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◄ GUIDED
BREATHING EXPLORATIONS
Learning about how breathing affects you, means changing
breathing and observing the outcomes.
Intentional overbreathing
is an important discovery and learning tool for people who
already overbreathe. By taking proper precautions, neither the
practitioner nor the learner, need be afraid of intentional overbreathing. After all, overbreathing is the problem,
and as a behavior, it must be addressed.
In fact, fear of overbreathing and its effects may even contribute to the
problem.
Learning what hypocapnia “feels like” is a very important
part of evaluation and training.
During
intentional overbreathing, look for triggered physical symptoms, emotions,
memories, and shifts in consciousness.
Does changing PCO2 remind you of earlier times, places, or
people? It
often triggers experiences similar to ones previously experienced in real life
circumstances. This kind of
experience during an exploratory session may have a profound impact on you, and
it may be becomes enormously instructive as to how breathing can mediate
previously unexplained or misunderstood symptoms, deficits, and emotions.
The rate of
recovery from intentional hypocapnia is a very important indicator of
deregulation;
recovery should be complete in one to four minutes.
Failure to recover means that you may be prisoner to its effects, where
the effects themselves (e.g., breathlessness) motivate you to breathe deeper and
faster, thus worsening the effects; the cause unwittingly becomes the
self-defeating solution to the problem.
In real life, clients may begin overbreathing only to find themselves
trapped in vicious circle overbreathing behavior for hours at a time. And, like any other behavior, it may not
change until there is a contextual shift, e.g., doing physical exercise, or
leaving the scene.
Learned responses to the effects of hypocapnia vary
considerably and depend upon previous learning experience.
As a result of dissociation, for example, some people have anxiety reactions,
others feel safe and relieved, while others yet feeling nothing significant. The setting in which the effects are
experienced, such as a social situation, plays an important role in determining
the emotions and thoughts that may be triggered, e.g., low self-esteem.
Sometimes guided breathing explorations are in the
opposite direction, increasing PCO2
levels rather than decreasing them.
In people who are
chronic overbreathers,
restoring normal PCO2 may result in a sense of vulnerability,
anxiety, and unhappy memories. They quickly retreat into overbreathing,
despite its associated adverse side effects.
The solution in this case may involve psychotherapy or counseling, where
breathing becomes a gateway for exploring personal dynamics.
Copyrighted by Behavioral Physiology Institute, |