Say microdosing and most people think of mushrooms. More and more people use it for something else: very short practices, from thirty seconds to a few minutes, spread across your day. No hour on the mat, no carving out time you do not have. I’m Ilse-Marie Sobering, founder of House of InnerPower, and I use this all day long. There is more known about it than you would expect, including the one-minute version you can do sitting in a chair.
No, this is not about mushrooms
Search for microdosing and you land in psilocybin territory within seconds. That is the meaning the word picked up first and it’s still the loudest one.
But the idea underneath is bigger than any substance. Microdosing means a small dose repeated often, rather than a large dose rarely. That principle applies just as well to what you do with your body and your attention. You will also see it called micro-mindfulness, micro-practices or exercise snacks. Different labels, same shape.
Why short often gets further than long
An hour asks you to plan. A minute asks you to decide. That gap is smaller than it sounds and it decides almost everything, because the practice you skip does nothing, however good it is.
Here’s what I see with participants. They start full of energy with twenty minutes a day, keep it up for four days or so, and then stop. Not because it did not work, but because it was too big to sustain. What follows is guilt, and that guilt keeps people away for months from something that was doing them good.
That’s why the InnerPower Method is cyclical. LAND • BREATHE • FEEL is not a programme you complete, it’s a way back you can always step onto again. No method solves everything in one go. You are not done in one go. It is returning to yourself, over and over. Microdosing is simply the practical shape of that.
What the research shows
Three very different fields have been looking at short practices: breathwork, workplace breaks and exercise. They aren’t aware they’re studying the same thing, and they arrive at the same place anyway.
🔬What the study is
Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal, by Melis Yilmaz Balban and colleagues at Stanford, published in Cell Reports Medicine in January 2023. A remote randomised controlled study.
👥Who it involved
108 adults across four groups. Three groups did five minutes of breathwork daily, each a different form. The fourth did five minutes of mindfulness meditation. Four weeks.
📊What came out
😊 Mood: improved most with the long-exhale form, more than with meditation
🫁 Resting breathing rate: slower, mainly in the long-exhale group
⏱️ Time: five minutes a day was enough
🔬What the study is
Give me a break!, a systematic review and meta-analysis by Patricia Albulescu and colleagues, published in PLOS ONE in August 2022. Not a single study but a sum of what already existed.
👥Who it involved
22 studies, 2,335 participants in total. The subject was micro-breaks: stepping away from a task for ten minutes or less.
📊What came out
🔋 Fatigue: lower
⚡ Vigour: higher
📋 Performance: better too, but less pronounced
There are two things in this finding, and they are easily confused. For how you feel, short is already enough: less tired, more energy, even with breaks of a few minutes. That is the firmest finding in the whole review. For what you get done on demanding work, a longer break helped more, which makes sense, because getting fully back into something takes time. But that is a different question from the one being asked here. This is not about getting more done. It is about how often you come back to yourself.
🔬What the study is
Do stair climbing exercise “snacks” improve cardiorespiratory fitness?, by E. Madison Jenkins and colleagues, published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism (2019, volume 44, pages 681 to 684).
👥Who it involved
24 sedentary young adults in two groups. One group climbed three flights of stairs, sixty steps, vigorously three times a day with hours in between. Three days a week, six weeks.
📊What came out
🧡 Fitness: higher than the group that did nothing
⏱️ Effort per bout: seconds, not minutes
📏 Said plainly: the gain was real, and modest
Three fields, three kinds of participants, one pattern: small and frequent does more than you would expect. Notice what none of them says. Not that short always beats long. What they do say is that short is enough to get somewhere, and that is the news for anyone who assumed it had to be long to count.
The InnerPower Method in short
Everything I do hangs on one method: LAND • BREATHE • FEEL. Simple on the outside, rich on the inside.
LAND is grounding. Slowing down, arriving in your body, feeling your feet or your sitting bones. Safety and boundaries first, because without that base the rest has little to stand on.
