Don’t Hold Your Breath

“Don’t hold your breath”… I was kindly prompted many times.

I was a chronic breath holder.

Most people don’t notice they’re doing it, but many people hold their breath subconsciously.

Holding breath is a natural response in times of suspense, when something important is hanging in the balance for an instant. This isn’t meant to be a constant state. In a natural balance, it lasts only seconds before the breathing rhythms return and the in and out breaths flow.

For those who live in chronic stress it is different, the person stays in a state of subconscious suspense. They may feel like they’re on the edge of something, success or failure, hoping for a breakthrough, they may be fearful and holding their breath for a happy outcome, in these states the rhythm doesn’t return instantly,  

Like many others, I was totally unaware that I would hold my breath in certain situations. My natural breathing rhythms became hijacked, and habitual breath holding became a subconscious pattern. Thankfully I got to know my diaphragm.

It took a while, as I had lost nearly all diaphragm function. The diaphragm is the muscle responsible for expanding the lung cavity and drawing breath into your lungs so the air can oxygenate your blood stream.

When a person holds their breath chronically, the happy rhythm of the diaphragm locks up, and the diaphragm can waste away as your chest muscles take over the function of expanding the lungs. Breathing balance is gone and tension spreads to your neck and shoulders.

The metabolic outcomes are extensive and vary from person to person. These are some of the things you may experience:

 - fatigue

 - headaches

 - nausea

 - poor circulation

 - physical tenderness/pain

 - muscle tension especially neck and jaw

But you can change this.

Most muscles in your body, are either controlled consciously, or regulated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which, true to it’s name, automates our nerve pulses and function. For example if you want to brush your hair, your brain will send the message to your hand to move… that’s conscious muscle control. In comparison your heart is autonomically controlled, you can’t tell your heart to beat, it just does.

Your breathing is different, it is controlled by the ANS so you don’t have to think about it, but it can be controlled consciously too. This is great news for the breath holder (and the hyperventilater - but thats for a different blog).

Consciously being able to direct breathing means you can retrain your breathing patterns.

The autonomic nervous system has two branches, parasympathetic and sympathetic. If your autonomic nervous system gets stuck in chronic perceived stress, your body function will automatically be in sympathetic fight, flight or freeze mode, rather than the peaceful parasympathetic mode. Being predominantly in sympathetic mode, can leave you breathless or holding your breath consistently.

So what to do? There are many wonderful breath-work workshops and guidelines online. Breathing is a powerful thing and is used as a tool in many health modalities.

You can checkout breathing exercises online or yoga classes to help you connect with your breathing. Becoming aware is the biggest hurdle. Then it takes practice to isolate control of your diaphragm so you can activate it consciously. Here’s how I did it…

I lay quietly and placed one hand on my chest and the other on my belly. Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. I would observe my rhythm. At first my belly wasn’t rising and falling, which meant my diaphragm wasn’t driving my breathing. I needed to retrain my breathing and engage my diaphragm.

This took time and practice. I needed to see the hand on my belly rising and falling more than the hand on my chest. I intentionally relaxed my chest and shoulders so they didn't engage. Actively pushing my belly out helped my diaphragm start to engage. I only managed a couple of belly breaths at first. I set an alarm clock to remember to check in with my breathing. My kids thought it was hilarious that I needed reminding to breathe!

If you are a breath holder, take the time to activate your diaphragm and develop a natural breathing rhythm. Keep trying, your diaphragm is a muscle and will need exercise to get it working again. If it gets hard and you feel like you have no air, just breathe out, relax and try again. Just five minutes 3x daily, should get you breathing well before long and you’ll reap the benefits.

Heres a check list to get you started…

• put an alarm clock on for random times to check your breathing

• when you breathe, does your chest or your belly move? You definitely want to see your belly going in and out.

• don’t get into the bad habit of trying to hold your belly in, at the expense of breathing well.

• commit to breathing exercises 3x daily for six weeks to build the habit of breathing well

• don’t forget to breath out