Re: Basic breathing

hi chris,

i think your issue mainly has to do with bad breathing mechanics and habits. there are many ways to improve your breathing. i just recently attended a buteyko breathing class and already see the benefits it has on my ability to relax by control my breathing.

what happens with people like us, is that we experience a stress trigger. this trigger stimulates our bodies to breathe more in preparation for fight-or-flight. due to our bad breathing habits formed over the years, our bodies feel like they need to get a "good breath" (you know, the kind of breathe that actually feels good.). thus we breathe more until we over-breathe. unfortunately, breathing more actually makes it hard to get a "good breathe" and your body tries to stop you by making breathing increasingly difficult. so by breathing more, you are making symptoms worse. your heart starts pumping hard, you head hurts, your stomach growls, etc.

to stop this, you need to tell yourself "hey i'm overbreathing right now." then you need to inhale less air (just enough to make you a little hungry for the next breath). then in exhale slowly so that you slip increasingly into a more relaxed state. make sure that when you breathe, you are using your stomach and not your chest. your chest can't move! use your stomach to breathe (google it to get more info). do this type of breathing for about 2-5 minutes.

next, you need to understand that breathing has 3 part. inhale, exhale, and pause. you need to work on extending your natural pause so that after you exhale, you wait naturally wait about 5-6 seconds to take the next breath. in order to train yourself to be better at this, practice pausing your breathing after the exhale for as long as you can so that when you inhale again, its not a large breathe (but just just like the inhale before).

oh, and most importantly: make sure you do all of this with your NOSE. never ever breathe through your mouth! thats what gets most of us trouble. tape your your mouth shut during the night, using a light type of cloth tape.

really there are many ways to improve your breathing. just stick to one way and you'll probably notice that you'll have a greater ability to control you stress response.

hope that helps.