or by your sides if you're standing.
	...

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