Diaphragmatic breathing

[Blinkyrocket]

So, I guess this is out of curiosity maybe a little more than anything but are we really supposed to only breathe with the diaphragm when at rest? Cuz, if so, than I have a serious breathing disorder and I'm not doubting that for a second since I also have a history of very bad panic attacks and uncomfortable awareness of my breath and also getting out of breath.

 

[tara]

I think so, in general. I think you have something non-standard going on in your chest, so I don't know if it works the same for you.
I retrained diaphragmatic breathing by putting a belt around my chest a few times. I did it for an hour at a time a couple of times during the day when I was moving round doing things, and a couple of times I slept with it on through the night. That was enough to largely reset what I think might have been a long-standing chest-breathing habit. That was a couple of years ago. I've done it once more since the as a refresher, when I was experimenting with sleeping with my head under a cloth, which increased the volume of breath for a bit. Sleeping with the belt one night sorted that out too.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Did u notice of it reduces stress or what it does to CO2 levels or was this before you knew about CO2?

 

[tara]

I was reading about Buteyko method on normalbreathing.com before I found Peat's work. This was the easiest change to make. I also tackled mouthbreathing pretty successfully.
I think both those changes reduced stress levels for me.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

I'm curious about putting the rag over my face while I sleep, on how much of your breath it actually contains and how much goes through the rag. And I'm also curious about surgeon masks or whatever the white masks that go over your nose and mouth are called, whether or not they're useful for re breathing at least some of the air you breathe out. I've pinpointed the causes of my hyperventilation which are either chest breathing or stomach breathing (breathing with my stomach muscles tense which makes me exhale faster than normal) in fact I found that relaxing my stomach is a completely foreign feeling I haven't felt in a long time, and that my diaphragm feels weak.

 

[tara]

I would suggest tackling in this order:
1. Keeping your mouth closed, including at night (breath through nose, eat drink and talk with mouth). I had to use mechanical means at night for many months before this became automatic, and now I just use it if I get a cold or such like.
2. Practice diaphragmatic breathing. The belt method made this much quicker and easier for me, but it can probably be done more slowly with lots of attentive practice.
3. Practice consciously relaxed breathing. Practicing relaxing your stomach sounds like a really good idea. Wouldn't surprise me if this helps with digestion too.
4. Once these are habitual, you could try adding other things, and see what works for you, such as a cloth over the head at night. When I use the cloth, I adjust the gap for fresh air so that I get less than usual, but not so little as to be stressful. Sometimes I get deeper breathing for a minute till it calms down. If it's still deeper after a couple of minutes, I let in more fresh air. Sometimes I use a separate cloth, sometimes I just pull the sheet over my head.

I found the normalbreathing learn section worth reading, though I did follow it through in practice very far.

 

[oxidation_is_normal]

I wouldn't look at it as a disorder. Most people cannot do this. The only people I've met that always breathe like this are those who had it drilled in through meditation & taiji. The chest should not rise and fall, just the belly goes out.

 

[tara]

I agree chest/clavicular and mouth breathing and chronic hidden hyperventilation (wrt optimal) are common. According to normalbreathing, there's been a significant change in average breathing rates just the last few decades.
I recall noticing as a child that my father breathed slow and low. He certainly didn't deliberately practice anything like meditaion or yoga etc.
I see it more as a habit, associated with other aspects of reduced metabolism, that can contribute to undermining health. If there is also panic and a frequent feeling of air hunger, etc, it may be worth addressing directly, along with trying to address other tactics to support improving metabolism.

 

[mt_dreams]

I was a chest breather until I became a hookah smoker. It transitioned my breathing from a fast chest breath to a slow stomach breath. Probably not the healthiest ways to make this transition, but it worked so I'm thankful for it. This is assuming ones subconscious already has nose breathing down pact, as the hookah use turned one of my friends who often breathed through their mouth into an habitual night mouth breather.

On another note regarding the obvious increase in breathing of humans over the last couple hundred years, wouldn't the lower oxygen percentage of our air have something to do with this. I recall reading that oxygen levels have decreased by almost half over the last couple of centuries, though I can't confirm this info.

 

[tara]

On another note regarding the obvious increase in breathing of humans over the last couple hundred years, wouldn't the lower oxygen percentage of our air have something to do with this. I recall reading that oxygen levels have decreased by almost half over the last couple of centuries, though I can't confirm this info.

I'm not aware of any dramatic change. Where does this come from? There are hypotheses about our breathing apparatus being significantly evolved during higher atmospheric CO2 times, and that that may have something to do with why we are vulnerable to hyperventilation issues.

 

[mt_dreams]

I'm not aware of any dramatic change. Where does this come from? There are hypotheses about our breathing apparatus being significantly evolved during higher atmospheric CO2 times, and that that may have something to do with why we are vulnerable to hyperventilation issues.

I can't remember the article where I had read the info (the article was directly related to oxygen levels & breathing patterns.) A quick internet search shows some articles regarding the drop in oxygen due to deforestation, less plankton in the ocean, etc. Not exactly what I was looking for, but it's at least some info.

http://disinfo.com/2013/01/atmospheric- ... re-rising/

and a further link in the article from above.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/O2DroppingFaste ... Rising.php

I'm not qualified to know if having less oxygen in the air (thus more carbon) is bad or good. It seems if you can train yourself to breath less, having more carbon in the air, minus the pollution, might be beneficial.

