The Breathe Toolkit

Our minds and bodies are linked. Thoughts and feelings can change our physical performance, and the reverse can also be true. You can literally change the way you feel by changing your posture.

How can you control your emotions? Concentrating on your breathing is an excellent way of learning how to become more present and a very important factor in building emotional regulation.

Our minds can travel in time, from past to future. But our bodies cannot. A great way to reconnect with the present is to concentrate on the physical sensations in our body to calm your mind.

Think back to a time when you have been late for an appointment. You’re already feeling tense and perhaps a bit annoyed with yourself for not getting ready sooner. If the traffic builds and delays you further, those negative feelings might turn into negative thoughts against other road users.

When presented with a challenge, whether it’s a complex work environment, a difficult conversation at home or you’re about to step onto the sports field…it is natural to feel tense as your threat system starts to fire up. But when you’re feeling calm and relaxed, you think more clearly, make more rational decisions and perform at your best.

Sometimes engaging with a task just feels like too much effort; like exercising or starting a piece of work that we know is important. After a while, even taking a first step towards a task can start to feel overwhelming. And quite often, that first step is the most difficult.

Have you noticed that you can be your own harshest critic?
Think about the last time you were faced with a challenge that didn’t go so well…did you walk away with positive thoughts about next time or did you ‘beat yourself up?’ Perhaps you didn’t even start the challenge because you convinced yourself beforehand that you might fail.

We all have activities that we know make us feel good – emotionally and physically. But sometimes we just feel too busy, too focused on one aspect of everyday life or work to make time for them. This exercise is all about restoring the balance and consciously putting those positive activities back into our normal routines.

Our values are the things in life which we believe are important to the way we live and work. They are the guiding principles against which we measure ourselves. When we're aware of what they are, they can guide our actions and decisions on a day-to-day basis.

Looking at a complex task can be daunting. If we put off the task and procrastinate, we can generate negative or unhelpful thoughts about our own abilities. But taking on a new task or challenge can also be invigorating and exciting. A lot of people enjoy being creative and a new task with a blank sheet of paper can often give us the freedom to explore our ideas.

We will all experience times in our lives when things don’t go our way.
Some people think that if you are compassionate, you might allow standards to slip…you might make excuses for poor outcomes and therefore it could be counter-intuitive to perceive self compassion as a technique to improve performance.

No one can be good at everything. But everyone is good at something.
It is sometimes easy to compare ourselves to others rather than focusing on our individual strengths. This can be hugely discouraging and can affect our performance by triggering negative thoughts and feelings that in turn, influence our actions.

Having a good network of support from friends and/or family is a huge factor in building and maintaining mental fitness. A strong social support network means that you have more emotional, physical and logistical support available to you: both in your day-to-day and when life throws you a challenge.

In almost every problem we face there are opportunities to learn about ourselves and grow. Even if these problems seem all-encompassing and overwhelming. Not every problem results in a crisis. But even when we experience relatively minor setbacks, if we’ve got a lot of other issues going on at the same time, even the smallest problem can feel like it’s too big to handle.

Getting outdoors on a regular basis is a great way to build your mental fitness. Whether it’s taking a break in the garden, going for a walk in the park or spending time by the water, getting outdoors has a positive impact on our ability to think and focus as well as positively affecting our mood and stress levels. This in turn can contribute to how we perform each day and can even help us get a better night’s sleep.

Being creative even just for a few minutes each day can help us enter a positive state of mind. Being creative can mean different things to different people. Whether you express creativity through art, cooking, music or trying new experiences…it doesn’t matter.

We thank people several times a day, whether it's the person who serves you a coffee or when someone lets you out in traffic. But gratitude runs deeper than the simple act of saying thank you. Gratitude is intrinsically linked to feeling present, being mindful of your situation and appreciating the value of things.

Distractions tend to be seen as negative. But distraction techniques can be really positive, especially when our mind gets caught up in a negative spiral or when we feel the urge to engage with unhealthy behaviours.

Visualisation is the act of mentally rehearsing an event before it happens in order to make you more prepared when challenged in real life. In the process of visualising success, you will start to produce positive feelings – almost as if you were experiencing that success in real life.