4 Helpful Tips to Incorporate Deep Breathing Exercises in Your Daily Experience More Easily

Today, I'd like to give you some helpful tips to help you incorporate deep breathing exercises more easily and smoothly into your daily routine. As I mentioned in my previous post, deep breathing is incredibly beneficial in many ways, and the best part is that it's free! Oh, and did I mention there are no side effects? There's absolutely no reason not to do it, yet most people don't do it enough. So, today, I'd like to share some helpful tips to make it easier for you.

Tip #1: Gently push your abdomen: Many people struggle with using their abdomens when practicing deep breathing initially. Instead, they tend to rely on chest breathing, which can feel uncomfortable and less rewarding even when done slowly. To overcome this, it's important to engage your abdomen. If you find it challenging, imagine there's a balloon inside your abdomen, place your hand on it, and gently push it in as you breathe out. Then, as you breathe in, visualize the balloon expanding and pushing your hand away. This technique allows you to utilize your diaphragm more effectively.

Tip #2: Close the back of your throat to slow down your breath: To slow down your breathing effectively, try exhaling as if you were fogging a mirror, but through your nose. By exhaling slowly and utilizing your abdomen (as in Tip #1), you can significantly slow down the pace of your breath. If this technique proves difficult, you can purse your lips as if you were whistling and exhale slowly, then inhale through your nose slowly.

Tip #3: Keep your tongue touching your upper palate: Breathing through the nose can be challenging for some individuals. It may feel impossible to remember to breathe through your nose consistently, as breathing is often an automatic process. To make it easier, just pay attention to the position of your tongue and keep it touching your upper palate. This simple action makes it more natural and automatic for you to breathe through your nose. Breathing through the nose has many benefits, which is what “Mewing” is all about, so why not give it a try? Once your muscles remember the correct tongue placement, it becomes much easier to maintain, resulting in improved breathing.

Tip #4: Focus on squeezing out your breath to exhale: When you experience sudden upsets, anger, shock, nervousness, or similar emotions, taking a deep breath can be very helpful. However, it's not easy to implement when you're highly upset. In such situations, try focusing on exhaling slowly by squeezing out your breath forcefully but slowly, using the technique described in Tip #2. By squeezing it out this way, it becomes an active behavior that's much easier to perform than trying to calm yourself down directly. You can even do it while feeling angry or enraged. When you exhale slowly this way, your body automatically adjusts by inhaling more slowly as well, leading to the amazing benefits of deep breathing.

In summary, I strongly recommend you incorporate any of the above tips or any other techniques you come across to enhance your deep breathing practice in your daily life. You'll experience a greater sense of peace, improved relationships, and a more relaxed life. 

Overrated “Motivation”

“Motivation,” I think, is a perfect topic to talk about today, as I have not written anything here for several years! Yes, it was my bad. I was not motivated and was so lazy.

Many people rely on motivation to explain what they do and don't do. Phrases like “I need motivation to do...,” “I did not do it because I was not motivated,” and “If I had more motivation, I'd do...” are very familiar, aren't they? We tend to value “motivation” as the driving force behind our actions.

Of course, I would not deny that. With strong motivation, we become more effective and efficient in doing what we are supposed to do. We feel more excited about it and get it done more quickly. However, if we rely too heavily on our motivation, it won't always be helpful. We are not powerless creatures controlled by motivation. 

What is truly important is to shift our mindset and view motivation as an optional boost: We expect ourselves to take action regardless of our level of motivation. We can appreciate good motivation if we have it, but we shouldn't depend on it entirely. We can still accomplish tasks as if motivation is not a necessary factor. By adopting this framework, we can free ourselves from the burden of motivation and simply appreciate it if and when it arises.

The bottom line today is that we may want to avoid overrating and depending too much on our motivation. If we let go of the expectation, all we have is the appreciation of motivation when we experience it, rather than treating it as a requirement we constantly wait for or seek. Just take action, and the sense of accomplishment will bring you satisfaction and possibly even fuel future motivation. Today, I pushed myself to write and upload this article, and I feel good now.

