I’d like to talk about a breath-counting technique I took up about a year ago. At the time, I was revising for some fairly demanding university assessments, and I kept finding myself getting side-tracked by notifications on my mobile phone. My thoughts were constantly racing, so I decided to give structured mindfulness a shot.
I usually practised this first thing in the morning in my bedroom, sitting on a cushion by the window where it was completely quiet. I first came across the method through an audio series on a wellbeing streaming channel. The instructor explained a straightforward routine where you inhale deeply for four seconds, hold your breath for a moment, and then count your exhalations up to ten before starting over. If your mind wanders, you simply acknowledge the stray thought and reset the count back to one.
To be honest, I found it quite frustrating at the beginning. I had no idea how restless my mind actually was, and I couldn't even make it past three or four breaths without thinking about revision schedules or household chores. However, after sticking with it for ten minutes every day for a couple of weeks, I started to notice a genuine shift in my daily habits.
It made a massive difference to my study sessions. Whenever I felt overwhelmed by dense reading or felt the urge to check my messages, I'd instinctively pause and regulate my breathing for a minute. That tiny habit created just enough mental space to stop me from acting on impulses, making it much easier to sustain my attention on complex tasks.