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I only recently discovered that I never actually understood what hyperventilation is. The instinctive model is something like, “you’re panicking -> breathing too fast -> (?) not enough oxygen?? -> bad??” But the problem is closer to “exhaling too much -> not enough CO2 -> bad” https://t.co/pkULe3qzym
I’m still making sense of this, but here is my makeshift understanding: When you inhale normally, you take in oxygen into your lungs, and it enters your bloodstream but for this oxygen to go from your blood to your cells, there’s a “trade” process. Oxygen is traded for CO2
When you exhale too much too quickly, your blood might be full of oxygen, but that oxygen doesn’t make it into your cells- because there’s not enough CO2! https://t.co/Oph2IyNI6L
the reason that “breathe into a paper bag” works as a remedy for hyperventilation symptoms is that you’re *recycling the CO2*. It seems like you can also achieve this by holding your breath for a few seconds between inhales and exhales https://t.co/paEerCIPvK
I’m about 3 days into practicing “box breathing” - too early to be too confident about any findings - but it has calmed me down tremendously in a way that “regular deep breaths” never did. The “secret” seems to be in the holds between breaths https://t.co/7wb85Vb8mt https://t.co/64LrLMUzpQ
Box breathing - which is just “inhale for 4 secs, hold for 4 secs, exhale for 4 secs, hold for 4 secs”, repeat until you chill the fuck out - somehow, something about the “structure” of this feels most “correct” of everything I’ve tried https://t.co/nEsXIndD6D
Doing this makes me realize that I might’ve been living in a state of chronic hyperventilation without realising it. I don’t particularly breathe fast or anything. But pausing between breaths seems to be giving me a mental alertness and calm I haven’t had maybe since I was a kid
just an update about a month in holding my breath between deep belly breaths might be the highest impact lowest effort thing I've ever done in my life. I was 40-60% confident a couple of weeks ago, i'm like 80% confident now
[wooey thought: I'm also increasingly suspecting that about 30-40% (maybe more?) of the perceived benefit of cigarette smoking is in the slow exhale, which calms you down] https://t.co/YtDkA307oX
I’m about 3 days into practicing “box breathing” - too early to be too confident about any findings - but it has calmed me down tremendously in a way that “regular deep breaths” never did. The “secret” seems to be in the holds between breaths https://t.co/7wb85Vb8mt https://t.co/64LrLMUzpQ
Box breathing - which is just “inhale for 4 secs, hold for 4 secs, exhale for 4 secs, hold for 4 secs”, repeat until you chill the fuck out - somehow, something about the “structure” of this feels most “correct” of everything I’ve tried https://t.co/nEsXIndD6D
Doing this makes me realize that I might’ve been living in a state of chronic hyperventilation without realising it. I don’t particularly breathe fast or anything. But pausing between breaths seems to be giving me a mental alertness and calm I haven’t had maybe since I was a kid
just an update about a month in holding my breath between deep belly breaths might be the highest impact lowest effort thing I've ever done in my life. I was 40-60% confident a couple of weeks ago, i'm like 80% confident now
[wooey thought: I'm also increasingly suspecting that about 30-40% (maybe more?) of the perceived benefit of cigarette smoking is in the slow exhale, which calms you down] https://t.co/YtDkA307oX