Anxiety SOS: Discreet Breathwork For Meetings

Feeling anxious before or during a work meeting or sales call? You’re not alone—and you don’t have to just “push through” it.

In this episode, we’ll walk through 3 powerful yet discreet breathwork practices for workplace anxiety that you can use before, during, or after a meeting—even in the middle of a Zoom call.

You'll learn:

• How to calm anxiety quickly at work using your breath
• Simple nervous system resets you can do in 60 seconds or less
• What’s actually happening in your body when anxiety strikes
• How to prepare for meetings when you feel anxious or overwhelmed
• The #1 technique to stay grounded and focused—even when your heart is racing

Whether you're dealing with high-functioning anxiety, social stress, or simply a packed calendar, this episode gives you real tools you can use right now to feel calm, confident, and clear-headed.

Perfect for:

• Entrepreneurs with performance anxiety
• Professionals experiencing stress in meetings
• Women navigating workplace stress and overwhelm
• Anyone looking for natural anxiety relief they can use on the go

Ready To Cultivate Calm On Command? Join us for the Anxiety & Stress Reset right here: https://www.megan-nolan.com/anxiety

Please find the show notes below. Since it is a transcription there may be spelling errors and/or weird grammar. Ignore that and enjoy! Anxiety SOS breath work you can use in a meeting or a sales call or a stressful conversation. Welcome back to another episode of the Movement, Mind and Meaning podcast. I'm your host, Megan Nolan, and today we're talking about. Tools you can actually use to shift yourself out of that anxious state and back into your powerful, grounded, centered, yes, please energy anytime, anywhere. Whether that's in a meeting, before a sales call, during a sales call, in a conversation, you name it, these powerful. Breathwork practices and tools are going to be your SOS savior. OK, so before we get into this and talking about why anxiety seems to pop up inconveniently in these situations, why we get what's called meta anxiety, like worry about the worry. Oh my goodness, what do we even do?And some powerful tools that you can use that are like super ninja. No one will even know that you're doing these. And they are literally using the most powerful tool that you have, your ha, your breath. Did you see that the anxiety and stress reset is kicking off its next community round where we do it all together but apart?Meaning you fit them into your day when it works for you. So you can use these tools to completely reset how you're feeling, how you are navigating your day, and give yourself the deep support at the level of your nervous system. So that you can say stay in your powerful, grounded, serene, queen, badass leadership energy. If you didn't see it, well, the next community round is kicking off again at the end of April for our pre-work. Get you set up, rock it and at the beginning of May. So it's a five day reset. Check out the link in the comments and it's an incredible, incredible no brainer deal at only 37 bucks currently. Who knows what it's going to be in the future because I'm working on how much more magic I can weave into it for you without it overwhelming you, but just in a way that you are actually benefiting from these tools because they are so potent, literally the most effective way for you to cultivate calm on command. So let's talk about why anxiety is unpredictable, not always logical, kind of frustrating sometimes. So our nervous system reacts to a threat, perceived threat, real threat. And of course it reacts also in danger. But anxiety is that perceived threat, right?The response to stress in our body is often shows up as anxiety, right?And so some people. Experience that stress reaction as a flight response to anxiety. Like get me the hell out of here. What am I even doing?Why am I going live on Facebook?Why am I going to this podcast?Why am I doing these sales calls?Whatever it is, right? Whatever your situation, whether it's a meeting or any of those aforementioned things, it's that like press the eject button, get me out of here reaction. Or we have a fight reaction of, OK, I got to handle this. What am I going to do?I got to, I got to take action. I'm going to sort this out and. It's more of a doing sort of energy versus a leaving sort of energy that is the the flight response. OK. So in these high pressure situations, again, whether it's a, you know, whether it's one of those things that just feels like high pressure, like you're about to go and do your commercial at a networking meeting or you're about to go on a really big podcast or you're in a meeting and you know it's it'sYou get to bring up a part of a conversation that's kind of a little awkward. What's happening here is your body goes into a sympathetic state. It gets very reactive. It's ready for action, right?Whether that's going to be the leave or the do. Your heart rate starts to increase. Your blood pressure increases. Your blood flow moves from the digestive organs from the center