PODCASTThe Science of Happiness

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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.

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

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Transcription:

EVELYN MATA: I remember that day. It was probably like a Wednesday, around eight, so I had just finished my Mexican immigration course, and I got back to my apartment, and like, was almost in tears. And this had been probably the third, fourth time that I had come back from that class, just like emotionally devastated. And that particular day when I got back from class, I was like, let me actually, like, meditate on this. Let me ground myself. And as I was doing it, I was like, well, I feel really good now after doing this, I think my classmates could really benefit from also partaking in this.

PABLO GONZALEZ: As a facilitator of the space. It's not my intention, of course, to ever just leave them either in tears or definitely more stress than they come in, but I feel the moment calls for us to have these conversations, but the moment also calls for us to have all of the different ways that we can be there for each other and collectively breathe together as Evelyn has brought to the classroom.

EVELYN MATA: It was about, how can I make this classroom a safer space for myself and for my classmates and for my professor too? Because I know that even just speaking about her teaching my Mexican immigration course is difficult.

DACHER KELTNER: As 2025 ends, many of us are reflecting on what's happened this year, the good times, the joy and also the constant uncertainty and stream of really heavy news.

CNN PRIME MINISTER OF QATAR : We cannot consider it yet a cease fire. A cease fire cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal of the Israeli forces.

CBS NEWS: Earlier this year, the administration has been mounting this aggressive crackdown on legal immigration.

NEW YORK TIMES: I was taken to the first detention center in chains. When I got there, I was like, where am I? It was like a prison. I felt like, Oh, my goodness, am I gonna die here?

BLOOMBERG NEWS: Folks are really getting disappeared into that system.

DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. As a professor at UC Berkeley, I see time and again that when local or global communities are under threat, students refuse to stay in despair. Instead, they unite through action and through showing up for one another. That gives me so much hope. One of those students is Evelyn Mata here at UC Berkeley, after a series of particularly difficult discussions in her immigration class, Evelyn decided to lead her classmates in short breathing practices during class to bring strength and serenity. Evelyn and her professor Pablo Gonzalez join us to share about their experience in the classroom after this quick break.

Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner, sometimes the simplest of things, like taking a slow shared breath, can bring us more connection and ease tough emotions. Collectively, it can be quite powerful, as Evelyn Mata knows. Today we're joined by Evelyn and her professor, Pablo Gonzalez. They'll share what it's been like to incorporate mindful breathing practices into the Mexican immigration class that Pablo teaches here at UC Berkeley. Thank you both so much for being here.

PABLO GONZALEZ: Thank you for the invitation. 

EVELYN MATA: Thank you so much. So excited to be here.

DACHER KELTNER: Evelyn, I met you in my science of happiness course, and we've talked several times here at UC Berkeley, and I remember one day you asked me about where can you find resources for guided meditation practices? And then the bold move was to take it to your Immigration Studies class. Can you take us back to that moment of, like, what was going on for you in the class, and where you're like, I gotta try this in my class.

EVELYN MATA: Yeah, for me. So I had just finished my Mexican immigration course, and I just remember I got back to my apartment and, like, was almost in tears.

DACHER KELTNER: What were you talking about in the class that produced those feelings? 

EVELYN MATA: I think that week we were talking about El Paso massacre, and then other weeks we were discussing just really hard topics around like sexual violence toward immigrants and just other difficult conversations around immigration ICE, we talked about the Supreme Court ruling, and so every week, it was like something else, and well, it does affect me personally and my family and you have been leading us through meditations in class and our human happiness, course. So I thought it'd be a great idea. Idea to also integrate it in our Mexican immigration class.

DACHER KELTNER: One of the things that we learned in the class is contemplation and meditation. It's much more than just, you know, breathing and calming stress. It's about deep knowledge. And Aristotle wrote about that, like the etymology of the word, theory goes back to contemplation, just reflecting and Evelyn, when you think about the horrors of the immigration issues right now, the detention centers and ICE and throwing innocent people to the ground and your family, when you were reflecting that day so emotionally worked up from Pablo's class, like, what insights did you have? What knowledge did it bring you?

EVELYN MATA: I think initially it was just thinking about how I can bring mindfulness to our community. The first step for me was let me get this into my classmates for my class. And then it was, how can I bring this to my family? How can I have these conversations about breathing and mindfulness with my mom or with my stepdad or my siblings? And then slowly I did start sharing meditation resources with my mom, with my siblings. I think in Hispanic culture, sometimes there's some stigma around mental health and talking about doing something like breathing. So my stepdad was, for sure, like a little resistant, but now they're trying to incorporate it a little more into their lives.

DACHER KELTNER: Wonderful. Pablo, I'd like to turn to you. You teach this legendary class on the Berkeley campus about immigration and social justice and tackle, really, five, six centuries of trauma and colonization in the contemporary system of the United States. Here comes Evelyn, who's like, let's try some breathing in this class. It's about the most complicated forms of harm and social justice. What did you think when she came to you and proposed this?

