Critical Incident Stress Management CISM

Breathing Exercise and CISM Applications

Last week's breathing exercise was a very eye- (and lung- ) opening experience for me, teaching me a new way to not only handle stress but to create a greater self-awareness of stress levels and other mental and physical goings-on. A large part of this new awareness was not simply that the meditation and breathing exercises helped me to actually become consciously aware of what was happening in my mental and physical state, but also in becoming aware that I could become aware of what was going on in my mental and physical states. That is, discovering how truly simple and in some ways easy it is to create a greater sense of internal and external self-awareness was somewhat shocking to me. I have always had a certain level of awareness in such matters, of course, as every human being does, but to be able to more sharply, directly, and consciously focus on these elements of my being was a very profound experience for me intellectually as well as in a more reflective manner.

I have engaged in breathing exercises before during a brief attempt at some yoga exercises, but the environment and intended purpose of the exercises didn't really speak to me. Approaching things in a largely intellectual manner as I do, I found it very helpful to my process to have some clear rationales and immensely practical goals in mind as I undertook the exercise. It did take me some time to let myself relax and stop internally commenting n what I was doing in order to appreciate the full benefits of the exercise, but once I did these benefits become incredibly clear and are something I will try to incorporate into my daily life. The more I practiced throughout the week, the easier this became, too.

Mindful meditation has been the subject of a great deal of empirical research in recent decades, and there is a strong and growing pool of evidence that the practice can have a surprisingly wide range of medical benefits (Newman & Miller 2006). In addition to stress management, which is a major benefit that can be achieved through the use of mindful meditation, the practice can have a direct impact on blood pressure, heart rate, and heart health (all of which are related to stress management as well, of course); mental functioning and even feelings of physical health and hormonal balances can also be affected by mindful meditation (Newman & Miller 2006). When it comes to Critical Incident Stress Management, mindful meditation is not generally considered an appropriate immediate tool for those that do not have any background experience, but can be utilized as part of an ongoing healing/therapeutic process to handle ongoing stress and can certainly be utilized by those familiar with its practice during critical incidents as a way to enhance thinking and calmness, leading to better overall outcomes and lower experienced stress (Everly et al. 2000).