Relaxation: Breathing!

[Jay]

Hi all,

As I was doing my evening set of stretches, I decided that it might be helpful to post about what I always follow them with: diaphragmatic breathing. My physical therapist prescribed this as part of my home care regimen, and it has helped a lot. Very easy to do, and safe for the unguided to try.

Get a comfortable blanket or towel and spread it out on the floor. Lay flat on your back, legs relatively straight, with your hands either at your sides or comfortably upon your stomach. Close your eyes and begin to breathe, taking the air into your stomach, rather than your chest. I like to count to ten as my stomach rises, hold the breath for a second, and then count to ten as I exhale.

While I'm breathing, I begin to mentally search for points of tension in my body. Wherever I might detect these spots, I slowly try to relax them without disturbing my breathing pattern or moving. You'd be surprised at how much additional tension you can detect when in this position and state of mind! Even when I feel as though I've relaxed my body fully, I have noticed that the face can be a hiding place for additional tension. My jaw clenches a little, and the muscles surrounding my eyes pinch. Very sneaky.

Once you learn to fully relax your body and to get into the breathing pattern, you might find that your mind enters a "twilight" state. It's that state where you're mostly conscious, but just approaching sleep, and your thoughts start to wander away from what you're doing. That's where I aim to be when I do this relaxation, because it means that I'm truly relaxed and not thinking about my symptoms. Mind, the goal isn't to actually fall asleep, just to skirt that boundary!

I do ten minutes of this relaxation every day, usually following my bedtime set of stretches. I use a timer, but I keep it facing away from me. If I can see the amount of time passing, I find that it tempts me to hurry things along, which doesn't help with reducing tension.

Most of you probably know about diaphragmatic breathing, but perhaps this will help the newcomers among us. Regardless of our individual causes for pain, most of us very much need an opportunity to relax our bodies and minds, and this has worked well for me.

[garyholc]

Sounds good Jay. One question though - I find for example, that while I can find time to do a bit of stretching and PT, I find it more difficult to find time to lay down and do breathing for half an hour, and my question is, whats the difference between doing this and having a good sleep? During sleep you are relaxed, breathing slows and the body repairs, so is there any big difference between having a good nights sleep, and spending half an hour doing breathing exercises?

[graeme]

Good question Gaz. I was about to ask it myself

I will throw in though being awake and doing relaxation is learning to control your relaxation and mind, being asleep there is no control, in fact a lot of people can get tension in sleep (teeth grinding for one)

[Viking]

I have found breathing to be one of the most important things in my recovery. I don't often lay down on a blanket anymore, but I keep my attention on my breathing throughout the day as often as possible. This works great for gaining true conciousness and stops the mind from almost taking over through obsessive thinking. I am able to stay way more focused and feel a lot more energy.

The importance of breathing in terms of spirituality is widely understood in Eastern cultures, and I suspect will gain more and more recognition in the Western world as well.

[boulder]

Totally agree with you guys about the relaxation benefits of diaphragmatic breathing! Check out Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Full Catastrophe Living" pg.53-55 for a great "how to" with pictures.



Jay and Graeme make excellent points about sleep vs. relaxation. In a relaxed state we can monitor tension. When we're asleep, we have (little or) no ability to monitor such things. Just ask my dentist! He was the first person to point out that I was bruxing- I had been doing it for months completely unawares and gave myself a bunch of cavities...

[carld]

Sounds like autogenic relaxation...Good stuff...

[webslave]

I'd like to add a data point here in favor of breathing to control pain. Last night I had a bout of gastroenteritis, you know the kind where you are up all night vomiting and with diarrhoea, to the point where you are passing a teaspoon of water from the rear end and dry retching. I happen to be particularly prone to nasty gastroenteritis, but I manage to avoid it for long periods by scrupulously washing my hands before touching food, always washing my hands when getting home from the outside world, and not eating food prepared by people outside my family. I can get gastro so badly that I have ended up in hospital and required pethidine shots to stop the cyclic pain and retching

Anyway, I was starting to feel desperate last night around 1am when the retching and diarrhoea would simply not stop, even though nothing was really coming out of me. So remembering this thread, I lay in a dark room and started slowly breathing with my stomach instead of my chest. MAGIC! Within minutes the pain subsided and soon I fell asleep, to awaken 5 hours later free of pain.

I suggest everyone here try using this breathing technique when the pain is really bad. Please report back. (Note: there are plenty of abstracts in Pubmed about this if you search on the string: "pain[ti] AND breathing[ti]", but no text is kept for the abstracts, suggesting that the establishment considers it a grey area. But I for one have proved that it works. I have found again and again in my life that strategies that work for me are at best only given passing acknowledgement by the medical world, or ignored. I guess things that are not profitable do not generate much research. )

[carld]

Glad your feeling better Mark...There is nothing worse I think than what you just went through...Again more proof that deep breathing has rewards that no doctor can ever explain...

[Jay]

Hi Mark,

Sorry to hear of your bout with gastroenteritis. I can't imagine many things less pleasant than that, especially for someone with CPPS! I'm glad that the breathing technique helped you, though.

I still do my diaphragmatic breathing on a regular basis. Yesterday, my nerves were really inflamed and I had that crawly feeling, I suspect from the intense PT I had on Friday. So, I did an extra long session of breathing after my stretches. This seemed to calm things down quite a bit.

With me, the biggest challenge in using this technique is not falling asleep. It really seems to be good for inducing that, especially if you don't concentrate on staying awake!

[neue01]

What is the "crawly feeling"? Maybe you could explain this a little more? I think I might be getting a similar sensation in me perineum area as well.

[Jay]

What is the "crawly feeling"? Maybe you could explain this a little more? I think I might be getting a similar sensation in me perineum area as well.

Hi,

Don't really know what it is, but I assume it's related to my PFD just agitating the nerves some. I had a pretty intense PT session on Friday involving simultaneously working my front pelvic floor internally and perineum externally. Seems to have passed today.

[webslave]

Fluttering or crawling feeling is a good sign. Do a search for "fasciculations".

[2travelers]

Webslave

This is not really part of the subject but If you don't mind....I have a question for you that I have been curious about since I joined the forum. Where did you get your training? It amazes me how you have an answer for almost every question or situation that we throw at you.

All us guys in this forum are truly blessed to have someone who will impart your knowledge that we all benefit from.

Thank You
2travelers

[webslave]

• I have been reading about this condition every day for over 12 years
• I have part of a medical degree (had to drop out due to hepatitis) and an interest in medicine
• I have read widely on medicine and have a small library of doctor's medical books

I suppose that accounts for most of it.

But please be cautioned that my knowledge of medicine is still vestigial and I cannot replace either your family doctor and certainly not your urologist. It's only when they fail that I (and the moderators and the other posters here) may have some good advice to impart.

[carld]

In other words...Mark is the God Father...