Although my asthma has been awful this past week due to high pollen counts, the last few months have been filled with aha moments and new insights for me in how my breathing works. Reflecting on what I've learned about how I breathe throughout the years has helped me to understand what types of relaxation techniques are helpful for me. Being mindful of my body and my health continually leads me to learn about what helps me to feel centered and calm.
As an asthmatic, the idea of mindful breathing as a relaxation technique is a paradox for me. For most people, taking deep breaths in and out is an exercise that helps to center and calm them. As someone who has breathing issues, this strategy is hit or miss for me. Sometimes it is relaxing and at others, all I want to do is not think about how my breathing is off—whether it is shallow, staggered, hyperventilating, gasping, etc. At these times, focusing on the act of breathing is anxiety provoking, not relaxing.
Throughout the years, I’ve learned different techniques to help me relax when my breathing is compromised. In high school, I saw a great allergist who helped me to distinguish between what were allergic symptoms and what was hyperventilating from a panic attack. Strategies such as breathing into a paper bag or into my cupped hands helped to regulate my breathing, bringing more carbon dioxide into my system and helping to slow down my quickened heartbeat. Doing this helped to relax me.
About ten years later, I became interested in learning how to breathe correctly since the common phrase, “Just slowly take some deep breaths”, has never made sense to me. I signed up for a breathing workshop involving taking deep breaths while watching and feeling one’s stomach rise and fall. I could never seem to make my stomach rise and fall consistently in a steady pattern. Rather than a relaxing exercise, it was a frustrating one. I could never figure out why I couldn’t breathe correctly until several years later when I was diagnosed with asthma.
Coming to understand my inability to feel my stomach muscles has also helped inform how my breathing has not worked correctly. Around the same time I officially became an asthmatic, I was also going to physical therapy. My physical therapist informed me that I had poor core stability when she watched in amazement as I could not even complete one sit-up! It took about two months of working with her twice a week before I was able to start feeling and understanding the stomach muscles that I was supposed to be using in doing some of the exercises. Before then, it was as if my body didn’t even acknowledge those muscles.
Fast forward several years later when I started going to acupuncture. One of the many symptoms that I am treated for is digestive issues and there are four stomach points that I usually receive directly on my stomach. Within weeks, I began feeling more definition in my stomach muscles and I remember telling my acupuncturist, “Oh, these are the muscles my physical therapist has been talking about!” When I performed the physical therapy exercises I could feel myself using these muscles in a way that I hadn’t been able to before. Very cool!
It was also during these acupuncture sessions that I continued to discover how different my breathing was from most people’s. My acupuncturist knows me very well and she can often anticipate which points might sting or hurt a little bit going in. She used to give me the advice of breathing out to help me relax before she put them in. Strangely though, I discovered that breathing in actually helped me more than the breathing out. She remarked that she had never seen that before but that if it worked for me, than go for it!
I started realizing that that tendency to breathe in rather than out to relax as well my inability to consistently feel some of my stomach muscles were contributing to some of my difficulties in breathing. This was confirmed about two years ago when my acupuncturist introduced me to some incredible herbs that dramatically affected my breathing in the most positive way! For the first time, when I breathed, I felt that my lungs were connected to my stomach. I could actually feel the breath moving between my lungs and my stomach. I had never felt that sensation before—either my lungs had filled with air or my stomach filled with air, but never at the same time. It felt as though a tube had opened up between both parts of my body, allowing an open exchange of oxygen. It took me several weeks to adjust to this new way of breathing but boy did it feel great!
Over the course of the several years that I have seen my acupuncturist, she has described to me how my diaphragm does not fully expand all of the time. (One of the main reasons why the advice to “Just Take Deep Breaths” does not really work for me!) I’ve never been able to consistently take deep breaths where both my lungs and stomach filled with air. A few months ago, I had an “Aha Moment” as to how to really take deep breaths. In March, the fourth and fifth graders at my school have been taking the MCAS test. One of the fourth graders became very anxious and my friend Grace engaged her in "Brownie Breathing". Rather than tell her to take deep breaths, she asked her to imagine breathing in the smell of a brownie. (Yum!) As she instructed the student, she acted out what this meant by raising her arms and her chest up. There was something about seeing the actual movement that helped me to understand how to take in that deep breath. I loved the idea of focusing on a smell as a way of regulating breathing, rather than the breath itself.
Driving to school a few days later, I realized that I was doing the same thing upon witnessing an incredible sunrise-- but instead of focusing on a smell, I was focusing on a sight. When I became aware of one of the most glorious sunrises that I have ever seen, I felt my lungs expand and my stomach rise. I felt my body fill up with air and feelings of calmness and serenity wash over me. I felt my lungs and my chest rise up.
A few days later when I was feeling stressed, I imagined seeing that sunrise and my body automatically went through the same motions of taking in the deep breaths. By repeatedly imagining the sunrise, I could replicate the deep breath over and over. In doing this, I became aware of what stomach muscles I was using to do this, the same ones that I had started to become aware of in acupuncture. It was a new sensation for me. Over the past few months I have been practicing that movement of “Sunrise Breathing.” It has started to become easier and easier for me to initiate the act of deep breathing and to use it when I am feeling stressed. It does help me feel more centered and calm. Very cool!
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| Photo by Susan Erickson |
The last piece of this whole breathing puzzle fell into place a few weeks ago upon viewing my friend Susan’s incredible picture that she took one morning before school. I love the way that light is dispersed in this picture—it has a light, airy, and mystical feel to it. For some reason, as I was practicing my breathing one day I began imagining this image. I started thinking about the breath and the oxygen moving through my body like the light in the picture. Thinking about the air expanding in a light and airy way helped my lungs, my stomach, my diaphragm to expand more fully. The combination of “Sunrise Breathing” with this visualization technique has furthered my ability to breathe in a way that is more like the way most people breathe.
Although it is difficult for me to access my new found breathing techniques when I have asthma flare-ups, I am becoming more adept at accessing them when I am feeling stressed. By practicing my breathing techniques during times when I feel calm, it increases my ability to use them more successfully when I am feeling stressed. I hear that meditation works in a similar way. Although my asthma has been acting up, I feel encouraged that I have been learning new ways to regulate my breathing.
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To Readers of My Blog: In what ways does being mindful about your body help you feel more centered and calm? How does it help you to relax?