In the presence of increased carbon in our atmosphere, the real problem is not the carbon, rather that we are messing with the process. that being more carbon usually would result in more plant & plankton life, which in-turn creates more oxygen, thus regulating itself over time. that's not the case this time around as we're preventing the cycle from doing its thing.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

I've noticed that the VERY few times I've ever truly been able to relax, my breathing subconsciously transitioned to slow, shallow and very comfortable diaphragmatic breathing. I'm thinking I have a very damaged metabolism cuz when I went low carb this problem got way bigger, I was miserable trying to "fix" my breathing by breathing deeper because I constantly felt air hunger and couldn't sleep. I'm only 18 but I'm wondering if because of how horrible my life has been that it might do me some good to supplement pregnenolone because I can't see any possible way that I could feel this bad and also be "healthy" in that respect (also, I've had heart palpitations since I was 10, so estrogen problem for a very long time, I think). Just today, I got so relaxed and happy and it felt so foreign that I actually started to panic because in my mind it HAD to be fake, like adrenaline or something. But I know I was fine and perfectly happy until the thought came into my head "what if this is just adrenaline and if I keep being 'happy' it's gonna get worse"

 

[Blinkyrocket]

I feel exactly like the guy who said he hated the system and didn't wanna get a job because he would be contributing to the system, I can't remember what forum thread it was, but I remember the responses were that the guy was really negative about everything and kind of a jerk. I feel like I don't even wanna be happy because if I'm happy than I'm giving in to a world that I completely hate, than I'm accepting all the filth and being fine with it. kind of a catch 22. Plus the fact that I hate ppl and isolation is the worst emotional stress, another catch 22.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

I have a pulse oximeter and lately have been getting 93% oxygen saturation, is that bad or good? I'm assuming 99 to 100% isn't necessarily good cuz I remember peat saying somewhere that if all the oxygen is in the blood than its not being delivered.

 

[Blossom]

What altitude do you like at? 93% is getting into the lower end of normal. If you live at high altitude your reading will usually be a few points lower than it would be at sea level.

 

[tara]

I've noticed that the VERY few times I've ever truly been able to relax, my breathing subconsciously transitioned to slow, shallow and very comfortable diaphragmatic breathing.

This strikes me as a good sign that you are mechanically able to breathe well, though it sounds like it might take some practice, more improvement in metabolism, and some persistence in keeping your mind on the possibility of improvement. Not necessarily easy, but possible.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

What altitude do you like at? 93% is getting into the lower end of normal. If you live at high altitude your reading will usually be a few points lower than it would be at sea level.

2000-2500 ft I live in Kansas so not too high but at least not on the beach.

It goes from 93-95 depending on whether I'm breathing in or out.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

I've noticed that the VERY few times I've ever truly been able to relax, my breathing subconsciously transitioned to slow, shallow and very comfortable diaphragmatic breathing.

This strikes me as a good sign that you are mechanically able to breathe well, though it sounds like it might take some practice, more improvement in metabolism, and some persistence in keeping your mind on the possibility of improvement. Not necessarily easy, but possible.

I agree that it's definitely possible since coming to the revelation that this all stems from my slouching problem and maybe even a magnesium deficiency or anything that could stiffen the diaphragm, but I can look back to when I was about 10 and started playing video games without a chair and had to sit on the ground, I started slouching and pretty much never stopped and since then my stomach muscles are so tight and because of that it's actually uncomfortable to relax them. Because of this I have ALWAYS (except when I forgot ALL worries and went off to lala land) breathed wrong because the stomach tenseness probably decreases residual volume of air in the lungs (also letting me take bigger breaths with the extra air space probably) and on top of that stomach tightness makes me exhale faster and more obviously.

 

[Blinkyrocket]

Plus a trip to El Paso to see family caused me a slight hyperventilation stress, and the fact that when I first started doing the peat diet my nose was plugged constantly revived my bad breathing habits, so it's just a temporary set back. On that note, does Benadryl have any adverse effects and if so is there a better antihistamine I could use?

 

[tara]

Peat has recommended diphenhydramine (which is component of some forms of Benadryl in some contries) and cyproheptadine, both older antihistamines, as safer than some of the more recent ones. If you can avoid the allergic stressors, maybe even better.

I think all kinds of stress, as well as posture can affect breathing. Even with allergies, you may be able to get your nose to clear enough by keeping your mouth closed - at night it might take tape or a chin strap.

If you are having trouble getting your diaghragm moving regularly, there are other exercises that I gather can help, if you don't want to use the belt method. For instance, lie on your back on the floor in a warm place. Relax as fully as you can. Put one hand on chest and one on belly. See if you can breath so that the hand on your chest stays still, and you can feel the hand on belly rise and fall gently. Or put a book on your belly. Whenever you think of it, straighten your back, relax and exhale, aand deliberately make the next couple of breaths diaphragmatic.

Any time you notice yourself feeling stressed, you can relax, breath out, and hold your breath for a few seconds, one or more times.

The breathing exercises are not from Peat. He recommends bag breathing briefly several times a day. If you haven't tried that yet, you could give it a go too.