of your body out to your extremities. So you can handle that situation. However you can handle it. Your breath gets short and shallow because we want more oxygen, less carbon dioxide. Your muscles tense up. Your pupils. What's the opposite of dilate?Shrink. Narrow. They they really get pinpointed. And so even when we feel like that's about to happen, you can feel that level of anticipatory preparation, right?And that's the interesting thing and it's so important. This is the reframe is that if you start to notice that in your body in these situations, it's really important to just remember first and foremost, this is a little bonus tip, not a breath work practice. This is just your nervous system doing it's job. Right. It's it's perceiving a threat, right. And the threat isn't the tiger anymore. Unless you live somewhere where there's tigers. The the threat in this situation is I'm in a meeting and I'm about to get called on or you feel that bubbling feeling of anxiety and it could be completely unrelated to the meaning. It could just be the fact that, you know, you have other things on your mind and heart and that's causing that same reaction. And so again, that's just the real starting point is it's just your nervous system. Doing its job. These are signals. These are cues, right?Just like hunger, just like thirst. These are cues from your body. And so we want to just start there, right?And that's the practice of nonjudgmental self-awareness. That is a big part of my work. And So what we want to do is, if you know, and you probably do at this point because you know yourself, right?You're listening to podcasts, you're diving into tools to thrive beyond depression and anxiety. Prime yourself for those situations as best that you can, right?We don't want to just drink buckets of coffee and not eat food cause then you're gonna be jittery and you're gonna probably even more experience those things. So how can you prime yourself before you go into that, before it even starts, right?I had a client who I taught her breath work practices because she get she would get anxious before sales calls and she used them on an airplane because she also got nervous on the airplane. She used to get so nervous she threw up. But she did the breathing practices. So it wasn't a stressful sales call, but it was another stressful situation. And so she did the breathing practices. She got so relaxed, she didn't throw up and she even fell asleep, right?And so these are tools that you can use as needed, right?As needed. Ideally, you know, beforehand to dial down everything so that we stay in that nice centered state, right?So you're able to navigate the challenges. And so, you know, really simple power pause, breath work ahead of this. Is to use an even breath, right?In yoga, we call this sama vritti. So sama is the root word for same, and vritti is a fluctuation. So it's an even breath. So before you even go into the meeting, when you're driving to work, when you're, I don't know, getting ready to go on the Zoom call, like whatever it is, just count that nice steady, slow breath in for five, out for five. Classically, when we do breath work, we want to until you get really familiar with it and how it feels in your body. Ideally you do it sitting down just for safety, OK?And so when you're doing just normal, you know, more gentle, available breath work practices like that one, you'll be OK standing up once you get familiar with it. But some people, you know, we're all different, thank goodness. Some people get a little more kind of light-headed or whatever. So just know yourself. And so, you know, make sure you do that safely. OK, so doing that, you know, five in, five out, five breaths, you will experience a significant shift physiologically. So in your body and when you do it, visualize yourself rooting down. Grounding yourself down, right?And that's bringing your energy down because when we're in stress, we are really up and our energy is dialed up. So when we're using that smooth exhalation, we wanna visualize yourself rooting, grounding, settling yourself down, dropping your energy from your your head down into your body. So you feel steady, you feel centered, you feel anchored. And what we're doing here is we are. Beginning to stimulate your vagus nerve, which is the wandering nerve, right?A vagabond is is someone who wanders. So the vagus nerve wanders throughout your whole body, innervating your vital organs. And the one that we can connect with and communicate with are your lungs, right?So by controlling your breath, you directly activate the vagus nerve, which will help to shift you from that sympathetic stress response to a parasympathetic. So it's a slowing down, gradually down regulating. So what's cool is that. Even just in a few deep breaths, typically in about 3 deep breaths, we start to notice a change in your body, in your stress level, in your tension level and actually starts to bring your cortisol levels down and it increases what's called your heart rate variability. So it's allowing you to. Directly impact the rhythm and