Chronic hyperventilation

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

I have had chronic hyperventilation in the past and learnt how to regulate my breathing after getting respiratory physiotherapy. I have just started yoga and I am doing a 21 day online yoga course (from some Yoga magazine). I do enjoy this, but find following the exercises and doing the breathing correctly through the exercises leaves my lungs feeling kind of overinflated The breathing during holding position and moving through positions feels really unnatural to me.
I now have that feeling of ‘air hunger’ and keep sighing. I know that is the wrong thing to do and means I am back in my chronic hyperventilation pattern from the past.
Something about my breathing is wrong, but I am doing the abdominal breathing exactly as they say to.

Should I just forget about trying to coordinate the breathing with exercises, or just modify it somehow.

Everything I have googled about breathing and yoga say that it is good for breathing. Why isn’t it working for me???

#2

someone? anyone? no?

#3

Hi, the lack of responses may be because your problem seems serious and it is important that you get good help, so it is really hard to give advise. Breathing is key to yoga as it is to life, but if your breathing is challenged you need to take extra precautions. My immediate reflection is that your physiotherapy seemed to have worked well. Maybe whatever you are doing during yoga is counteracting that? Or maybe you are just trying to push forward at a pace which is too fast for you (a common problem for many yoga newbies). Whatever directions you were asked to follow from your physiotherapist you might want to keep in mind when doing yoga as well. I suppose the best advise is to seek council from your therapist before continuing with yoga breathing excercises.

#4

Thanks Aurora,
I have done another practice since posting my query, and this time ignored the ‘take a deep inhalation’ and just did my gentle normal inhale into the tummy. It still feels a kind of weird forced breathing to meet the exercise, but this time I didn’t overbreathe and I think it means I may have to quicken up the stretches to meet my breath, instead of trying to force and lengthen my breath to fit in with the stretch. So maybe classes are not for me but to do yoga at home to my own pace.
Modification is the key it seems :slight_smile:

#5

Hello Hildegaard,

To quote a well respected yoga teacher, “Yoga is everywhere, and nowhere at all”.
There are as many varieties as there are flowers. As such, there are many different instructions and methods. So many that the process can be confusing.

There may be a time for an intermediate Yoga student to practice belly breathing. However that reason should not simply be because in this or that meditation it is so, or in karate it is so, or in opera it is so. What is done in yoga always has a purpose, an intention, and a function. The latter of which must balance effect and safety.

The belly is a hydraulic system. The lungs are a pneumatic system. They are, obviously, different systems. One is a system utilizing liquid. The other is a system utilizing air. The system that utilizes liquid does not handle air well. Ask any engineer. “What happens when you try to move air into a hydraulic system?”. Not good results.

For this reason, and others, the home of the breath is the lungs and the breath is moved into that home. The air is kept within the pneumatic system. So I do not teach students to breathe into the belly. If the belly rises and falls naturally, fine, but the breath is not moved into the belly.

Of course you may choose whatever teachings you like for your living. This is not only okay it is crucial (that we, on the path of Yoga do not adhere to dogma but rather learn discernment to choose for our own living) for our evolution.

For a beginner the breath in asana should be regulated, smooth, calming, not choppy or agitating AND is moved into the space between the diaphragm and collar bones.

Warmly,

gordon

#6

Hilde,

The abdomen does not fill with “breath,” however it physically moves, up and down, the space that pushes and pulls the diaphragm, like a piston. In other words, the lungs do nothing for breathing, other than hold the air that is pulled in and pushed out from below.

Are you breathing through your nose? Are you exhaling completely using the technique described above: actively squeezing all the air out? It’s all you have to do and the rest happens by itself. These are parts of a technique a teacher has to see in order to correct them, which someone on a video cannot do for you.

Practice abdominal breath, 10 to 15 minutes, with regulation prior to doing asana: squeezing count of 4 to completely empty (and not before), inhale count of 4 to full comfortable breath (through the nose). When doing asana, emphasize complete exhalation prior to initiating with inhalation. If a teacher is not present to cue you to do that, then you have to make that effort to be aware and do it for yourself.

best,
siva

#7

Hi InnerAthelete and Siva,
Thanks for the good advice and things to think about. It seems it a bit more complicated than I thought, and semantics seem to get in the way as well. The ‘belly breathing’ I was taught was just to imagine breathing into the belly instead of the upper chest. I know where the lungs end and the stomach begins! I think I was overbreathing, on top of not completely exhaling before breathing in. I do breathe through my nose and out through my mouth. I just think this is an area for me that can be somewhat problematic and need to be a bit more mindful of what I do when breathing during yoga.
Thanks again guys x

#8

Hilde,

Everything through the nose: both inhalation and exhalation. You cannot regulate breath through the mouth: the hole is too large, not enough resistance, etc.

Emphasize your complete exhalation through the nose and the rest takes care of itself.

peace,
siva

#9

practice making your exhalation breath longer than your inhalation breath.

Check out the Buteyko method of breathing. Developed by a medical doctor. Often we over breath through too much inhalation and it messes up our Co2 levels in body and causes all sorts of problems.

also check out what “feldenkrais” has to say about proper breathing.

I have found the 2 suggested above add more detail, science and specific practices to the yogic explanations.

#10

I have heard of those methods and will google them and check it out again. I have started breathing in an out through just my nose during the yoga poses and it seems to be ok.

When I had treatment by the respiratory physio I was told to breath in through my nose slowly to the count of three and breath out through my mouth to the count of four, and to let the chest flop on the outward breath and not control the rate of outward breath.

I was anxious about an overseas flight to the States, which was a non stop 12 hour flight, so one way to control the CO2 if I accidently hyperventilated and felt that yawning, sighing, air hunger thing was to breathe out completely and hold for a count of 7 seconds and then start breathing normally. It was good quick trick to quickly bring the blood gases back to some sort of normal, and easy to do.