I wonder WHY breathing exercises have always been such a dogshit "coping skill" for me.
It just feels so incredibly wrong to try to force my breaths to be a certain length. Usually, when I've tried them, it gives me the sense that I'm not getting enough air or I'm starting to suffocate, which slowly increases the longer I do the breathing exercises, and it's a very stressful feeling.
Last time I tried doing breathing exercises to relax, my back and torso became slowly more and more and more tense and locked up and tight until my back was very painful. It was like I was clenching down with all the muscles of my body to try to make the breaths start and end when they were supposed to.
It sucks because therapists usually think "breathing exercises" are the gold standard for anxiety coping skills, and I had one therapist tell me that it was impossible that they didn't work because scientifically, you Cannot have a fear/stress response if you're doing breathing exercises. Lady, if it was that easy no one would need therapy. Also I guess I'm some kind of alien or something.
In yoga class, I think I finally "got" some of the benefits of what breathing exercises were supposed to do from paying attention to breathing in different poses and feeling how that biological cycle affects the parts of the body that are holding the pose. That isn't trying to control the breathing though.
Also, it's engaging the whole body: trying to focus on my breathing while not doing anything else I think causes that tension to build in my muscles.
I'm just thinking like. I notice that my breaths become faster and shallower when I'm stressed or afraid, but when I try to force myself to breathe slowly, it's like my body is wrestling against me.
I think it's much easier and less pain- and panic-inducing to do breathing exercises when I'm already calm?
I kept trying to do breathing exercises for years after I knew they didn't work for me. I think I had the idea from therapy that coping skills weren't necessarily supposed to feel good or different or helpful at all, and that I had to keep doing them to "get better" which was something independent from "feeling better."
ive been wondering when id have my bananas arent supposed to be spicy moment but i cannot fucking believe this
what do you mean breathing exercises arent supposed to make you feel out of breath???? what???
also why the fuck did i need to be told the feel better exercise is supposed to make me. feel better? what went wrong here. genuinely asking.
jesus. what a revelation.
I don't think they are. It seems counter-intuitive, right? I'm just as perplexed at how they're supposed to feel as you.
The idea is that it's a feedback loop between brain and body. Your brain says "bad things are happening!" so your body kicks in survival mode and your heart starts beating faster and you start breathing faster, aka your body is preparing to run away. The "run away" response isn't taking the stress away, so your brain sends more "bad things are happening!" signals and your body keeps trying to run away harder.
The idea, and what has been shown to happen "on average" with study results, is that when you force your breathing to slow, your body has to force your heart rate to slow and when those are both slowed it breaks the feedback loop and sends signals to your brain that "danger is gone, we're all good".
In your case that clearly isn't working. And the thing about research studies is that the results are almost always "on average" which means that some people get a lot of benefit and some get little or none. But researchers have to make papers useful in order to get published, so they talk about those who get benefit.
