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Come back to normal breathing and check the body, the thoughts, the mood, the energy. Do not analyse it, just register it. Going round after round without stopping makes you good at the technique and teaches you nothing about your own responses, which is exactly what you need when you come to use it alone at three in the morning.
their skins and their hearts soften at the mention of God (Quran 39:23). The change is noticed in the body first and then in the heart, roughly the order you are checking in.
الزمر
ٱللَّهُ نَزَّلَ أَحۡسَنَ ٱلۡحَدِيثِ كِتَٰبࣰ ا مُّتَشَٰبِهࣰ ا مَّثَانِيَ تَقۡشَعِرُّ مِنۡهُ جُلُودُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَخۡشَوۡنَ رَبَّهُمۡ ثُمَّ تَلِينُ جُلُودُهُمۡ وَقُلُوبُهُمۡ إِلَىٰ ذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِۚ ذَٰلِكَ هُدَى ٱللَّهِ يَهۡدِي بِهِۦ مَن يَشَآءُۚ وَمَن يُضۡلِلِ ٱللَّهُ فَمَا لَهُۥ مِنۡ هَادٍ
God has sent down the most beautiful of all teachings: a Scripture that is consistent and draws comparisons; that causes the skins of those in awe of their Lord to shiver. Then their skins and their hearts soften at the mention of God: such is God’s guidance. He guides with it whoever He will; no one can guide those God leaves to stray
Qur’an 39:23read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a small pilot with eighteen men, one short session of guided deep breathing raised heart rate variability during and after the session, and changed how they responded to a stressor that came later. So the effect does not stop when the exercise stops, which is part of why the pause afterwards deserves attention. Eighteen people and no control group makes that a hint rather than a finding.
Prinsloo GE, Derman WE, Lambert MI, Laurie Rauch HG. (2013). The effect of a single session of short duration biofeedback-induced deep breathing on measures of heart rate variability during laboratory-induced cognitive stress: a pilot study.. Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
You can only tell what a breath did by comparing how you were before it with how you are afterwards.
You are not trying to talk yourself into feeling calm. You are trying to move your body from one setting into another, and the breath is the handle you can reach.
To find the soft ocean sounding breath, breathe out through your mouth as if fogging up a mirror. Then keep that same slight narrowing at the throat with your mouth closed, and let the sound get quieter and quieter.
Breathe in for about five and out for about ten, and do not hold at the top. Go straight from the in breath into the out breath, five to ten times over.