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the experience of breathing and its effects
Absolutely crucial
to successful CapnoLearning™ is exploring the phenomenology of breathing, the personal
consciousness associated with breathing as an experience. This consciousness is about emotions,
thoughts, sense of self, and relationship to people and environment. Changing breathing changes
consciousness. The “psychology of
breathing” includes:
Breathing
experiences serve as discriminative
stimuli (SD) that trigger operant behaviors, and as conditioned stimuli (CS) that trigger
emotions and physiological changes. In
the first case, breathing experiences (stimuli) may trigger other learned
behaviors such as gasping. Gasping, a
reinforced operant behavior, may then be interpreted as symptoms of a condition
such as asthma, rather than as a consequence of learning based on the presence
of asthma. In the second case, breathing
mechanics (as a stimulus) may trigger classically conditioned emotions such intense
fear or panic without any intervening thoughts or interpretations, much as in
the case of a phobia. Breathing
experiences (stimuli) might include:
●
Experiencing breathing behavior itself, e.g., the
effortfulness associated with chest breathing ●
Experiencing the learned responses to the experience of
breathing, e.g., fear triggered by “failing to exhale completely” ●
Experiencing the direct physiological effects of
breathing (hypocapnia), e.g., loss of ability to focus ●
Experiencing the learned responses to the physiological
effects, e.g., feeling out of control
Symptoms
and deficits associated with hypocapnia set the stage for further operant
learning, where
secondary gain may provide for learning the role of
“victim.” The breathing-induced symptoms
and deficits become the basis for visiting healthcare practitioners, as well as
sympathy, support, and attention from family and friends. And significantly, these symptoms, of course,
are real, not imaginary. Overbreathing
serves as the gateway to accessing a collection of these learned behaviors,
emotions, and thoughts that together comprise an “alternate” personality. This personality, decorated with the effects
of hypocapnia, may offer up an improved support system, including social
attention and financial gain. This is an
excellent example of how state-dependent
learning may be mediated by learned breathing behavior.
Misinterpreting the experience of breathing behavior can itself
increase the likelihood of overbreathing.
Fast breathing, for example, is easily misinterpreted, consciously
or not. Fast breathing is not
overbreathing. It is not inherently good
or bad by itself. It may, however, lead
to overbreathing because of the psychology associated with it:
● It can “seem like”
like you are having difficulty getting air. ● It can make breathing seem urgent, which
may introduce worry and anxiety. ● It can lead you
into chest and mouth breathing, which make fast breathing easier. ● It can make you
feel like “something must be wrong, “I’m breathing too fast.” ●
It can lead you into negative thinking, “I’m
anxious, I can’t get my breath, there’s not enough air in here.” ● It can lead to
into a place of distrust of your own physiology.
Copyrighted by
Behavioral Physiology Institute, |