BREATHE is making room. Notice your breath first, then use it, as the link between your body and what you feel.
FEEL is noticing what is there, the uncomfortable included, and learning to trust your own inner knowing.
It isn’t a programme you complete. It’s a cycle you can keep returning to, and that’s exactly why it fits into a minute as well as into an hour.
LAND • BREATHE • FEEL in one minute
This is the micro-dose version of the InnerPower Method. You can do it on a chair, in the car before you get out, or in a waiting room. Nobody will notice.
LAND about 15 seconds
Stay exactly where you are sitting. Feel your sitting bones in the chair and your hands on your thighs. Let your weight drop a little, as if the chair is taking over for a moment. Nothing needs straightening.
BREATHE about 30 seconds
Breathe in through your nose. Then top it up with a second small sip of air, so your lungs are genuinely full. Now let it go slowly through your mouth, with an audible sigh. Three times. This is the form that came out best in the Stanford study above, and it’s also exactly what your body does on its own when it is relieved.
FEEL about 15 seconds
Do nothing for a moment. Notice what is different from a minute ago. Your shoulders perhaps, your jaw, your pace. Then ask yourself one question: do I need a little more right now, or a little less? You don’t have to act on it. The answer alone tends to shift something.
That’s the whole practice. Sixty seconds, and that’s often enough to come back a little.
Where to hang them in your day
The hard part about short practices is not the practice. It’s that you forget. So hang them on something you already do, rather than on an intention.
Think: while the kettle boils. Before you get out of the car. At a red light. Right before a conversation you are dreading. After you close your laptop. In the bathroom, honestly, because for many people that is the only moment alone all day.
Pick three. Not ten. Ten is the same oversized resolution wearing a different coat, and nobody sustains that. Three moments you already have is plenty to notice a difference.
If it makes you more restless instead
Turning inward is not comfortable for everyone at every moment. If you have been through a lot, paying attention to your breath or your body can bring unease rather than calm. Then your body is asking for a different way in.
Make it smaller or different. Keep your eyes open. Leave the breath alone and notice something you can hear instead, or the temperature of your hands. Plant your feet firmly on the floor and stay there. You set the dose, always. Stopping is allowed at any point, and it is a perfectly good outcome of a practice.
One last thing
I think microdosing is here to stay, and not because it is a catchy word. It stays because it matches what lives actually look like: full, interrupted, short on uninterrupted time. You don’t need a different life to work with this. You need thirty seconds and the willingness to use them.
Don’t forget that strength is still in you. You haven’t lost it. Sometimes you’ve simply drifted from it, and one breath is enough to find your way back.
Warm wishes,
Ilse-Marie
This article is offered as information and support, not as medical or therapeutic advice. If you have ongoing complaints, a lung condition, heart or circulatory issues, or you are pregnant, talk to your doctor before starting breathing practices.
Practise with us
If you would like a longer practice alongside your short moments, come and join a class, a workshop or a retreat. Take a look at our upcoming sessions and events.
Frequently asked questions about micro-practices
What is microdosing mindfulness?
It means taking a small dose of practice often, rather than a large dose rarely. In practice: short moments of thirty seconds to a few minutes, spread across your day, instead of one long session. You will also see it called micro-mindfulness or micro-practices. No substances involved, just your body and your attention.
Is this about psychedelics?
No. Microdosing is best known as a term for very small doses of psilocybin, and that’s not what this article is about. The word is borrowed here for its underlying principle, which is small and repeated rather than large and rare.
How long should a micro-practice be?
Anywhere between thirty seconds and five minutes works well. In the Stanford breathwork study, five minutes a day was enough to shift mood and resting breathing rate. Shorter is fine too. Three deliberate sighs take under a minute and still open something. What matters more than the length is that you do it.
How many times a day should I do it?
Start with three moments a day and attach them to things you already do, such as the kettle, a red light, or the seconds before you get out of the car. Three is enough to notice something and few enough that you won’t forget. Introducing ten at once is the same oversized resolution in a different coat.
