COURSE

How To Navigate Your Breath In Stressful Times

Do you have days where you can hardly take a deep breath and your whole body feels tense? This 10-day course will help you better understand daily feelings of overwhelm and the proven ways to cope. We explore breathing in a conscious and regulated way, as well as methods for focusing the mind on breath rather than agonizing over the past or striving to control the future. Give your nervous system a breath of fresh air and send your body and brain more intelligent messages. In this course, each day’s lesson (on some aspect of science or Buddhist philosophy) is paired with a meditation and a breathing practice to quell the anxious mind and become completely present. Switching off the overdrive is sometimes the most productive thing we can do for our personal health, our relationships and work life. It all begins right now, with your breath.

Stress Stress & Anxiety Anxiety Consciousness Spirituality Body Scan Concentration Neuroscience Science Breathing Meditation Mindfulness

Meet your Teacher

Carolyn Anne Budgell

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Carolyn Anne Budgell stumbled upon a silent retreat in 2009 and hasn't looked back since, aside from the frequent moments she looks back to resolve the judgement, the shame and the anxiety within. Carolyn is an ERYT, BA and mama, and resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, whilst teaching yoga and mindfulness classes, workshops, and trainings locally and around the world. She has been leading meditation since 2011 in all types of settings: one-on-one, intimate groups and in corporate settings. She has studied with teachers from the Buddhist Vipassana Movement and Zen, notably Tara Brach, Adyashanti and Reggie Ray. You can find audio meditations with Carolyn on Insight Timer, Mala Collective, MOMENT and Tuja Wellness' websites. Carolyn guides her workshops and retreats in a simple and accessible language. Carolyn firmly believes that meditation is not just about being still and silent, but also requires a willingness to: look within honestly, connect to self and others and transform the patterns that prevent us from growing. In this way, every aspect of life becomes a meditation. "Your life is the practice." Start within and everything will shift... life is the practice.

10 Days

17.9k students

4.8 stars

14 min / day

Stress

English

Lesson 1

Be Here Now: Get Present & Go!

Arrive in the here and the now. We begin the course with awareness: awareness of all the anxiety, the stress, the joy, the pain. We tend to avoid or resist what feelings or emotions are within, but presence asks that we observe all that we bring into each situation. If you want to shift something, you must attune to how it is working (or not working!) in your life in order to understand its impact on you. In today’s lesson, we look at what your life is like right now, what kind of phase you find yourself in, popular mindfulness terminology, as well as the importance of your commitment/ intention for the course.

Lesson 2

A Product Of Our Environment: Anxiety In Many Forms

Anxiety lives in us all. It may waver from day to day, it may help you stay on task, it may cause you to feel disconnected from your body, but no one is immune to it. Awareness (once again!) of how you get caught up in disempowering interpretations or in toxic holding patterns is key. In today’s lesson, we review the definitions of anxiety and stress, why they are important to experience and how they can lead to illness if unchecked, or run uncontrolled as well as how the busyness of life and technology can be welcomed into this search for clarity and calm.

Lesson 3

Feel Your Breath: You Are Alive!

Breath is life. Breath is a profound, yet simple tool to keep us present and grounded, yet we easily forget when the over-analytical or anxious mind takes the wheel. Anxiety tends to keep us believing we can control or grasp a certain state and breath represents the certainty that life continuously ebbs and flows – nothing is static or fixed. In today’s lesson, we explore the various breathing zones in the body, the best zones to use in certain physiological states and how to connect to each area of the lungs.

Lesson 4

The Roots: Looking Within To Move Forward

Your past does not inform your future. However, what you have experienced in life imprints in your cellular makeup and can hold you captive if left unresolved. The challenges faced throughout your life need acknowledgement - in order to fully let go and move forward. In today’s lesson, we honour our hardships, we honour how we survived (in the best way we knew how) and we honour the part of ourselves that is now willing to grow, heal and move forward with more breath.

Lesson 5

The Nervous System: Extracting The Nerves

Communication is the purpose of the nervous system. In a perfect world, we would understand when our lives are in true danger and when we can rest easefully and each branch of the system would transmit such messages accordingly. However, our constitutions have adapted based on ways that we have responded to triggers and continue to determine how we think, move and breathe into current situations. In today’s lesson, we build upon the hardwiring of anxiety and its demise through soothing breathwork and fully releasing tension in the low abdomen, which is the second brain in Eastern medicine and home of the nervous system, as well as breaking down the basics of controlled breathing and its impact on the nervous system.

Lesson 6

Relax The Body: Feel Whole Again

A harmonious relationship between the body and the brain will lead to true health. We are really beginning to understand that breath and mindfulness can help us achieve this balance. The body is often included last in the practice of mindfulness when it is truly pivotal in providing cues of impending burnout, depression and other chronic health issues. We have let the brain lead for far too long and it has led to a disconnect from the wisdom of the body. In today’s lesson, we step back from the details of the nervous system and the scrutinization of anxiety in order to take in the whole body, how to pay attention to it, how to include it into decision making, how to give it care.

