Breathing for financial stress: 7 minutes, before you talk

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for financial stress. A breathing session you can do before you talk. A guided session of about 7 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: financial stress

Money worry runs at night, when there is nothing to do about it. The lack of any available action keeps the nervous system activated for hours.

It tends to show up as:

• Lying awake doing arithmetic
• A clenched stomach opening the bank app
• Irritability about small spending

At 2am there is no decision to make, only a night to get through. That is the whole job of this practice.

Doing this before public speaking

• Do it somewhere private, or in the washroom if needed
• Slow the exhale deliberately and check your speaking pace after
• Warm the voice by reading a line aloud, not by staying silent

Rushing is the tell of nerves. A slower breath now is what sets a slower pace in the room.

How breathing works

A breathing practice uses the breath as the object of attention and as the control lever. Because exhaling slows the heart through the vagus nerve, it acts on the nervous system directly rather than through thinking.

• Keep the exhale longer than the inhale — that is the active ingredient
• Count the exhales and start again whenever you lose count
• Do not force depth; let the breath find its own level

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Start with the noise that is already in the room. We are not going to try to remove it yet.
2. 0:17Let the counting do the work. When you lose the count, start again from one — no penalty.
3. 0:33If your mind is loud, that's information, not failure.
4. 0:44We'll work through this slowly. If you lose the thread, the thread will wait.
5. 0:58Let each breath out be a small letting go of the muscles around your ribs.
6. 1:12Feel the air move past your upper lip. It's the coolest spot on the way in.
7. 1:27Notice the backs of your knees, which you feel more than you think.
8. 1:40Let your whole body be as heavy as it wants to be.
9. 1:53Feel the outline of yourself, from the top of your head to your heels.
10. 2:07If the arithmetic that will not balance is loud right now, make your attention smaller. Just the next breath. Nothing beyond it.
11. 2:25If you catch yourself fighting the worry that follows the bills, that is worth noticing. The fight usually costs more than the feeling.
12. 2:43Notice the space between your shoulder blades.
13. 2:53Let it be this simple.
14. 3:02If you're holding your breath at the top, stop. There's no need to hold anything.
15. 3:16Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
16. 3:30A few quiet breaths. That's all this is.
17. 3:41Keep the exhale a little longer than the inhale. That is the entire technique.
18. 3:55Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking.
19. 4:06Breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, if that's comfortable.
20. 4:19I'll step back. You stay here.
21. 4:29If the fear about money in the night shows up, let it be there without arguing with it. You are not trying to remove it, just to sit beside it.
22. 4:50There is a part of you that has handled hard moments before. That part is here now, even if it is quiet.
23. 5:08Let your breathing get quieter rather than deeper.
24. 5:19Notice the pull to make this mean something. It doesn't have to.
25. 5:32Notice if you're waiting for something to happen. Nothing is scheduled.
26. 5:44A short silence. Let it be empty.
27. 5:54There is no target number here. Only the next breath, and then the one after it.
28. 6:09Let your shoulders come back up to their usual place, if they want to.
29. 6:23Let the next breath be the start of the rest of the day.
30. 6:36Let the pause stretch out.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.