Journals, Breathing, and Balance: Stress Tools I Put to the Test

Jessica Colarco (: 00:06

Welcome back to Healing is My Hobby. Today we're diving into a segment I'm calling the Healing Lab. If you're new here,

where I get curious, experiment, and try out different wellness strategies, both traditional and alternative,

as a part of my own personal healing journey. Think of it as my lab for testing what really works so you can learn from my experiences. Healing just isn't my job, it's my hobby, and that means I get to play, explore, and see what makes a real difference. This month in the healing lab, I focused on stress reduction. Here's what I experimented with. Journaling every day and noting my stress level on a scale of one to 10, meditation four to six days a week,

breathing techniques, including box breathing and the 478 method. Plus, keeping my core habits, which are at least seven hours of sleep a night and exercising four to six days a week. So let's start with journaling.

Writing down my stress levels each day helped me spot patterns I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Some days were tougher, but seeing the trends on paper made it feel more manageable. And I don't even think it takes a few minutes to do this. Honestly, like just checking in with yourself, a few of the earlier episodes, the very first trailer I have for healing is my hobby, and

is my cardio, we start out doing a brief check-in, and I'm just inviting you to check in.

So just by every morning taking what is that 10 seconds, you know, what is my stress level on a scale of 1 to 10 and asking that question really helped me begin my day with intention. Because if I start my day off with a stress level of 8, I think I'm like, whoa, what's happening that I'm waking up at 8? And then I kind of change my day from there because I was like, oh gosh, I, you know, I don't want to have a heart attack. You know, I don't want to have a headache, I want a stress headache.

I don't wanna be irritable with my friends and family. So just checking in with myself really helped me change my day. So then I was like, okay, maybe I need to do some deep breathing, sit with my coffee, are there some things I can take off my plate? So for example, one day I was going to get up, work out, go to work, see about five or six clients, then go drive and get my high schooler, drop him off at his practice, and then drive all the way across town.

about 25 minutes, and then get my fifth grader from school. And then he had practice later that day. So by looking at my stress level, I'm really fortunate my daughter drives, my parents are retired and semi-retired. So I was able to just reach out to my parents and ask if someone could get my fifth grader. That way didn't have to run all over the place. And so I thought that that really helped me make day to day, minute by minute, hour by hour changes just by checking in with them.

myself. And then you're creating a record. Another benefit, right, is that you are creating a record that you can look back on. And that record makes it easy to notice triggers. Maybe Mondays always feel heavier, or maybe you're more stressed when you skip sleep. And again, it doesn't have to be fancy. You're just rating your stress on a scale from 1 to 10. You can write a few words if you want to. I literally use my Legend Planner. Love it so much.

And so at the bottom I have the hourly planner and there was some space at the bottom of every day. And I'm gonna just write it in, my stress really was all over the place. You know, it was like an eight and a 10, four and a 10, three and a 10, seven and a 10, nine, three, nine, five, four, it really was kind of all over the place. But you can kind of, you know, just the act of writing it down helps us slow down and it forces us to pause and notice which in and of itself is calming. And so instead of carrying it all in our body,

we're letting it move to the page where it becomes something that we can work with. So I found this really beneficial and helpful. I'd like to continue this practice. So I recommend you try it, even if it's just for three days and see what comes up for you. Next, meditation. I kept it simple, just five to 15 minutes of meditation. Most days I shot for kind of like, I don't like failing, so I don't like setting these insane goals, because then I feel like I fail, so.

I was just shooting for four to six days a week of meditation. Some sessions were smooth and other sessions my mind wandered, but consistency really is the key. For me, there is a guided meditation that I was given to by a spiritual healer. about seven and a half minutes long. I love listening to that. I even tell my clients, you don't have to be perfect where you're just sitting in this zen moment. I will listen to it driving in the car and the first thing it says is don't

operate every machinery or drive while listening, because it says to close your eyes. So for me, it's really just kind of getting me centered in the space of what I really want to do that day and keeping tapped into my values, and my values are kind of letting things come, letting them flow and letting them go. And so listening to a guided meditation helps me stay in tune to my personal goals. And so,

I listened to, I also listened to the Calm app during this month with their sub-meditations. I also listened to, I love the Wake Me Up podcast where he kind of guides you from laying in bed to listening to a meditation. I listened to Tara Brock's podcast. So there are so many ways that we can access meditation. Another thing that I think is considered to be meditation is I read this book, I apologize, I cannot think of the name of it, but it's written by Gandhi's grandson.

And he talks about how Gandhi gave someone a lotus flower and they said, hold it in your hand, look at it, close your eyes, and see how long you can hold that picture in your mind. Let's say it's 10 seconds and then the next day you try to hold that visual in your mind and maybe it's a minute, maybe it's two minutes, and then just keep on doing that. So I love that idea. So maybe have a peaceful picture on your phone, maybe a vacation you love, a loved one.

Look at the picture, close your eyes, and see how long you can hold that in your mind. And I think that is a great intro to meditation as well.