beat of your heart rate by changing the rhythm and beat of your lungs or your breathing, excuse me, through your lungs, which then signals that to your heart and then that signals steady calm state to your brain. And so that message from your body up to your brain then signals an even more of a quieting, right. So this is a measure of emotional resilience and. Internal presence and alignment, right? Because you're sending more information from your body up to your brain than the other way around. So that's really important to just remember to prime yourself before you go in. So that's one of the breathwork practices you can do. Samavriti is just even in, even out. OK, so. 5566, whatever doesn't matter. OK, so as long as it feels good for you and your body. O then OK, so you rimed yourself, you're in the meeting, you're in the sales call. And you're about to do your pitch or you're about to say the thing and you can feel yourself like, here we go. You can feel your heart beating. You can feel your stomach kind of doing what it likes to do. Or you can, you know, hear your mind like, oh God, you're totally going to screw this up. Oh no, this is the whatever it is. OK, so we want to make sure to turn off our self-judgment and again, be aware. That anxiety thrives on itself. So as soon as we start to worry about, you know, saying it wrong or doing or whatever, as soon as we notice the anxiety and then we start to get what's called meta anxiety. So it's like that bigger, broader view of what's happening. Meta anxiety is anxiety about anxiety. Trust me, I've been there. Maybe you have too. So remind yourself I can handle this. I can do this, right?This is where the self-talk comes in, because we all know that when the mind is in a stress state, we tend to go default to a very critical mode and, you know, trying to prevent mistakes. And so it starts to like tell you all the times you screwed up before, you know, you know, it's good times. Really great. Thanks for talking about this right now. No, not the time for us to review all past mistakes, right?But that's what it likes to do in those moments. It's so funny. So we want to. In that moment to self soothe with that nice even breath. OK, so you're sitting and you just can place your hands on your body very discreetly. Just place your hands on your body or do whatever feels good. And So what we're gonna do is as you inhale. You're gonna widen your hands, make your hand really wide. So open your hands and then as you exhale again, really just calm and discreet. You're not doing this big and you know it's not a big gesture. You're just exhaling and squeezing your fists. You inhale through your nose, exhale and squeeze your fists. Feel the tension, squeeze the fists and then relax. OK, So what you're doing there is you are moving between an expanded state on the inhale and a contracted state, and you're allowing some of that stress energy to begin to be processed in your body. OK. So that's another one that you can do that's really powerful and very discreet, right?Like you're, you know, if you're on a Zoom call, you might just kind of bring your hands down. You can either have your hands on your body when you do it, or if you need to be a little more subtle with everything, you can have your hands under the table. Or if you have one hand, you know. Again, it doesn't have to be both hands. It can just be like one or two hands and you can just, you know, whatever, whatever feels suitable for the situation. I just want to give you this tool so that you can then begin to play with it. So basically what you're doing is you're giving your mind something to focus on as well as using the tool of the breath and you're contracting and releasing. You're giving an outlet for this energy that's building inside of you as a response to the stress of the situation. Now the last one that I wanted to share with you is the SOS sigh. OK, so we're talking about anxiety SOS. So what this is, is that again can be very subtle is what we do is we inhale gently through our nose and we just make it kind of like 2 little sniffs and then we exhale through your mouth. OK, so I'm doing it loud enough for you to hear me. OK, it's a really soft, long whisper out through your mouth. And if you are feel like even that might draw attention to you and you, I don't know, feel weird about it or whatever, all good. I totally get it. You can just. I just did it there. You didn't hear me, hopefully. OK, so you can do it quietly. And even if you want to, as you breathe in, you can say to yourself mentally as you breathe in the two parts. I am and exhale safe. I am safe. What we're doing here is using the breath, using that mantra, that repetition. You can have your hands on your body for an extra layer of support. OK, so you know, you can just have your hands resting on your belly or gently cross your wrists or just. Hold on to one of your thumbs, like whatever, just some sort of physical touch and then you're repeating that to yourself so that it again serves as another anchor and a reminder for you. OK, so that one's