Giants' Logan Ryan working on his breathing . . . and his mindfulness

Logan Ryan was out swimming in the ocean this past summer when he drifted a bit too far away from the boat that had brought him to the spot.

"I started to freak out a little bit," he said of the experience.

Instead of losing control, though, Ryan relied on one of his newest football skills: a different way to breathe.

Ryan began working with Dana Santos and a company called FocusCalm during the offseason to change the way he brings air into his body.

Instead of the traditional in-hold-out patterns that athletes have been using for years, Ryan has switched to in-out-hold, seeing how long he can last before he brings any new oxygen into his lungs. The FocusCalm headband and app allow him to work on those techniques through a series of exercises and video games.

It helps him not only control his breathing, he said, but his mindfulness. He even has his kids doing it.

And it’s because of that, he says, that he was able to recalibrate himself while bobbing in the water and make his way to safety.

"I had to really find some poise in that panic situation to get back to the boat," he said.

This season has been a little bit like that, too. At times the Giants have seemed to be adrift and without the safety of a boat nearby.

"Not everything has gone exactly as we envisioned, exactly as planned," he said. "But it really is just a way to teach poise and have good presence. There is so much anxiety in general with COVID and everything going on and all types of mental health issues that we know about now, so I think everybody needs to practice on their mind. It’s really your greatest weapon. It’s your greatest ally.

"If I hadn’t been doing this breathing the way this season has started, I think I could have been really panicked. And I haven’t. I’ve just pushed through it and I think the results are getting better."

The thing about mindfulness exercises, he said, is that the harder you try to be successful at them, the worse you do. The key is to relax and let go.

Same for being a 2-5 football team, he said.

"Sometimes you try to overdo it, sometimes you try to push and say that last loss was unacceptable and we need to do this and we need to do that and you are kind of going in the wrong direction," he said. "You need to take a deep breath sometimes and trust yourself again and go back to just playing the game out and playing the highs and lows of the game without panicking."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.