What is the biggest barrier to success, happiness, great relationships? Anxiety and fear.

Try this experiment:

– Take in a deep, slow, intentional breath through your nose.

– Hold that breath for a moment, allowing yourself to feel the stretch.

– Release slowly, through the mouth.

– Repeat two or three more times.

Notice what happens? This is like a physiological switch on the brain that calms the fight or flight response. This in turn restores blood flow to parts of the brain that are used in thinking, problem solving, rational thought.

In My Anxiety Answer, the first step is to calm the brain's fight or flight response through breathing. The second is to steer the mind in a more productive direction. That first step, breathing, seems so simple. A client of mine said recently, “I don't see how that solves anything.”

Calming our brain's natural fight or flight response doesn't solve anything.

It does, however, put us in position to solve anything.

Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important.” 

                                ? Mr. Miyagi (The Karate Kid, 1984)