Hey Time Dorks,

Welcome to the October edition of the newsletter.

I’m leading a Monthly Review session inside my coaching program later this afternoon to reflect on September.

If you want to gather some insights from the past month to carry forward into the next, I wrote about how I structure my monthly review earlier this year.

You can find it here → Monthly reviews: A simple practice for clarity​

All right, onto this month’s idea.

A Perspective

A few years ago, I was sitting by the River Thames in London, feeling completely stuck on a personal decision.

Have you ever found yourself trapped in a loop of overthinking?

It’s like the more you think about the problem, the tighter everything seems to get.

That was me, my mind tied up like a sailor’s knot over this one particular decision.

My friend Patrick saw me struggling and suggested we try a breathing practice. I was slightly cynical that “taking some deep breaths” was going to solve anything, but I had nothing to lose.

So I closed my eyes and followed his instructions.

Slow breath in for a count of five.

Slow breath out for a count of five.

Again and again.

For the first few minutes, I didn’t notice much happening. But near the end, Patrick asked me to bring that same problem back into my mind.

And the strangest thing happened: a decision just appeared.

Knowing what I know now, that moment makes a lot more sense.

At the time, I was pretty stressed. I was working in a difficult team environment, pushing myself hard, and working too many nights and weekends.

And when you’re stressed, your perspective can shrink.

Small problems start to feel really big. A messy, nuanced problem suddenly feels binary, like there's only an Option A and Option B.

That was exactly what had happened to me. I had been obsessing over two possible choices and assuming I had to pick one.

But once my body settled down through the breathing practice, I could see something I hadn’t been able to see before...there was another option!

The decision I ended up making wasn’t either of the choices I’d been agonizing over. It was actually a new path somewhere in the middle.

That experience kicked off a much deeper interest in the relationship between the state of my body and the way I think.

And I've come to believe this matters a lot for how we use our time.

We make decisions all day about what deserves our attention, what can wait, what to say yes or no to, and what matters most right now.

When I'm stressed or overwhelmed, those decisions get harder. Things feel more urgent and I'm more likely to react to whatever is right in front of me.

When I'm in a steadier state, I have more perspective and clarity.

And I've come to see that sometimes geting unstuck isn't about thinking harder. Often, it's about changing your state and creating the conditions where you can see your choices more clearly.

That's one of the reasons I've found breathwork to be such a great tool alongside all the other tactics we teach in Make Time.

It helps create a little space between what's happening around you and what you choose to do next.

So why can something as simple as changing your breath have that effect?

Well, I think it's useful to compare it to another tool many people use to work with stress and the mind: meditation.

A lot of people I talk to have tried meditation and decided it doesn’t work for them.

In fact, I read a stat earlier this week that around 50% of Americans have tried meditation, but only about 20% actively maintain some type of meditative practice.

What's going on here?

From my view, I think most people don’t feel a huge positive benefit when they first meditate. The mind is super noisy. They don’t feel calmer. So after 10 minutes, they’re not dying to get back on the meditation cushion.

I personally love meditation, but breathwork can hit different.

For many people, the effect is much more tangible and immediate.

Part of the reason is that breathing gives you a direct way to influence your autonomic nervous system.

Your autonomic nervous system is basically the background system constantly regulating things like your heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and stress response.

It's important because that background state affects how clearly you think, how patient you are, and how reactive you feel.

When the system is on high alert, as mine was often back in those London days, the world feels more urgent.

When your system settles, you often find there is more room to think, notice, and choose.

You can’t simply tell your heart rate, blood pressure, or stress response to calm down, you can consciously change the way you breathe.

And your breathing pattern can influence the state of that larger system.

What brings us to the tactic.

A Tactic: Coherent Breathing

I love Coherent Breathing because it's so simple.

You breathe slowly and evenly at roughly five or six breaths per minute.

That’s about:

• 5–6 seconds breathing in through your nose
• 5–6 seconds breathing out through your nose

Around this pace, your breathing can start to line up with some of the natural rhythms between your heart, blood pressure, and nervous system.

Researchers sometimes call this resonance, and this kind of slow breathing has been shown to increase heart rate variability, or HRV, which is one useful marker of autonomic regulation.

I do this most days, usually in the morning before my cup of coffee. It's also a nice way to end the day when I want to transition of out work mode.

The nice thing is that once you know the rhythm, you can practice almost anywhere.

But especially when you’re getting started, I find it much easier when someone else keeps the pace for me.

A Guided Pracitce

So...I recorded a guided 10-minute practice where I keep the rhythm for you!

You can plug in your headphones, press play, and just breathe along.

​

One final note: don't feel this is yet another thing you're supposed to do every morning. Just treat it like an experiment.

Before you start, take a moment to notice how you feel.

When you finish, check again.

It you find it's useful, like you feel calmer, more focused, or clearer, keep it around.

If not, no worries.

See you soon,

Connor

P.S. Coherent Breathing is one of the body-first practices I teach inside The Inner Operating System. If you’re curious about the October 26 Start Together, you can learn more here.