He had started holding his breath again.
Not in any dramatic way, just the quiet tension in his chest that crept in while answering emails, scrolling headlines, pretending to listen in video meetings. His jaw clenched more often than not, and when he finally looked in the mirror late at night, it was as if the muscles around his eyes had forgotten how to soften.
The tension wasn’t new. But it had changed. It used to be situational – tied to deadlines, big presentations, family conflict. Now, it seemed to hum beneath everything. A background buzz he couldn’t shake. When he finally lay down at night, sleep didn’t come easy. His body, wired and twitchy, didn’t know how to power down.
That morning, he sat in the car with the engine off, fingers still curled around the steering wheel. His shoulders hovered near his ears. The breath that came when he finally exhaled felt ancient, like it had been waiting for release all week.
That was the moment he decided to try something. Anything.
He didn’t call it a practice. Not at first. Just a pause. A breath. A moment to hear what his body was telling him.
It started with a short clip he saw online, with a woman speaking softly about listening to your body. It sounded pretty vague, but nice. If it worked, which he doubted. But that evening, after brushing his teeth, he sat on the edge of the bed. Not to think, not to plan, just to check in with himself, his body, his feelings. He closed his eyes, placed both feet on the floor, and started scanning.
Toes first. Then ankles. Then his shins. There wasn’t much to feel at first. Just… numbness. Then, when he reached his thighs, a sudden tightness. Not pain, exactly. More like a coiled wire. “I guess that’s why they call it tension,” he thought to himself.
He kept going. Stomach – tight. Chest – fluttery. Jaw – clenched again. He didn’t try to change anything. Just noticed. A few slow breaths moved through his nose as he listened to each sensation and the story it held. When he opened his eyes, five minutes had passed. He felt no sudden peace. But something had shifted. The buzz had dialed down a notch. The static had quieted, if only slightly.
He started doing the scan most nights. Then one morning, waking to a racing heart, tight chest and spiraling thoughts, he tried something else. A breath – slowly in, longer out. Then again. A long slow Inhale. An even longer exhale. A rhythm emerged. He noticed his shoulders drop. His face soften. His mind, which had been cartwheeling through catastrophes, started to trail off, like a storm passing over.
Later, on a lunch break, he tried again. This time holding his breath after a slow deep inhale and again after a big long exhale. There was power in these pauses. He didn’t realize how much of his day he spent reacting, instantly, habitually, with no space between stimulus and reply. His held breath opened space. And in that space, he felt a sense of calm and control.
But the real change came a few weeks later, when he caught himself snapping at someone he loved. Nothing huge, just impatience, layered with exhaustion. He stepped into the next room, closed the door, and sat on the edge of the couch. Then, instead of scrolling or venting or clenching harder, he tried something different.
Leaning into his frustration, he made two fists and held them tight. When he let go, he suddenly felt the energy release. Forearms. Biceps. Shoulders. He tensed each muscle in sequence and then released. When he got to his jaw, he almost laughed. It felt like it had been locked shut for years. Letting it go took effort – and then, strangely, no effort at all. He sat for a few moments afterward, breathing, face softened, arms loose at his sides. The apology came more easily than usual. And so did the rest of their evening.
This intentional flexing and relaxing became his secret weapon. On tough days, he did it before bed. On really tough ones, he stepped into the bathroom at work, closed the stall, and squeezed and released whatever muscle group he could manage. It didn’t fix everything. His job was still demanding. His sleep still inconsistent. But something fundamental had changed.
He had stopped living only in his head. He no longer treated his body as a vehicle to push harder or a nuisance to ignore. It became his partner. A messenger. A place he could come back to, over and over, when things felt unmanageable. Some days, it was just one deep breath before replying to a difficult email. Other days, a five-minute check-in scan in the car before walking into a tense meeting. And some nights, it was nothing more than unclenching his jaw and placing a hand over his heart, whispering – you’re okay, everything will be ok.
He still felt stress. Still had bad days. But he had tools. More than that, he had trust. Not in outcomes or circumstances, but in his ability to meet whatever came with presence. This wasn’t about perfection. It was about returning to his center. Each breath was a return. Each scan, a check-in. Each muscle released, a letting go.
And slowly, gently, he stopped waiting for the world to calm down. He learned to find calm within.
