Breathe!

[Slackjaw99]

In a recent mind exploration session a voice from somewhere deep in my subconscious told me to just breathe. It's one of the most basic functions for life, but for those with cPTSD it's one of the most basic dysfunctions.

It's a fact that when stuck in fight and flight mode our breaths become short and shallow. So no wonder we have all kinds of muscle ailments- neck pulls, tight shoulders, stiff lower backs, and the pain that goes with them. It's due to lack of oxygen. I used to swallow ibuprofen and acetaminophen like candy until I realized all I had to do was take full breaths and my spasming muscles would calm after just a few minutes.

The diaphragm is the only muscle in our bodies that can be controlled by both our autonomic nervous system (ANS) and conscious thought. Our ANS's are essentially broken in cPTSD. In my case, my sympathetic nervous system (SNS) operated at level 10, and my parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) operated at about level 3.  Consequently, I was always plagued by excessive sweating, IBS, tremor, and insomnia- all signs of an overactive SNS and vagus nerve dysfunction.

As it turns out, the one way we can hack our ANS to our advantage is through conscious breath. The Buddhists have used breathing as the basic tool for calming the body and mind through meditation for thousands of years. But it's only in the last 25 years that we've begun to understand the neuroscience behind meditative breath. Conscious breath or focusing on filling and emptying the lungs fully and at various rates stimulates the vagus nerve in various ways. My favorite is extremely short but full in breaths and long full out breaths with a little resistance (humming) to stimulate calmness, lower heart rate and BP. 10 minutes of this before a therapy session makes all the difference in the sessions' effectiveness. Apparently those of us with highly refined meditative breathing practices can stimulate their vagus nerves as well as, if not better than implanted electrical vagus nerve stimulators.

The ability to stimulate the vagus nerve via conscious breath to calm the mind and body is a fundamental prerequisite to recovering from cPTSD. It's the most basic somatic therapy to master given that all somatic therapies really just stimulate the vagus nerve in some way. Best of all it's free as long as air is free. But conscious breath is often overlooked as we tend to focus on paying thousands of dollars for therapists who've graduated from places like the Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute where all they teach you is how other mammals release traumatic energy. Anyone seen the video of the polar bear? I've had several healing sessions where breathing to stimulate the vagus nerve preceded spontaneous cathartic grieving and release of traumatic energy.

[Three Roses]

Thank you for this great post, sj!

[Rainagain]

There is a lot in this I think.

My partner used to be a scuba diver and apparently my breathing is unusually rapid all the time, more like a dog panting.

Interesting post.

[Libby183]

What an interesting post,  slackjaw. 

I have just had a second session with an EMDR therapist and we worked on the breathing techniques you talk about.  I actually feel a bit calmer already and we haven't even got to the actual treatment process,  so I feel quite hopeful.

Thanks for all the information which backs up what I have started practicing.

Libby