MECHANICAL CHALLENGES
Asking you client to slow down their breathing will often result
in overbreathing. More time between
breaths may lead to concern about getting enough air, and then to
overcompensation with breaths that are too large.
EXAMPLE
OF ASKING CLIENT TO SHOW DOWN BREATHING
Slower breathing, as a discriminative (SD) stimulus,
may implicitly and unconsciously trigger internal dialogue (operant behavior) about
the need for taking in more air, leading quickly to hypocapnia. The effects of hypocapnia may then reinforce
the false belief (cognitive behavior) about not being able to get enough air. It may also trigger classically conditioned
emotion, such as anxiety, which serves to motivate deeper breathing (operant
behavior) and then provide for its reinforcement with fear reduction. Vicious circle behavior may be set in motion.
EXAMPLE OF DEREGULATION BASED ON RATE CHALLENGES
A standard mechanical challenge is the breathing rate challenge, where clients are asked to breathe at
different rates by tracking a moving ball on a breathing template displayed by
CapnoTrainer software that regulates rate as preset by the practitioner. This kind of evaluation constitutes a discovery
process, where consciousness of mechanics may reveal the basis for deregulation. Successfully maintaining healthy levels of
PCO2 means regulating based on experience of physical and mental
changes associated with chemistry changes, rather than on interpretations,
cognitive and emotional, of mechanical changes.
Copyrighted by Behavioral
Physiology Institute,