Community classes called “Learning to Breathe,” taught throughout the county, teach skills to increase stress management, reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, regulate difficult emotions, strengthen attention and cultivate gratitude and compassion. The six-session classes are offered once a week either in the evening or daytime and cover these topics. 

The Learning to Breathe curriculum was piloted in the sixth and eighth grades throughout the Davis School District and was very successful in helping students. A free app called Learning to Breathe can be downloaded for Apple and Android phones.

Jen Wilcox recently taught a six-week class held at the Bountiful Community Church in Bountiful. About a dozen adults attended the class practicing mindfulness or paying attention on purpose to what is happening right here in this very moment. Each week focuses on a Letter in BREATHE. The last letter stands for being empowered. The skills learned in the class are tools that can empower participants to control their stress response and build mental health in positive ways.

“Try to be to class each week,” Wilcox said, “I know life happens, but we add a little bit more to the skills each time. Give it your best shot, and try. Be here for you!” Attending the class can be thought of as inner-strength training. One exercise is eating a Wint–O-Green Lifesaver with mindfulness focusing on the myriad sensations and thoughts going on in the mind and body. Practicing this simple mindfulness can enable participants to be the observer in their own bodies and minds as they respond to negative emotions like frustration, anger, fear and anxiety. If you notice, for example, that you hold your breath or even forget to breathe during stressful emotions, you can consciously change this. Wilcox gives each class member three adhesive dots to place throughout their living space to remind them to take three deep, cleansing breaths. 

As skills improve, students can increase regulation in the prefrontal cortex and decrease reactivity in the amygdala. The class also teaches some sitting and standing postures and can release tension in the body. Breathing out activates the “cool down” response in the body, it puts the brakes on the stress response. So, a long, slow exhalation can help relaxation. The course contains an informative, but entertaining memo from the Body-Mind Team to people who have a mind and body. The memo warns that letting the stress response activate too many times can damage the system causing the immune system protecting from sickness to function poorly – stomach and memory problems can also result. Modulating the stress response with mindfulness can be a great place to start. Mindfulness can be practiced while doing simple everyday activities like walking and eating. 

Finally, the course stresses gratitude and self-compassion. This is more than experiencing a “nice feeling,” but rather a practice that can become a habit. Practicing noticing the beautiful things around us and in us can build more positive emotions. A self-compassion thought to practice may be, “Everyone has thoughts, feelings, and circumstances that make them happy sometimes and upset at other times, these are all part of living a fully human life. Others feel them too. I can be kinder to myself right now.”

Visit www.dbhutha.org/adults/mindfulness-for-adults/ for classes that may be starting in your area.