Breathe

Good afternoon My Gentle Readers. “What do you mean? Do you wish me a good afternoon, or mean that it is a good afternoon whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this afternoon; or that it is an afternoon to be good on?” “All of them at once.” I like when I don’t edit myself and let my mind goes where it wants. The Shire is always a good place to go. I’m like to think of myself as an istar (wizard), elda (elf), or dunedain (Númenorean, man of the west), but some days you just have to be a hobbit. After talking about wizards, elves, and men I’m going to let a dwarf segue into today’s topic.

I’ve seen advice to breathe all over my newsfeed this week. That’s always good advice. I remember my first breath, no really. At least I remember the first time I became aware that I was breathing. God knows how old I was, probably around three. I was talking to one of my sisters’ friends or perhaps my mother’s friend’s son. If I had to place money on it I’d say Ira or Eugene. He said something like, “Everyone breathes” and I said, “I don’t.” I then tried to not breath and had exactly the result you’d expect. I wasn’t being difficult; I had never been aware of my breathing before. There is an irony in that as one of my family’s stories about me was the time as a baby that I stopped breathing and turned blue. One of my sisters discovered me. At the time they thought it had to do with my phlegm blocking my airways but now I suspect it was crib death and I was saved by being picked up before I died or suffered brain damage. Tell me you didn’t just make a snide remark. I know some of you did. Just lie to me and tell me you didn’t.

Since I discovered breathing I’ve often been consciously aware of it. When I read that people can control their heartbeat through biofeedback I had to try it myself. I had no idea how to go about lowering my heartrate but I guessed that deep controlled breathing might do the trick. I’d take my pulse as I breathed and not only felt the pulse slowing I confirmed it by counting my pulse rate both before and after. Even as a kid I knew not to believe my unmeasured judgement.

My next adventure in breathing came in adolescence when my allergies hit. They were so bad I couldn’t stay in a room with an open window during spring grass or autumn ragweed season. My nose would pretty much explode when I was exposed to pollen. Allergy shots and aging helped though they have never gone away. At least I can now live with cats when just 15 years ago there were times I couldn’t be in the same house with them without heavy medication.

Somewhere along the way to adulthood my nostrils shrank as my nose grew. I became a mouth breather when sleeping and had difficult doing aerobic exercise as I couldn’t breath through my nose. I would end up with coughing fits. The only exercise I could do was swimming. Something about the moist air prevented the cough. I started swimming a mile a day. The problem was never my lungs, but my nose.

I found out during my last colonoscopy that I have sleep apnea; the anesthesiologist told me. I still haven’t done anything about it. I suspect it has to do with my blocked nasal passages. I now wear nasal strips when I sleep. It helps but there are still nights I wake up gasping for air. I have to make a conscious effort to breathe, a call-back to my discovering that I breathed.

When I went into partial hospitalization for my anxiety I learned meditation and breathing exercises. I fell right into that; it was just what I did as a kid in an effort to lower my heartrate. I wonder if it would work as well if I had more doubts about it working. I had doubts as a kid, but they weren’t as baked into my belief system. I tried out all sorts of weird things as a kid, like pendula as a psychic device. They failed the tests, unlike biofeedback. Now meditation and breathing are part of my routine. I hate to have my blood pressure and pulse be high when I go to the doctor. The are often elevated as I find myself racing into the office. When I remember I do breathing exercises to reduce them. Oxygenation and blood flow are intimately related so it shouldn’t be surprised that one affects the other.

On Friday I went for a walk and went too far. I didn’t want to miss Alice Hasen’s Fiddler Fridays. I never want to miss them, but I usually do because I’m an idiot. This week I remembered but because I walked too far I had to race home to catch it. I still managed to miss the start. As I was running my heart was racing. Good thing the theme was Calming Loops. We all needed that this week. In the middle of it Alice taught a breathing exercise I didn’t know. Breath in for four beats, hold your breath for four beats, then exhale for six beats. She then fiddled to that rhythmic structure while the audience including me breathed. I could feel the calming effect. I took out my phone and checked my pulse with Samsung health pulse sensor. It was 64 BPM. This was after exercise and anxiety over missing the start of the show. When I’m totally relaxed my pulse can go that slow, when I was in better shape my pulse was typically there, but now it’s usually in the low 70s. That’s how effective it was. I am a scientist at heart and wasn’t going to accept this on face value. Science is about replicable results. That night I took my pulse it was 72. I then did the exercise and took my pulse again; it was 64. I checked it again last night after doing the exercise and it was 65. Let’s try it again. This will be a little difficult as I’m listening to the Kennedys livestream and their music is not in 4-4-6 rhythm. Damn, it is 77. I need to be honest in my reporting. Let me try again, 71. It still dropped 6 bps. I will try this again when I’m not listening to music in a different rhythm and tell you how that goes tomorrow. It’s not live now but if you need to relax watch Alice’s show.

I’ll leave you with the Kennedys giving the same advice as Gimli.