How To Stop Unconsciously Hyperventilating?

lampofred

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Feb 13, 2016
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Whenever I focus on my breathing and slow everything down, I feel relaxed/clear headed/aware. But the issue is that unless I'm focused 100% on my breath, I naturally just hyperventilate, and I'm unable to relax unless I bag breathe or take a few minutes to hypoventilate. Does anyone have any tips on how to chill out 24/7 without making a conscious effort?

T3, hot showers, and Mucuna Pruriens (dopaminergic medication) all help but only very temporarily. Clearly my body energy is still low but if thyroid and diet aren't doing it, what else can I do?
 

marcar72

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I've read that celibacy or lack thereof can go hand in hand with one's breathing. From the wording of your post it seems you're probably into "yoga" of some sort. I'm a Christian myself, but have noticed that some of what the Hindu's write about in regards to this seems to have some merit to it. I've realized this from a personal, experiential point of view during long periods of sexual abstinence. (from "self serving")

I've also noticed from back in the day that a good run would sort of give me that clear head and relaxed breathing for a couple days. I just did some interval jogging the other day and was pretty relaxed and clear headed as expected afterwards.
 

DaveFoster

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Stop breathing.

Seriously though, serotonin and estrogen increase the respiratory rate, which leads to elevations in lactate, which we find in those with panic disorder and so on.

Elevated lactate during psychogenic hyperventilation. - PubMed - NCBI

"In patients with psychogenic hyperventilation, lactate levels are frequently elevated. Whereas high lactates are usually associated with acidosis and an increased risk of poor outcome, in patients with psychogenic hyperventilation, high lactates are associated with hypocapnia and alkalosis. In this context, elevated arterial lactate levels should not be regarded as an adverse sign."
 

tara

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Mar 29, 2014
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It's a good question.
People do various things to retain themselves. There are threads describing some things people have tried. New habits often take conscious practice till they are established. May take dedicated time to practice.

My thoughts include:
- Consider alkaline minerals. If your system doesn't have enough of them, then I think it may automatically hyperventilate in order to counteract acid in your body to maintain acceptable pH. I'm not entirely sure about this, but this is my current loose reading of it.
- Make sure you have enough fuel on board. If you are hungry enough to raise stress hormones like adrenaline, this will automatically increase breathing rate.
- Consider temperature. Overheating can result in panting.
- Consider posture. If your posture is cramped, it can interfere with the diaphragm being able to do it's job. Stand an sit tall. At night, lying on the back can make hyperventilation easier, so lying on side can be preferable.

Then to consciously address the breathing habits:

- First step is check that you have your mouth shut all the time except when eating, drinking and speaking, including at night. You can use mechanical aids if necessary, like tape or chin strap. If you have people around you can ask them to notice and tell you if they see you with your mouth open. I changed this habit - noticing and modifying during the day, and taping at night till I didn't need to any more.
- Check your resting breathing is diaphragmatic not thoracic (chest) and clavicular (collar) muscles. If you are not sure, put a hand on chest and belly and see which move. If the hand on chest moves, that's thoracic. The collar bone doesn't need to move in rest. You can deliberately practice relaxing chest and letting diaphragm do the job it is made for. Check regularly through the day. If you catch yourself chest breathing often, this may take more work. If it is not easy, you can use mechanical aid to immobilise the chest and require the diaphragm to work. I put a belt round my chest, relaxed and breathed out, secured the belt, and kept it there while I went about chores for an hour or so. You could see what;'s workable for you.

- Then it comes to practicing calm breathing. You can set aside time every day to practice. You can remember to pay attention whenever you a few minutes.
Relax and exhale.
You can do things - movement, walking, exercise, whatever, that is just slightly challenging to do with your mouth shut.
Various breathing practices - from Buteyko, or yoga or other traditions than train calmed breathing.
Practice short breath holds, or maybe longer ones if they seem helpful. Patrick McKeown recommends Step exercises for children with asthma - series of breath holds with brisk walking, practice daily to get up to 80+ steps.

I read somewhere that if you can raise the CO2 level for a while - of the order of 20 mins (no doubt varies) - it can change the set point. But I think you have to practice regularly to maintain and increase that.
 

Ahanu

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Sep 13, 2015
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Does anyone have any tips on how to chill out 24/7 without making a conscious effort?
while practising buteyko I recognized that same pattern you described. after trying a few things best thing for me was breathing along an app like this :
Paced Breathing

it seems that the only important thing for my breathing is that the breathing pattern is regular like for example 5 seconds in 5 seconds out. or 3 sec in 3 sec out.it really doesn't matter as long as the pattern is regular. 30 minutes a day lasts for the whole day. standard rules I used for the practice: effortless pattern, nose breathing of course, no breathing sound.
the app is good because with earplugs you can do it anywhere. sound goes up-breathing in, sound goes down-breathing out. so I used it while working, walking or even playing computer. of course always with a different pattern. no need for airhunger for that. I think doing this while an activity like playing computer is very useful to restore normal breathing.
that worked so good that I forgot about the breathing at all.
 

intotheether

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Nov 14, 2017
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A lot of people who'll find Peat's work will trapped in the stress state. In the stressed state, the body will unconsciously hyperventilate until the source of that stress is taken care of. This is why the Buteyko Method is clear on the influence of contraindications - anxiety and panic attacks, for instance, will cause the body to enter fight or flight almost perpetually, which will inevitably heighten breathing to an enormous degree, totally reversing any efforts to reduce the breathing volume. The body will also hyperventilate in sleep in order to regain it's heightened benchmark level of breathing volume.

My frustration with this is for certain folk, they will have to remove these contraindications before they can progress. This can be a major pain in the ****.