PABLO GONZALEZ: It's a reminder. One of the things that you're reminded especially when you study and research violence, violence inherent in an immigration system that often has the illusion of an American dream, but for many, it's an American nightmare. These conversations, as necessary as they are, have so many memories that many of our family members have never shared, and when they've shared them, sometimes they're shared in some of our kind of family secrets of domestic violence, alcoholism, and so in a classroom that intentionally wants to provoke and highlight our experiences, it needs a breather. It needs the sense of calmness. So it wasn't a question of like yes or no, it was like when we were to incorporate those moments and not to forget them.

DACHER KELTNER: The moment that you led these practices in Pablo's class. You know, it took me, like, 20 years to be bold enough to teach a breathing practice in a class. It's nerve wracking. Just sort of paint the picture for us. What was it like when you stood up and led these practices?

EVELYN MATA: Oh my gosh. I was so nervous. It took me, like, two weeks after I sent that email to, like, actually get up there and, like, tell him, well, let's actually do it now. I was scared, and I went up to him all shy, and I was like, Do you think we should do it today? And he was like, Yeah, let's do it. And so I go up there all anxious. I was very nervous, and I'm like, hey guys, I think for my first practice, I did belly breathing. 

PABLO GONZALEZ: That's right, belly breathing. 

EVELYN MATA: Belly breathing was the first one, because in my personal life, that's the one that I practiced the most. I think that when you're told you are not breathing correctly. People are like, well, then what am I doing correctly?

DACHER KELTNER: Every minute of the day. 

EVELYN MATA: Yeah, if I can't even breathe right, then what? Yeah. So I was like, let me teach my classmates how to breathe through these times. Everybody was very receptive. I'm looking around the room and I just see warm smiles. And that's when I knew, like this was the right choice, and even Dr Gonzales was engaged in it. So that's when I knew I was…

DACHER KELTNER: Teach doing it too. 

EVELYN MATA: Yeah, he was.

PABLO GONZALEZ: We would call it a buy in, but not so much. It's if the intention is community building, then you don't separate yourself from that community. It's an emerging community. Sometimes we are just right now, trying anything that we can given the circumstances of the moment. And I think it also gives a good transition to the class. It brings, I think, a much needed rest that's different than just having a break time, where students kind of disengage, go around, go to the restroom. All of those are, which themselves, I think, are positive steps for students. You get out of your seat, go to the restroom, even if you don't have to go to the restroom, go get water, just step out. Any of those things I think are important. But to be more intentional, collectively. All at the same time. Take those breaths. Yeah, that's different.

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, there's something powerful about, you know, a lot of contemplative practices do this. You know, just shared attention and awareness and reflection. As Pablo said, so profound. Evelyn, I'd love to kind of just have you guide us through some of these practices that you boldly led to your classroom. So you mentioned belly breathing.

EVELYN MATA: Yeah.

DACHER KELTNER: Could you walk us through that? 

EVELYN MATA: Yeah, so I'm about to tell you guys that you're not breathing correctly. Essentially, belly breathing. You want to make sure that your belly is expanding as you're taking an inhale. So we're gonna go ahead and try one together, and on the inhale, I want you to feel your belly expanding with air and then exhale.

I like to hold it for a little after I inhale and then letting it out. So if we could just go in. 

DACHER KELTNER: That was powerful. 

EVELYN MATA: It always feels so nice.

DACHER KELTNER: I hope the listeners out there are breathing with us. Evelyn will share another practice after the break.

EVELYN MATA:  

I've just found that literally, just sitting there in silence, breathing, you come up with some of the best ideas that you've ever had, and you feel better after.

DACHER KELTNER: I'm Dacher Keltner, and this is The Science of Happiness. We're talking about collective mindfulness with Evelyn Mata and her professor, Pablo Gonzalez. This is when our awareness expands, when we practice mindfulness as a community. When Evelyn brought mindful breathing practices into her classroom, another practice that really resonated with her and her classmates was box breathing. We know from research that box breathing can lift our mood and ease our anxiety, while also calming the body, slowing the breath, lowering heart rate and improving heart rate variability. Evelyn now shares how to do box breathing and how it supported her class.

EVELYN MATA: So box breathing is also known as the four by four technique. So essentially, you want to visualize a box, and you're gonna do four counts in, hold for four, exhale for four, and then hold that exhale for four. 

DACHER KELTNER: Okay,

EVELYN MATA: So we're gonna start in hold and exhale, and then back in for four. Hold. Really relaxing

DACHER KELTNER: It is. That was strong. Evelyn, I you know, there you are standing up in front of your class, and you're leading these breathing practices. And the science shows that shared breathing, it activates parasympathetic nervous system activity, lowers heart rate, lowers cortisol, and you know, really importantly, for a classroom like this, it makes people feel safe and have agency. And I'm curious, like as you led this practice with this classroom of 50 people, what did you notice as everyone started to breathe together?

