Explore how students are using simple mindful breathing practices to navigate stress, stay grounded, and support their classmates.

Summary: Classrooms often are confronted with difficult topics that can leave students overwhelmed and anxious. In this episode of The Science of Happiness, we highlight how college student Evelyn Mata brought calm to herself and peers during an Immigration Studies class through simple collective breathing practices.

How to Do Box Breathing:

1. Sit comfortably: Find a quiet spot and focus on your breath, keeping a relaxed posture.
2. Inhale (4 counts): Breathe in slowly through your nose, letting the air fill your belly and chest. Keep the pace steady, not strained for a count of four.
3. Hold (4 counts): Pause gently at the top of the inhale. This isn’t a tense hold, just a moment of stillness to let the body register calm. Hold your breath for four slow counts.
4. Exhale (4 counts): Release the breath through your nose or mouth in a smooth, even flow. Imagine tension leaving the body as the breath moves out for a count of four, emptying your lungs.
5. Hold (4 counts): Let yourself rest briefly in the empty space before the next inhale. This completes the “box.”
6. Repeat: Continue this cycle for several minutes, or for 3-4 rounds, until you feel calmer. Stop sooner if you feel lightheaded; return to natural breathing when you’re done.

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Today’s Guests:

EVELYN MATA is an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, studying Psychology and Public Policy.

DR. PABLO GONZALEZ is a professor in the Ethnic Studies department at UC Berkeley.

Learn more about Pablo here: https://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/people/pablo-gonzalez

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

Breathe Away Anxiety (Cyclic Sighing): https://tinyurl.com/3u7vsrr5

How To Tune Out The Noise: https://tinyurl.com/4hhekjuh

What To Do When Stress Takes Over: https://tinyurl.com/mskvfmv4

Related Happiness Breaks:

Make Uncertainty Part of the Process: https://tinyurl.com/234u5ds7

A Meditation for When You Feel Uneasy: https://tinyurl.com/4x27ut3p

A Mindful Breath Meditation, With Dacher Keltner: https://tinyurl.com/mr9d22kr

Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/4wz4vbc3

Through a gentle ancestral meditation, discover how grounding in your roots can open the door to healing, meaning, and a deeper sense of belonging.

How To Do This Practice:

1. Settle Into Your Body: Notice whether you’re sitting, standing, or walking, and gently bring your attention to the natural rhythm of your breath.
2. Ground Yourself Through the Earth: Feel the weight of your body supported by the ground beneath you, and let any thoughts drift by like passing clouds.
3. Sense the Ancestors in Nature: Expand your awareness to the sky, the earth, trees, and mountains, imagining them as ancestors who have been here long before you.
4. Connect With Your Heartbeat: Place a hand on your heart if it feels comfortable, noticing the steady drumbeat within you—a rhythm shared across generations.
5. Cultivate Compassion for Your Lineage: Envision compassion as a color or texture in your chest and let it gently radiate outward, offering it to your ancestors and to yourself.
6. Offer a Wish for Healing: Bring to mind a simple wish for the easing of suffering—your own or others’—and breathe it through your body from sky to earth before slowly opening your eyes.

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Today’s Happiness Break Guide:

SARÁ KING is a neuroscientist, medical anthropologist and educator at UC San Diego.

Learn more about Sará King here: https://www.eomega.org/people/sara-king

Related Happiness Break episodes:

Where Did You Come From: https://tinyurl.com/2y9uyjj6

How To Tune Into Water’s Restorative Power: https://tinyurl.com/2k6ybzrs

A Meditation to Connect With Your Roots: https://tinyurl.com/ycy9xazc

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

Are You Following Your Inner Compass: https://tinyurl.com/y2bh8vvj

How Water Heals: https://tinyurl.com/utuhrnh3

Who’s Always There for You: https://tinyurl.com/yt3ejj6w

We want to hear from you! Take our quick 5-minute survey to tell us what you love, what you want more of, and how we can make the show even more inspiring and useful. Everyone who completes the survey can enter a drawing to win a copy of The Science of Happiness Workbook: 10 Practices for a Meaningful Life. Click the survey link in the show notes wherever you’re listening, or go directly to: https://tinyurl.com/happyhappysurvey. Thank you for helping us make the podcast even better!

Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/mrsnwvrm

Self-compassion reduces our feelings of shame and self-doubt. We explore a practice to help quiet our inner critic with kindness.

Summary: What does your inner critic sound like? Many of us carry echoes of past misunderstandings, pressures, or expectations. Voices that show up as shame, self-judgment, or the belief that we’re not doing enough. This episode explores a self-compassionate writing practice that helps interrupt those patterns by noticing how we talk to ourselves and learning to respond with more kindness.

How To Do This Practice:

1. Choose something you feel ashamed about or critical of: Pick a moment or pattern that brings up self-blame, embarrassment, or disappointment. It doesn’t need to be huge, just something that regularly activates your inner critic.
2. Describe the situation honestly and without judgment: Write down what happened and how it made you feel. Let the tone be neutral, like you’re simply acknowledging what’s true. No harsh labels, no minimizing.
3. Imagine someone who loves you speaking to you: This could be a close friend, mentor, future self, or the voice you’d naturally use when comforting someone you care about. Let that tone guide the rest of the letter.
4. Write to yourself with compassion, acceptance, and understanding: Recognize the difficulty, normalize the feelings, offer reassurance and warmth, acknowledge your strengths and intentions. Treat yourself the way you’d treat someone who came to you hurting.
5. Reframe your struggle in a kinder, more accurate way: Gently question the harsh story you usually tell yourself. Identify what was actually happening beneath the shame— survival instincts, past patterns, symptoms, fear, or overwhelm. Offer yourself a more truthful, generous narrative.
6. Set the letter aside then come back and read it: After a little time (an hour or a day), return to what you wrote. Notice how it feels to receive your own compassion. Let the warmth land. Over time, rereading and rewriting letters like this can shift your inner voice toward kindness and authenticity.

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Today’s Guests:

RENÉ BROOKS is the creator of the blog Black Girl, Lost Keys. She draws on her personal experiences to coach and assist adults with ADHD.

Visit René’s Blog: https://blackgirllostkeys.com/

SERENA CHEN is the Chair of the Psychology department at UC Berkeley. Her research is focused on self-compassion, wellbeing, and social interaction.

Learn more about Serena and her work: https://tinyurl.com/mry3vx3v

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

Why Compassion Requires Vulnerability: https://tinyurl.com/yxw4uhpf

Related Happiness Breaks:

Fierce Self-Compassion Break: https://tinyurl.com/yk9yzh9u

Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/et2spbbp