If you don't have a contraindication, then as the above posters have said, Buteyko breathing would be amazing for you.
 
OP
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lampofred

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Feb 13, 2016
Messages
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It's a good question.
People do various things to retain themselves. There are threads describing some things people have tried. New habits often take conscious practice till they are established. May take dedicated time to practice.

My thoughts include:
- Consider alkaline minerals. If your system doesn't have enough of them, then I think it may automatically hyperventilate in order to counteract acid in your body to maintain acceptable pH. I'm not entirely sure about this, but this is my current loose reading of it.
- Make sure you have enough fuel on board. If you are hungry enough to raise stress hormones like adrenaline, this will automatically increase breathing rate.
- Consider temperature. Overheating can result in panting.
- Consider posture. If your posture is cramped, it can interfere with the diaphragm being able to do it's job. Stand an sit tall. At night, lying on the back can make hyperventilation easier, so lying on side can be preferable.

Then to consciously address the breathing habits:

- First step is check that you have your mouth shut all the time except when eating, drinking and speaking, including at night. You can use mechanical aids if necessary, like tape or chin strap. If you have people around you can ask them to notice and tell you if they see you with your mouth open. I changed this habit - noticing and modifying during the day, and taping at night till I didn't need to any more.
- Check your resting breathing is diaphragmatic not thoracic (chest) and clavicular (collar) muscles. If you are not sure, put a hand on chest and belly and see which move. If the hand on chest moves, that's thoracic. The collar bone doesn't need to move in rest. You can deliberately practice relaxing chest and letting diaphragm do the job it is made for. Check regularly through the day. If you catch yourself chest breathing often, this may take more work. If it is not easy, you can use mechanical aid to immobilise the chest and require the diaphragm to work. I put a belt round my chest, relaxed and breathed out, secured the belt, and kept it there while I went about chores for an hour or so. You could see what;'s workable for you.

- Then it comes to practicing calm breathing. You can set aside time every day to practice. You can remember to pay attention whenever you a few minutes.
Relax and exhale.
You can do things - movement, walking, exercise, whatever, that is just slightly challenging to do with your mouth shut.
Various breathing practices - from Buteyko, or yoga or other traditions than train calmed breathing.
Practice short breath holds, or maybe longer ones if they seem helpful. Patrick McKeown recommends Step exercises for children with asthma - series of breath holds with brisk walking, practice daily to get up to 80+ steps.

I read somewhere that if you can raise the CO2 level for a while - of the order of 20 mins (no doubt varies) - it can change the set point. But I think you have to practice regularly to maintain and increase that.

Interesting about the alkaline minerals! Thanks.

Btw for everyone else also trying to figure out this issue, easier alternative to bag breathing: sock breathing. :))
 

tara

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The body will also hyperventilate in sleep in order to regain it's heightened benchmark level of breathing volume.
I think you are probably right about the stresses interfering, and that it is helpful to address those stresses and 'contraindications'.
But I think this tendency can be mitigated to some extent - if you can get the mouth to stay shut during sleep, and sleep on the side, the body may well not do the extra work to hyperventilate as much as if the mouth was open and lying on the back.
Btw for everyone else also trying to figure out this issue, easier alternative to bag breathing: sock breathing. :))
Lol. This is considered torture in our household. Sure motivates reduced breathing. Or maybe you are talking about clean ones? :)
 

intotheether

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I think you are probably right about the stresses interfering, and that it is helpful to address those stresses and 'contraindications'.
But I think this tendency can be mitigated to some extent - if you can get the mouth to stay shut during sleep, and sleep on the side, the body may well not do the extra work to hyperventilate as much as if the mouth was open and lying on the back.

True enough.
 
OP
L

lampofred

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Feb 13, 2016
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I think you are probably right about the stresses interfering, and that it is helpful to address those stresses and 'contraindications'.
But I think this tendency can be mitigated to some extent - if you can get the mouth to stay shut during sleep, and sleep on the side, the body may well not do the extra work to hyperventilate as much as if the mouth was open and lying on the back.

Lol. This is considered torture in our household. Sure motivates reduced breathing. Or maybe you are talking about clean ones? :)

I actually was talking about clean ones but this just gave me a better idea...
 

Amazoniac

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- hyperventilation pathophysiology | Google Scholar

The pathophysiology of hyperventilation disorders

"Voluntary hyperventilation in normal subjects for as long as 1 h has been reported to be associated with relatively few symptoms, suggesting that hypocapnia may not be the only explanation for the symptoms in patients with symptomatic hyperventilation.[30]"​

thank you @Amazoniac I am hyperventilating with eagerness to read it.
Are you sure that's the reason? :ss2
 

Amazoniac

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From the last link:

"Many regimens have been developed for treatment of hyperventilation per se, summarized in a recent book edited by Timmons and Ley[206] and critically reviewed by Garssen and Rijken.[213] In some patients, and especially those verging on panic, a regimen involving breathing exercises and diaphragmatic retraining may be of benefit.[23] Some believe that the effect of such training is nonspecific, but a recent study showed that guided breathing retraining improved cardiac symptoms and physiologic variables in a group of patients with hyperventilation.[214] However, other controlled studies suggest that these techniques have only limited effectiveness.[215,216] Our clinical view is that these techniques should not be offered to all patients. They can be helpful when no cause for the hyperventilation can be found and in selected patients who require techniques for relaxation and for self-control of breathing in mild panic. In other patients, they can be positively harmful in inducing excessive introspection about the respiratory act."​

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Missenger

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Anything that reduces stress seems to allow people to breathe easier, you could think of hyperventilation as one of the human body's 'coping tropes'.
 

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