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Maya & CharlieAI Creator · Coastal Australia
A library of calm practices

three minutes back to yourself, repeated.

Nine short practices for the moments the day gets too loud. Each one has the steps, how long it takes, and when it actually suits.

And each has a second half most calm libraries leave out: what your dog is doing while you do it. If you live with a dog you are not regulating alone, and that turns out to be measurable.

Breath

Three for the body's first language.

01

Five slow rounds.

Also called 4-4-6 breathing.

  1. Breathe in through the nose for a count of four.
  2. Hold gently for four. No strain, no forcing.
  3. Breathe out for six, longer than you breathed in.
  4. Five rounds. Stop if you feel light-headed.
Takes about two minutesUse it when nothing else fits
What your dog is doing: watching you slow down, most likely. Dogs read the pace of the person before they read the words, which is why a dog will often settle a few seconds after you do, without anything being asked of them.
02

Box breath.

Four in, four hold, four out, four hold.

  1. In through the nose for four.
  2. Hold for four.
  3. Out for four.
  4. Hold empty for four. Four to six rounds.
Takes about two minutesUse it before something demanding, not before sleep
What your dog is doing: if you are doing this before a walk, already reading it. The even count makes this a focus practice rather than a winding-down one, so it is the one for before you pick up the lead rather than after you get home.
03

Physiological sigh.

A double inhale, then a long exhale.

  1. Breathe in through the nose.
  2. Add a second, shorter sniff on top, without breathing out first.
  3. Let it out slowly through the mouth, longer than both inhales together.
  4. One to three times is usually enough.
Takes under a minuteUse it mid-conversation, in a car park, anywhere
What your dog is doing: dogs sigh too, and the big loose one they give as they flop down is usually a dog letting go of the last hour. If yours does that as you settle, you are watching the same thing happen at both ends of the lead.
Body

Three for getting back inside it.

04

One soft scan.

A head-to-feet body scan.

  1. Start at the top of the head. Change nothing yet.
  2. Move down slowly: jaw, throat, shoulders, hands, belly, legs, feet.
  3. Where you find tension, name it silently. Jaw. Shoulders.
  4. Let it go by one degree. You are not trying to relax completely.
Takes about three minutesUse it when you cannot tell what is wrong
What your dog is doing: possibly noticing before you did. Dogs read posture and stillness closely, and the dog who comes and leans on you on a bad afternoon is reading something in the way you are holding yourself.
05

A barefoot loop.

Three minutes outside, shoes off, walking slowly.

  1. Step outside and take your shoes off. Sand, grass, timber, anything that is not a screen.
  2. Walk a slow loop for about three minutes, slower than feels natural.
  3. Put your attention in the soles of your feet and the temperature of the ground.
Takes three minutesUse it when your head will not stop
What your dog is doing: joining in, delightedly, because you have gone outside for no reason. This is the practice that most easily becomes a two-species one, and the dog version is a sniffing walk, the same idea with the nose leading. The twenty-minute version is here.
06

Cold water on the wrists.

Thirty seconds at the tap.

  1. Run the tap cold. Cold, not iced.
  2. Hold the inside of each wrist under it for about fifteen seconds each.
  3. Add one long breath out while you do it.
Takes thirty secondsUse it when you need the smallest possible reset
What your dog is doing: wondering why you are at the sink. Worth knowing that dogs shed heat by panting and through their paws rather than through the skin, so the dog equivalent on a hot day is shade and water, not a cold wrist.
Stillness

Three for the hardest one.

07

Sit, do nothing.

Three minutes with no agenda.

  1. Sit somewhere you can see outside if possible. Phone out of reach.
  2. Let the eyes go soft rather than closing them.
  3. Three minutes. No technique, no counting, no goal. Boredom is allowed.
Takes three minutesUse it when rest has turned into another task
What your dog is doing: this one, expertly, all day. Charlie has never once wondered whether he had a productive morning. Most of this practice is copying a dog who worked it out long before we did.
08

The threshold pause.

One breath at every doorway.

  1. As your hand reaches the handle, stop.
  2. Take one full breath, in and out, before you go through.
  3. That is the whole practice. The doorway is the reminder, so you never have to remember.
Takes one breathUse it all day, without scheduling anything
What your dog is doing: waiting at that same doorway, probably. This one has a direct dog version worth borrowing: the state a dog leaves the house in tends to be the state it walks in, so a breath at the front door can change the next hour for both of you.
09

Phone in another room.

Twenty minutes, genuinely elsewhere.

  1. Put the phone in a different room. Face-down on the table does not count.
  2. Twenty minutes. Use a timer that is not the phone, or use none.
  3. Expect to reach for it. Noticing the reach is the practice.
Takes twenty minutesUse it when you want the hardest one
What your dog is doing: getting the version of you they have been waiting for. This is the practice a dog notices most, because attention is the thing they are actually asking for when they put a head on your knee.
Why the dog half is not decoration

You are not calming down alone.

That a dog picks up your state is not only a nice thing people say. Researchers have measured it, and two findings are worth knowing if you live with one.

Your state travels down the lead. A study of emotional contagion from humans to dogs found that dogs take on their owner's emotional state, and that the effect was stronger the longer the two had lived together. The longer you have had your dog, the more of you they are reading. Emotional Contagion From Humans to Dogs Is Facilitated by Duration of Ownership. Frontiers in Psychology, 2019. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01678
And it runs both ways. Dogs use their owner as a safe haven, with measurable differences in behaviour and heart rate response depending on whether their person is present. Being the steady one in the room is doing something for them, not only for you. Human Analogue Safe Haven Effect of the Owner. PLoS ONE, 2013. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058475

Which is the honest argument for doing any of this on the days you cannot be bothered doing it for yourself. Somebody in the room is taking their reading from you.

Take the walking one with you

The twenty-minute version, on one page.

The practice all of these point at is the decompression walk: twenty unhurried minutes where your dog chooses the route. The free planner puts it on one printable page with a week of walks around it.

Free one-page printable. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

A soft place to rest

the loyal heart rituals pack.

If your heart, or someone else's, is carrying too much, this is the gift-shaped companion to all of the above.

See the pack →

Maya Foxten is an AI-generated coastal character created and guided by a real person. These are reflective wellbeing practices, not medical, veterinary, mental health, or dog-training advice, and nothing here replaces speaking to a professional. Read the full AI disclosure.