I also want to touch on how meditation helps with stress reduction. And it helps reduce stress by calming the body's stress response. When we're stressed, the body releases cortisol and keeps the nervous system in fight or flight mode. So meditation interrupts that cycle by slowing the breath, focusing attention, and signaling safety to the brain. Over time, this regular practice can lower baseline stress levels, improve emotional regulation, and increase our resilience.

Also studies show that meditation can decrease anxiety, improve sleep, and even lower blood pressure. Even just a few minutes a day can create space between you and your stress, making it easier to respond calmly instead of reacting automatically. So I really find this to be helpful in everyday practice. I'm always trying to get better. Some weeks I'm able to really sit quietly and calmly for about five minutes.

But for me, just, I don't strive for perfection. I'm not encouraging you to either. Just try it and if your mind wanders, that's okay. Don't judge yourself. This is a practice, not perfection. I definitely was one of those people that would say meditation's not for me. Meditation's for other people, but that's not something that I'm going to engage in. And it really has become a really core practice. I guess it's become a key piece to my health and wellbeing.

but I'm not so disciplined about. So this month I worked really hard to be disciplined about it and I really do think it helped my stress levels. It helped me tap into myself. And again, just like with the scale of one to 10, it just really helped me do a brief little check-in and see what I need.

Pairing meditation with box breathing helped calm me on stressful days. I know I've gone over box breathing in the previous episode where you, I like the count of four, you inhale four, hold four, exhale four, hold four. I will do that in the car. So on those days where I was like an eight or a nine out of 10 with my tapping into myself for stress levels, I would be doing box breathing immediately.

I do it when I'm driving in traffic, so that is really helpful. Another breathing method that we haven't talked about is a four, seven, eight breathing method. That is where you inhale four, hold seven, exhale eight. This has always been my go-to for unwinding before bed, or if I wake up in the middle of the night and think I can't go back to sleep, this is really helpful for me. So here is how it works.

4-7-8 is a simple breathing exercise developed and popularized by Dr. Andrew Weill. W-E-I-L, maybe while, sorry, if I'm pronouncing it incorrectly. And it's sometimes called the relaxing breath. And the idea is to slow and regulate your breath in a way that directly calms your nervous system. So it looks like this in the cycle, right? Inhaling quietly through your nose for four seconds.

holding your breath for seven, and exhaling completely through your mouth for eight seconds, which creates a full cycle. This rhythm naturally slows our breathing rate, increases oxygen exchange, and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest mode, which is opposite of the sympathetic nervous system, right, where we're talking about fight, flight, or freeze. So this lowers our heart rate, blood pressure, and stress levels.

There are research and benefits to it. are physiological effects. Research shows that paced breathing can reduce anxiety, lower cortisol, and improve heart rate.

and improve heart rate variability, which is a marker of resilience to stress. It helps with sleep and relaxation. Several small studies suggest that slow paced breathing can help us fall asleep faster and improve sleep quality. Helps with nervous system balance. Longer exhalations like the eight count here are especially effective at activating the vagus nerve, which helps bring the body into a state of calm. So while 478 itself,

hasn't been as widely studied as some other breathing methods like box breathing or PACE six breaths per

It's supported by a broader body of research on slow controlled breathing techniques. So Dr. Will.

recommends that we start with four cycles in a session, which is about one minute. Over time, you can build up to eight cycles if it feels good, and you can do it up to twice daily, but no more because it could make you lightheaded when you're first starting out. So again, this is just something that I do when laying down and prone in bed. It really kind of makes me exhausted, like getting the four breaths only for...

You know, counts in, but exhaling eight makes me exhausted and helps me get tired at night. But in short, four, seven, eight breathing is an easy, structured way to slow down your system, reduce stress, and improve relaxation. You can start with just four rounds and let your body guide you as you practice. And of course, my core habits, like I talked about before of sleep and exercise, really supported all of this. They made the journaling and breathing techniques.

stick more easily and I feel like I had amplified results from that.

So what did I learn from the lab this month? First, awareness is everything. Journaling highlighted triggers and patterns, breathing exercises and meditation gave me tools to calm down in the moment, and keeping up with my

habits, which I'm very consistent with, really made everything else more effective. So my takeaway is you don't need to completely change your life to reduce stress. Start small, experiment, and notice what works for you.

That's what the healing lab is all about, trying, testing, and learning along the way. Like maybe it doesn't work, maybe you need to tweak some things, that's really what will work for you. I'm not saying you need to go do everything Jessica's doing, I'm trying some different things to inspire you to try a few things to change for yourself. So that's it from the healing lab this month. I'd love to hear what experiments you're trying from your own stress reset. Drop me a note, on Instagram.

You can send me an email, info at healingismyhobby.com. Remember, healing is a journey and curiosity can make it fun. And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to be in the loop about everything that's going on. You can sign up at healingismyhobby.com or my clinical website, jessicacolarco.lcsw.com. Thanks and have a great day.

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