Stress Breathing

In the past when I was stressed my right hand would tingle.

But then as I found out during my brother's health scare last October, big stresses make my entire left leg tingle even more.

My other stress indicator is that I can't draw a deep breath. However, I can gasp just fine. Usually this is how I fix it:

1. I wait till I have a doctor's appointment about something else,
2. I say I am having trouble with shortness of breath.
3. They say "Are you under any kind of stress?"
4. I say "yes."
5. It goes away on the drive home.

I don't know if it only works with doctors, so I am telling you all: I have a little pile-up of three mild stress situations. There. That should cure it. 

Comments

[KC]

Have you tried diaphragmatic breathing? (breathing with your belly) Or timed breathing? My favorite deep-breathing guided gif is an expanding polygon that takes 9 seconds to run through a breathe-in-and-breathe-out (I modified it to 9 seconds due to some research I read that indicated that although the optimal deep breathing for telling your autonomic nervous system to CHILL OUT ALREADY is based on your heart rate, 9 seconds is pretty close to ideal for most people in most cases). Don't do *too* much deep breathing in a row, but 10x or so can be good.

(I know, shortness of breath makes this nearly impossible while you are having shortness of breath. But in between, it's useful and can lower your stress response overall - esp. if you can deep breathe in response to stimuli, catching your body before it finishes freaking out about something. And while having shortness of breath, you can still do timed breathing - just count while you breathe in and then while you breathe out - you can either just hang out with the natural breath pattern or see if you can coax it into being a wee bit longer of a breathe in and a wee bit longer of a breathe out. Obviously, if counting while breathing stresses you out, then don't do this!)

(did I go down a huge pubmed rabbit hole about decreasing sympathetic nervous system activation two and a half years ago? Yes, yes I did. Did I know there was going to be a pandemic? No, no I did not.)

[TheQueen]

KC - I have found relief with belly breathing while bent over the back of a chair. I think what might help is that one of the three stressors was relieved today. However, another one was doubled.

[KC]

AUGH stressors. I hope the one that went away more than compensates for the one that was doubled. Somehow.