The Power of Acceptance of Reality

So many people appear to overlook the power of acceptance. It is not a passive thing, but an active action. Please let me explain it a little today. 

One of the important acceptances is of your emotional experience. I have written about it before, and I will do it again and again in future, too; your emotional experience needs to be accepted no matter what emotions you are experiencing (*except for “mislabeled guilt”). You have no choice but to do it in order to avoid emotional, behavioral, and/or relational problems later on. It feels counter-intuitive, but it is in fact the case. Accepting your emotional experience is closely related to accepting yourself; therefore, if it is denied, you are denied. 

Another important kind of acceptance is today’s topic: Acceptance of reality. It may sound strange, but many people refuse to accept reality. I understand that reality often hurts (very much) and we don’t want things to be the way they are. However, while you keep denying reality, your life won’t get better and become fulfilling unfortunately. 

The reality I am talking about here are things such “My mother has never been mother-material who can love me unconditionally,” “My boyfriend would never love me in the way I hoped he would,” “I cannot look like the cover model of magazines,” “Covid-19 may kill us,” “I am actually an adict, ”and so on. Can you see it? They are unfortunate realities that people want to dismiss.  

Because of our own desire, we prefer to cling to our “fantasy” rather than face reality. Yes, I understand that reality bites and that you are afraid that you may end up becoming hopeless and powerless if you accept it. However, this is the big misconception. 

When you decide to accept reality, which is a brave action, it may hurt at first, but then you can eventually find some way to live with it. It may be counter-intuitive, but when you finally face and accept reality, you accept your lack of control and powerlessness, which you had been afraid of. But then, something very important can happen to you. You can now see the realm of your control, and you can focus on and maximize it in order to improve your quality of life. 

In other words, when you are in denial of reality, you just feel frustrated and keep making a hopeless effort to fail and repeat it. When we accept reality, you can see what you can do and what you cannot do, and you can pay attention to what you can do, in order to make the situation better within the limitation (reality). This is how you want to live your own life, because it will give you more power and joy! 

Acceptance is not to give up. Please remember it. 

Online Care via Teletherapy

Good day to all our clients, current and future.

Despite the California "safer at home" directive that is still in effect, Dr. Riichiro Miwa Psychological Services is still open and providing our services by phone or online video teletherapy. Dr. Miwa and his staff therapists are all available for teletherapy/telemedicine sessions.

Dr. Miwa and his staff therapists all provide sessions in English. In addition, services can be provided in Japanese by Dr. Miwa, and in Mandarin by our Associate Marriage and Family therapist Sharon Hou. 

Our teletherapy services include:

• Psychotherapy
• Depression therapy
• Therapy for those suffering from thoughts of suicide or self-harm
• Marriage and Family Therapy
• Life-Coaching
• Divorce Counselling
• Couple Therapy
• Non-pharmaceutical depression and anxiety treatment and counselling
• Grief counselling
• LGBTQ+ counselling and life-coaching
• Divorce counselling and support
• Couple counselling

As a provider of essential medical services, in-person services can be provided at our office. However, while the California and Orange County "safer at home" directives remain in place, we encourage our clients to take advantage or our phone and teletherapy options for the health and safety of our providers, you our clients, and for your families and the wider community.

To set up an intake with Dr. Miwa or one of our staff therapists, please visit our Contact page. 

May you and your families all remain safe and healthy at this difficult time.

How to live in the time of COVID-19? Let’s not lose sight of basic principles

The current Covid-19 situation has been affecting almost everyone on the planet. Many many people are unsure how to react and behave, all the while experiencing strong emotional reactions such as anxiety, fear, and anger. It’s a new experience and requires adjustment to our perspectives on life. Because there are many tips on how to spend our days during stay-at-home orders, I am not writing to repeat those things here. Today, however, I would like to share some philosophical point of view that may be helpful for some of you. Because it is a philosophical perspective, you may disagree, and that’s totally fine. I am not talking about what should be an absolute truth or what you have to do, but to offer you some thoughts on  what may help for you to remain calm and accepting of the current situation we all find ourselves in.