Is five minutes a day better than one long session a week?
The two have not been compared head to head, so calling one better would go further than the evidence does. What’s clear is that short daily practices produce measurable effects and are far easier to sustain. The session you skip does nothing, however good it looks on paper. In that sense short and regular often wins over long and rare.
What is cyclic sighing, or the physiological sigh?
It’s a double inhale through the nose, the second one a small top-up, followed by a long slow exhale through the mouth. Your body does this spontaneously when you are relieved or after crying. In the Stanford study it was the breathing form with the strongest effect on mood, done for five minutes a day.
What if breathing practices make me more anxious?
This happens more often than people assume, particularly if you have been through a lot. Stop, then make it smaller or different: eyes open, leave the breath alone, and notice something you can hear or the temperature of your hands instead. Feet firmly on the floor often works better than turning inward. You set the dose. If it keeps troubling you, talk it over with someone you trust or with your doctor.
When is the best time of day?
There’s no best time, only a time you will actually reach. Many people do well with one in the morning to set the tone, one around the afternoon dip and one before sleep. If you work at a screen, spreading your breaks through the day helps more than saving them up for the end of it.
Sources
Yilmaz Balban, M. et al. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine. View the study
108 people did five minutes of practice a day for four weeks: three groups a form of breathwork, the fourth mindfulness meditation. The long-exhale form produced the largest improvement in mood.
Albulescu, P. et al. (2022). “Give me a break!” A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE 17(8): e0272460. View the study
Pooling 22 studies with 2,335 participants showed that breaks of ten minutes or less lower fatigue and raise vigour. The gain in performance was smaller, and depended on how demanding the work was.
Jenkins, E.M. et al. (2019). Do stair climbing exercise “snacks” improve cardiorespiratory fitness? Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 44(6), 681-684. View the study
Climbing stairs three times a day, three days a week for six weeks produced a measurable if modest gain in fitness.
Ilse-Marie Sobering is the founder of House of InnerPower and the creator of the InnerPower Method: LAND • ADEM • VOEL (Land, Breathe, Feel), a cyclical practice of returning to yourself again and again. She has studied yoga philosophy and Eastern philosophy for more than 25 years, and has worked professionally since 2015 as an E-RYT 500 yoga and Yoga Nidra teacher, mindfulness and breathwork coach, Ayurveda practitioner and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) practitioner. In Spain, where she lived for seven years, she taught trainings, teacher trainings and retreats at various locations in the Málaga region, including near Periana, Nerja and Frigiliana. She now works from the Netherlands, teaching trainings and speaking in the Netherlands, in Spain and online. Within the method she works with Yin Yoga, Yoga Nidra, breathwork, meditation, Qigong and somatic work, complemented with elements from her hypnotherapy training. She teaches teacher trainings, continuing education and company training, for people living with long-term stress and for professionals who want to deepen the way they guide others.
Ilse-Marie Sobering is the founder of House of InnerPower and the creator of the InnerPower Method: LAND • ADEM • VOEL (Land, Breathe, Feel), a cyclical practice of returning to yourself again and again. She has studied yoga philosophy and Eastern philosophy for more than 25 years, and has worked professionally since 2015 as an E-RYT 500 yoga and Yoga Nidra teacher, mindfulness and breathwork coach, Ayurveda practitioner and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) practitioner. In Spain, where she lived for seven years, she taught trainings, teacher trainings and retreats at various locations in the Málaga region, including near Periana, Nerja and Frigiliana. She now works from the Netherlands, teaching trainings and speaking in the Netherlands, in Spain and online. Within the method she works with Yin Yoga, Yoga Nidra, breathwork, meditation, Qigong and somatic work, complemented with elements from her hypnotherapy training. She teaches teacher trainings, continuing education and company training, for people living with long-term stress and for professionals who want to deepen the way they guide others.