the physiological sigh. And So what this does is a sigh and and you know, if it can be more obvious, if you're muted and you can just like do it out loud, that's even better. OK, so. You know you can mute yourself on the zoom meeting. Just let it sigh out because the sigh is the natural signal to the body that we are resetting. It's actually a direct signal to your brain stem right at the base of your brain. Specifically the I'm going to look at my notes pre Botzinger complex. I'm not exactly sure, but someone named Botzinger probably found it. So it's a part of your brain stem. That when we sigh there, it signals to your nervous system, right?Because it's part of your nervous system that you're no longer in threat, OK, that everything is safe, that you have just let out that nice soft sigh. And again, it signals more of that parasympathetic, that slowing down of the nervous system, calming and settling and quieting your heart rate, as well as slowing down the rhythm of your breath and is grounding you and settling you even more. OK. So again, that just that soft, subtle sigh to whatever degree you feel comfortable with. That's the the third practice that I wanted to share with you. So that's what I wanted to share with you today. I hope that you found this really helpful. And of course there's many different ways that you can use the breath as it is such a powerful tool that are, you know, even more expressive if you needed to be so because sometimes if you're feeling quite anxious. Using those more softer breath practices doesn't quite feel like enough, OK?And so these ones I shared are, you know, ones to use that are a little bit more discreet that you can use in a meeting. But there's so many different ways that you can use the breath because just doing that some of reaching may not feel like enough depending on the level that you're at, right?As far as the anxiety level that you're experiencing, so. That's what I wanted to share with you today. I hope that you found that really, really helpful and are able to use some of those tools in your life. So practical, portable tools is what I'm all about. Because, you know, life, right? We can't just be floating on our yoga mat and, you know, deal with anxiety in that situation. No, like the reality is, is that life presents us opportunities to practice these skills pretty much every day. So here we are. So when you make these tools part of your practice, part of your daily rhythm, it becomes a tool set to help you to truly calm your body, rewire your system, learn to use these tools as a regulation system, right?Just like you have a hydration system, I eat, you drink water all day. This is a system that helps you to stay in that center, grounded, powerful, peaceful place and notice when you're not there and bring yourself back. So the anxiety and stress reset, as I mentioned, is starting again soon. And if this practice, these practices here helped you feel even just a little bit more grounded, a little bit more at peace, knowing that you have things you can do anytime, anywhere to cultivate calm on command. Just imagine if you built this whole support into your whole day, right?If you had this level of. Confidence in taking these steps and doing what you needed to do in any situation. Just imagine how not only how powerful and badass you would feel because you're doing things for yourself, but also knowing that you can truly not just cope with these sensations or just deal with them or manage them or just kind of ignore them. You're actually doing things that are cumulative in your body that. Allow you to stay in that centered, regulated place and it actually begins to shift you at your deepest level of your body, of your nervous system. So powerful, right?So incredibly powerful. So would love to have you join us. If you have any questions or anything, reach out. The link is to grab is in the show notes so you can grab your spot. And again, we start with a prep week, get you all set up, make sure you know all the tools. You learn all of these beautiful shifts, right?It's about it's really. A big part of this is shifting how you deal with it and how you experience it and what you say about it, how you relate to it, cultivating deeper levels of self-awareness and compassionate curiosity and really understanding yourself. Like cause you're really cool. I want you to understand yourself a little bit more like really what's happening at the at the deepest level and how you can begin to just see this for what it really is and then give yourself what you need in each moment, right?And so that's really the essence of this is. It shifts you at the deepest level because it's an empowering tool set and it's not just tools for you to use. It's actually completely shifts how you're showing up and who you're being because you're able to do this anytime, anywhere. So join us for the reset. The link is in the description of the show notes and we look forward to seeing you very, very soon. Have a beautiful, wonderful rest of your amazing day and until next time, take good care. Bye bye.