In a unique wayCovid-19 has forced us all to face our death and powerlessness, which, of course unsettles and unnerves us all. At the same time, if we step back and see the bigger picture, it has always been this way: We are all moving toward our deaths which inevitably awaits us at some point in the future; maybe tomorrow, maybe in 50 years, we just don’t know the time or place, but it’s an inevitable appointment we all have to keep. The fact hasn’t changed that we don’t know when we will die, but that we will die is certain. The virus has so suddenly and vividly brought this fearful truth to our current consciousness that it has unnerved us both individually and as a society, and we are all confused and panicked. Therefore, I’d like to suggest we go back to the very basics of life in order not to lose our personal foundations for peaceful and calm existence.

When it comes to our life, I think there are three important principles to consider:

We 1) try to survive as best we can until our turn comes to die, 2) while maximizing our quality of life as much as possible, 3) in a state of fundamental acceptance of our limitations. 

The first one needs no explanation. We will die but until it happens, we try to stay alive. That’s a basic drive for most people.

Now let’s think about the second one. We are hoping to have a “good” life, and in order to have it, we do different things: For some people money matters; for some it’s hobbies; for others it’s family and friends, and so on. As much as possible we want to have a good time rich with experience until we die. There is no absolute right or wrong about it; we all just want something to fulfill our life. 

The biggest challenge is the third one… Essentially, we have no choice but to accept things that are out of our control. Limits are limits, and we just accept there is nothing we can do about them. When we try to deny them, fight them, or try to do something to change things that will always be out of our control, we will end up with frustration, pain, hurt, anger, sadness, and so on. In order to avoid this, it is crucial that we just accept our powerlessness, which eventually gives us some peace of mind.

Let’s apply these principles to our current Covid-19 situation. We try to live as well as possible in this tough time, and we maximize our quality of life (and reduce boredom) as much as we can, by doing a variety of things at home. At the same time, we need to choose to accept our powerlessness about the pandemic and the urge to manage it beyond our control. If you don’t do so, many emotional issues will arise. All we can do is to continuously maintain physical distance, stay at home, wash our hands, wear masks, and so on, all of which are things in our control. We continue to do it to live and maximize the quality of life. And we just accept the fact that that’s all we can do. The rest is out of our hands. We don’t struggle over things we cannot do anything about. Just let it be and have faith or hope that eventually this time too shall pass.

In the bigger picture, it has actually always been the same thing in life. We will live and one day we will die, and death is out of our control. We just accept the fact that we will all die. At the same time, how we care for ourselves is something that is in our hands and can actually delay our inevitable rendezvous with death. A healthy diet, exercise, good sleep, medical checkups, saving up money for our financial peace and physical well-being, maintaining good relationships, and so on… It’s essentially the same thing, either with Covid-19 or not: we care for our safety and health as much as we can, and the rest is up to God, the Universe, Lady Luck, Fate, or whatever you believe, isn’t it? The current situation is just something with more limitations. If you were already doing your best to achieve a long and healthy life, you can just continue doing the same thing within the extra limits currently imposed on us. If you haven’t been doing that to date, then now is a good opportunity to face your death and change your lifestyle in a way that improves your odds of a longer and healthier life. The benefits will be immediate and last until that day you die, which will hopefully be a long time from now.

Many people tend to cling to their fantasies about how things should be, be it with the virus, the government, society, other people, etc. and end up feeling defeated, angry, and frustrated. Many people tend to have catastrophic thoughts about the future, and end up feeling depressed, scared, and panicked. None of this is helpful, because it is all out of our control, and focusing on things that we have no power over does nothing but harm.

We benefit from clarifying which things are out of our control and which things are in our hands. No matter how we “feel” about it, we have no option but to accept our limitations; in fact we have no other option. We can let go of useless efforts to control everything, choosing instead to just stay focused on what we really can do. Strangely, when we fully accept our powerlessness, we are more empowered and able to maximize what power we do have over things under our control, resulting in enhancing the quality of our life. 

We are currently in an extreme situation, but the fundamental principles have always been the same. Let’s focus on what we can do and let go of the rest in order to enjoy a more peaceful state of mind to experience the joy of life.