Triangles! Try Today Before A Teams Meeting

I was running one of our Executive Coach programmes – where I deliver formal coaching qualifications with accelerated professional accreditation built in to save time – it’s the ones that are aligned with the Association for Coaching.

We’ve got people coming through from “Leaders who Coach” right through to full Executive Coach accreditation. The cohorts are always brilliant, because these are people who are already really good at what they do — and they’re adding coaching on top — so you end up learning loads from them – about their worlds and specialist areas, but just also cool hacks from nice people!

Antonia Lewry — who’s a director at BeTalent by Zircon shared this hack with her coaching cohort in the Zoom room, and I’ve basically nicked it and used it ever since.

It links to something myself and Dr Iain Price (PhD) talked about in DOSE — breathing. Breathing is powerful. It’s one of the simplest ways to calm yourself down, centre yourself, and just get your brain working a bit better.

Science made simple

Antonia gave us a simple thing to remember. Triangle breathing:

In for 3

Hold for 3

Out for 3

Easy. Imagine a triangle as you do it. She encouraged us to draw one in the air as we did the 3 stages! It worked and it stuck!

So far so good. But how do you remember it in the moment at work when you are stressed and rushing about? Well, this was the genius bit! Instead of just saying “remember to do your breathing” — which, let’s be honest, most of us won’t — she said do it as you press “Join meeting” or just as you’re about to walk into a meeting room, maybe you use a regular one and always pass a certain plant? Or maybe as you pick up your meeting pack?

That’s the beautiful bit about the hack…

Because what you’re doing is stacking it onto something you already do – walk into a meeting room or clicking on ‘join now’. So now every meeting becomes a little reset point. You’re not adding something totally new into your day — you’re attaching a new habit to something that’s already there.

And what that means is you arrive a bit more centred, a bit more focused, a bit more ready, because of the breath — instead of slightly rushed and still ruminating about what happened in the last meeting or when on earth you might grab some lunch.

What’s the science…

Your mum or teacher might have told you as a child to ‘take a deep breath’ – they were right! And there’s now some really solid neuroscience behind it. Scientists have identified pathways between the thinking part of your brain and your breathing system — which means you can consciously slow your breathing and reduce anxiety.

There’s also good evidence that slow, controlled breathing lowers arousal and helps with emotional regulation — so you’re not just “feeling calmer”, your brain is literally shifting state. And more broadly, breathing rhythm is tied into how your brain handles attention and emotion — so it affects how you think, not just how you feel.

You’ll see this talked about in places like BBC Worklife and New Scientist, because it’s simple and it works. If you’re interested, see the links below. I went to my favourite breath person – my own current Executive Coach Jessica Livingstone BA Hons , who also has 20 years of teaching yoga too (jessicalivingstone.coach / wellbeingyoga). Jess said:

Based on my 20 years of experience I know how essential our breathing patterns are to how we feel about situations and how quickly and effectively we are able to think ourselves out of them.

With the right breathing techniques we get to bring our nervous system back into balance. We do this by activating the healing part of the nervous system and simultaneously quietening the part that creates stress.

This healing, calming part is the parasympathetic nervous system. And this can be measured by monitoring fluctuations in heart rate variability (HRV).

In sum, literally every breath you take will affect your heart rate. And every time you learn to calm your system you get that pause that allows you to think clearly again and make a better life choice.

One of my Executives tells me regularly she swears by my coaching and breath-work combination. We talk about whatever comes up for her in her busy and complicated life. I noticed when she talked about particular situations her breathing changed, we worked on the breath first and her perspective on the situation evolved. She says it was the ‘breathing first’ that helped give her the mental clarity to clear the issue.

Why this matters

It’s not that we’re not at our best in meetings because we aren’t capable or have too much on. It might just be that we’re not quite in the right state when we start.

One thing to try today

Next time you’re about to join a call — or walk into a meeting — just do a couple of triangles:

In for 3

Hold for 3

Out for 3

That’s it.

Steal it

I’ve been using this five or six times a day. It’s simple, it sticks, and it just helps you show up a bit better. I hope it helps you or someone you know today.