EVELYN MATA: I saw a lot of smiles. I saw a lot of lit faces. I think especially after seeing a lot of frowns. And you know, it's really having content. It really is. And I think being up there and being able to look at all my peers, I saw a lot of warmth. I almost wanted to be like in mass, where you're holding hands together, but maybe college students won't be so up for that, but it almost does feel like we're holding hands connected and doing it together. I think it's just so powerful for all of us to take that space, to breathe together. And I could see it on their faces, energy changes afterward.

DACHER KELTNER: Pablo, when you see these practices that Evelyn's leading like, what do you notice in your students, thinking and commentary?

PABLO GONZALEZ: They definitely are more attentive. And focus is not solely like attention. It's an energy. I think you as a facilitator, as a professor, walks around with all oftentimes eyes on you, and it's just going to get heavier as we talk more and more about the contemporary moment that we're in. The history itself is already intense. But yeah, I've had students, for instance, that have taken days off, and they've emailed and said, I just need, you know, a day off to just, there's just so much going on.

DACHER KELTNER: You know, Pablo, longtime educator, teaching, I am humbled to even think about it, the hardest issues today, you know, with deep 500 year histories. And what's your takeaway from this experience that we would convey to all the educators out in our audience.

PABLO GONZALEZ: For me, it's the interpersonal, intercommunal. It's the insistence on creating spaces as our spaces are reduced or attacked. It's the provocation and conversation that's necessary when I enter a classroom, which for me is completely a way to speak out loud without fear, with the expectations that my students will do so as well. And for me, that's it, right there. But the current moment could lead to vanishing, disappearing because of the fear of our jobs, fear of our students being picked up. I know this might sound somewhat cliche, but it's the moment to be brave, and bravery takes on different meaning now, yeah, and to actually see it in my students more than anything. Yeah. So if I don't feel like I'm up to the moment, I could see it in them that will help me to stay away from that hopelessness that really likes to poke its head into every door.

DACHER KELTNER: And I will remind my audience what Pablo was talking about when the administration releases terms that you're not supposed to use, like racism and community and colonialism and sexism. For teachers, it gets scary, you know, and when we think about the surveillance of teachers right now, it's real. 

PABLO GONZALEZ: That's right.

DACHER KELTNER: Evelyn, when you started these breathing practices, like on that difficult morning coming back from Pablo's class, what did it give you?

EVELYN MATA: Well, personally, I've been on my meditation journey for a long time now. I would say I probably started integrating meditation into my life like two years ago. But of course, like we forget, especially now, your mind is inundated with Gaza, detention centers, all these other horrors that sometimes you do forget, like even just taking that breath will kind of clear that out sometimes, but it always gives me tranquility. I've just found that even just grounding my like literally just sitting there in silence, breathing, you come up with some of the best ideas that you've ever had, and you feel better after so for me, it was about, I don't want to quit the class, even though it did cross my mind, I was like, maybe this is too much for me emotionally. Maybe because I'm so close to these issues, maybe I need to take a step back. But I think that there's so much power in learning about these things.

DACHER KELTNER: Evelyn, you know your story of relying on mindfulness and breathing and a practice for now, for a couple of years, as you navigate these times, and also as a young person who's going to change the world, is going to shape our world, how do you think about this intersection between meditation and mindfulness and breathing and so forth, and then social justice and what you want to do in the world?

EVELYN MATA: I think that the times right now, like you said, call for mindfulness. I think that any field that I go into, I want to bring this lens of mindfulness, of breathing, of finding a way to stay grounded, whatever field that is, I do want to create a space where whichever community I'm working with that they can just breathe.

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah.

EVELYN MATA: That we can just take a deep breath before going into what we're going into. Or just in general, for my community, I've been in a lot of spaces where I'm trying to bring that lens in and to try to just take a deep breath. Dr. Gonzales's is not the only difficult classroom on campus, like I've seen titles of classes that are like, genocide, yeah, or trauma, sexual violence, you know, and all of these classrooms, if they're not already, I hope that there is a student out there that will take the initiative, or the professor that will take the initiative to also create that space of let's just take a deep breath, because we see that it does go a long way. So I just want to remind everyone that it is hard right now, and it's valid to feel fear and it's valid to feel whatever it is that you're feeling, there is hope and there are different ways to take care of yourself, whether that is a hike, whether that is taking a deep breath a couple times a day, and for my peers who are listening, you can integrate meditations into your class. Reach out to your professor. Reach out to your boss, whatever type of work you're doing. I feel like there are always 30 seconds in which all of you can partake in some sort of breathing exercise. 

DACHER KELTNER: Well, Pablo and Evelyn, I want to thank you guys. This is bold work, and it's the kind of social change that we always are exhilarated by when our students lead the way. So thank you so much for being on the show. 

EVELYN MATA: Thank you so much.

PABLO GONZALEZ: Thank you, for sure.

DACHER KELTNER:  

The simple power of collective mindfulness is truly special. It's a big reason why we do what we do at the science of happiness as always, thank you for listening and remember you can always send us a message at happinesspod@berkeley.edu Happy Holidays.

Our associate producers are Emily Brower and Tarini Kakkar. Our producer is Truc Nguyen. Our sound designer is Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Shuka Kalantari is our executive producer. I'm your host. Dacher Keltner.