Lesson 7

The Mind: Servant Or Master?

The mind believes what it is told. The body and mind respond to messages from one another; each has the capacity to convert emotions into permanent thoughts & physiological states. Many opinions and beliefs have been informed by our own feelings, and they can be rewired – with training, mindfulness and the gentleness of breath, all via a new inner dialogue. Looking bravely at the mind is the true warrior’s path – according to Buddhism. In today’s lesson, we practice an affirmation to undo embedded feelings and perceptions that cause us undue stress. We use breath and a new inner dialogue to start shifting the way we think and feel – rather than being at the whim of the mind and its drama.

Lesson 8

For Today: Journalling & Personal Assessment

Write and get clear. In a world where typing, thinking and rushing are valued, to stop and write is a beautiful thing. Writing is a practice of mindfulness, to sift through the ongoing chatter of the mind. In today’s lesson we assess the shifts mentally and physically thus far in the course, your observations around breath, refining of goals and intentions and creating simple written reminders to hold yourself accountable.

Lesson 9

How To Pause: Integrating All The Work

Pausing as deeper work. Finding the space to pause and take a deep breath before slipping into habitual patterns is no easy task, which is why we broach the topic near the end of the course. In today’s lesson, we step into the advanced work of pausing – of not doing on an external level, but giving our triggers and our insecurities a long hard look in order to instigate change. The breath and all the knowledge from previous days has prepared us for this quiet introspection, for this opportunity to create long-lasting change.

Lesson 10

The Beginner’s Mind: Breathe And Be The Change

You are change. You are ready. Your breath is here for you. Listening within to the wise voice of the beginner, beyond the anxious mind will be your greatest practice moving forward. We acknowledge that new ways of breathing and pausing are slowly integrating into your entire system. In today’s lesson, we reaffirm all the tools that we have available to catch anxiety, the people that we have to support us and the practice of pausing with breath whenever stress arises. You’ll have many takeaways and many tools to take into life with you – be a beginner and be open to continuous learning above everything!

Ask your teacher

This course includes 129 community questions and 61 audio replies from Carolyn Anne Budgell. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

129

4.8 (703)

Recent Reviews

Elaine

January 31, 2026

This course was absolutely exactly what I needed. I could see where Ive been holding on and work with it instead of getting too uncomfortable and running away. Thank you so much for these wonderful tools to manage my anxiety. 🌈🌸🌻✨

Craig

December 22, 2025

Wonderful course. Practical breathwork, body scan, and meditation advice. Know I’ll return to this course often.

Karen

September 29, 2025

Thank you so much for this course. I don't have to be perfect. I will be calm confident and strong. Breathe, pause and look at the world. Every day like it's the first time you've seen it! Just a few things i'm thinking on after taking this course.

Liliana

July 8, 2025

Thank you for this course. This is a course I can return over and over again.

Steven

July 2, 2025

There were so many takeaways in this course. At the end of the course the teacher mentions that “life IS the practice” and I thought that was profound. Also, her voice is very soothing.

Olivia

May 24, 2025

Beautifully put together course. I’ll continue your courses!

Annabella

December 13, 2024

Would like to repeat this one

Eric

December 6, 2024

Such a wonderfully beautiful message that needs to be heard by more. I found my a hah moments numerous ways and in different session but the deep center point for me was finding stillness and calm in the breath work.

Barry-Lee

December 4, 2024

This breath work course

Larry

November 27, 2024

I’ve done many courses on Insight Timer, and this is truly among the best I’ve encountered. Thank you for so many tools and nurturing guidance through the last 10 days.

Judi

October 27, 2024

I enjoyed this a lot, thank you so much!

Kim

September 25, 2024

This course is SO helpful. Taught me practical breathing practices and give me insights to help me stay calm and focus on the present.

Tracy

September 22, 2024

Excellent 🐦🙏 Nothing to add. Just excellent 🐦🙏🐦🙏🐦🙏🐦🙏🐦🙏

Leigh

September 19, 2024

Thanks Carolyn for a well structured and helpful course.🙏

Linda

May 30, 2024

What a pleasant journey your guidance brought me. As many of us, I am going through hardships. Listening and practicing the exercises helped me to realize that I can accept things out of my control while being kind and gentle to myself. Thank you so very much. I saved this course as favourite and will come back to refresh the learnings. Life is a work in progress. Namaste, Carolyn. ❤ 💙 💜

Nicky

May 17, 2024

I love the combination of theory and practice. I’m the kind of person who thrives when combining awareness of the body, relaxing into present time while alcohol being in analytical mode. I like to triangulate ways of being. Your class did this for me very well. I especially appreciated the immediate practice and the multiple tools you explored. Thank you.

Chio

May 1, 2024

Amazing work.

Michelle

April 26, 2024

excellent

simona

April 9, 2024

The teacher had a calm voice that was grounding. She also offered practical tips.

Diane

March 28, 2024

Thank you 🙏

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