Let out a big ragged sigh in a meeting yesterday without meaning to, and the guy next to me goes “you good?” Truth is, I was better one second after than I’d been all morning. My body had been asking to do that for an hour, and I kept overriding it because a sigh feels like you’re being dramatic.
A sigh is the body’s built-in reset button. We just got taught somewhere that it reads as weakness, so we swallow it.
When you’re stressed, your breathing goes shallow and the tiny air sacs in your lungs start to collapse. A real sigh, a breath in with a second little breath stacked on top and then a long slow breath out, pops them back open and signals your nervous system to stand down. Your body does this on its own about every 5 minutes. Under stress, you keep overriding it.
So the reset is to stop overriding it. On purpose, take a breath in, sneak a second small breath on top, and let it all out with a long, slightly dramatic sigh. Do it twice. You’ll feel the drop almost right away.
That drop is the gap between reacting and responding. It’s hard to snap at someone in the half-second after a real exhale. The breath buys you the room to pick.
I’m weirdly bad at letting myself do this. Some old wiring says a grown man shouldn’t audibly deflate at his desk. The wiring is wrong, and my shoulders know it.
So what’s the sigh you’ve been holding in since about 9am, and what happens if you finally let it out?
Wednesday, we get back to the reps.
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