A guide to staying completely calm and confident in interviews and presentations (Part 4)

A guide to staying completely calm and confident in interviews and presentations
Part 4: The 7:11 Breathing Technique


If you have read my first article about how interviews or giving presentations can make otherwise completely competent people turn to jelly, you will be aware that it is the fight or flight response that has been activated.
Of course, one of the symptoms is that we start to breathe faster, a form of hyper-ventilation. Now you would think that this means we are trying to get more oxygen, however this is not the case, in fact it means we have too much oxygen. However it also means that we have too little CO2 in our system, CO2 which is needed for the body to be able to use all this oxygen.
So, this is where this amazingly simple technique, called 7:11 breathing comes in. It is a way of restoring the right level of CO2 and very rapidly creates a physiological response which cannot help but calm you down.
·         Align your head over your body, so that it feels perfectly balanced
·         Breathe in slowly through the nose using the diaphragm muscle. What this really means is that your tummy expands as you breathe in, leaving your chest and shoulders still.
·         Continue this in-breath for a count of seven, counting the numbers to yourself in your head.
·         When you breathe out (again using the diaphragm and through the nose) make this out-breath last a lot longer.
·         Try to make the out-breath last for a count of eleven, counting the numbers to yourself in your head.
·         Continue this for a few minutes. As you continue you cannot help but relax!

The real key to this technique is to make the out-breath last a lot longer than the in-breath. 7:11 is just a handy way of remembering it, although it could equally be 5:8.
This method is extremely effective for stopping panic attacks, but is also great for when we just need to feel a little calmer. It’s almost too simple, isn’t it?

Cathy Simmons
Cognitive Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner
www.cathysimmons.co.uk

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