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,