Relearning How To Breathe And Increasing CO2

[Heidi]

Since I got my bad teeth away, I can get up to 45 CP, and over 20 in the morning still in bed, even 30!
And without doing much exercice.
Actually, I prefer to use the moment I am active. I controle my breathing not to speed it, so it is the same as reducing breating when sitting, I guess.
Now I never open my mouth when I walk, and I think about feeling the slight air hunger.

That is great news Xisca, that your CP improved so much. I'm jealous of your good CP. I hope that you're feeling better and that your gums have healed.

Overall, things are going well. I am in a phase of consolidating the breathing changes that I've made, instead of trying to push things to another level. It feels good to maintain.

I've done a bunch of things to help my hormonal situation, and have noticed a lot of changes in my cycle. My temperature didn't raise as much as it usually does after ovulation, and so far my breathing hasn't gone into the hyperventilation mode that it usually goes into after ovulation. So that feels good.

I think that I am making good progress with the emotional work. Life has been providing me with lots of emotionally provoking situations. I get to a settled place with one challenge and then 3 more replace it! But staying with the sensory experience of the emotions has me feeling calmer and more grounded in general. I love the calmness. Maybe I'm getting rid of old emotional activations instead of old physical ones. That would be nice!

 

[Xisca]

Ho yes! Consolidate and appreciate before pushing further!
Well, emotional activations ARE physical. They turn emotional when we get helpless, unsuccessful, when we keep uncompleted reactions.... Or also when our defensive reactions would go against our compassion as human beings. But the contradiction is there inside. This is the kind that can lead to act out, or act in, and the solution is to discharge without harming.
The calmness, when you know this is not a frozen state (and when you are frozen you do not believe it and you do feel calm as well.....), is due to getting energy back. When you can go over a challenge, the success reinforce the nervous system.
May be we should celebrate more our successes?

 

[tara]

The calmness, when you know this is not a frozen state (and when you are frozen you do not believe it and you do feel calm as well.....), is due to getting energy back. When you can go over a challenge, the success reinforce the nervous system.
May be we should celebrate more our successes?

I like this way of thinking about it.

 

[Xisca]

Hello tara! Yes I THINK as well, though it is good to FELTSENSE it!
When we celebrate success, this means we take time to feel it because our nervous system needs TIME to make some internal shift.
Thus we can integrate the energy back.

 

[Heidi]

Ho yes! Consolidate and appreciate before pushing further!
Well, emotional activations ARE physical. They turn emotional when we get helpless, unsuccessful, when we keep uncompleted reactions.... Or also when our defensive reactions would go against our compassion as human beings. But the contradiction is there inside. This is the kind that can lead to act out, or act in, and the solution is to discharge without harming.
The calmness, when you know this is not a frozen state (and when you are frozen you do not believe it and you do feel calm as well.....), is due to getting energy back. When you can go over a challenge, the success reinforce the nervous system.
May be we should celebrate more our successes?

How do you mean that emotional activations are physical? I think I understand but I'm not sure.

Lately I've been having the experience of feeling an uncomfortable negative emotion for a period of time, and then the sensory experience of the emotion shifts so that it no longer feels negative or uncomfortable. Sometimes I notice that the "negative" emotion now feels pleasurable. I think that most sensory experience is inherently pleasurable, when it's not being judged or resisted by old conditioning. But I'm not trying to stop or change any resistance or judgement. I'm just respecting the emotion and allowing it to be felt as much as it needs. The shift to pleasure feels like a nice release or discharge, as the strong emotion is no longer a problem.

 

[Heidi]

Things are going well for me with breathing, hormones, and emotions. I ovulated later than normal and my temperature went up, but not as much as usual. And I haven't had any of the post ovulation hyperventilation stress that I've had every month since I started reducing my breathing. Yes. What a relief. Oximeter baseline has been at 98%, which is good enough for this half of the month. (I'm able to get it to 97%, when I actively reduce my breathing.)

I've been exercising and doing a fast but relaxed breathing through my nose, and it has helped me out tremendously. You can read about how I got started doing it on this thread here: Dr Sircus: Anti Inflammatory Oxygen Therapy The breathing reminds me of some kind of yogic breathing. My body feels relaxed and loose while doing it. Exercise feels easy and effortless. I experience a much more profound feeling of freedom and being in a flow/zone. My breathing doesn't get winded and feels calm when I stop. My energy level is better for a good while afterwards. I think I feel freer in general from doing this.

When I did Transformational Breathwork, I use to do a lot of vigorous movement during my sessions. That isn't part of the usual protocol, but the combination of movement with breathing was very healing for me. So I'm glad that it's come back around for me in this new way. However, I'm not sure whether or not this kind of breathing during exercise is depleting any CO2. So I decided to return to regular use of the breathslim. The breathslim feels much easier for me now. My breathing feels stronger and in a completely different place.

However, my CP doesn't seem to be reflecting anything that I'm doing. Though it isn't as low as it use to be, so that's good. In general it's been around 18-20. A number of nights ago, when I was really exhausted from a long day at work, I was shocked to have a CP of 30. I couldn't think of anything that I did that caused my CP to be way higher than usual. It was also higher than usual the following morning. So far it hasn't improved after I use the breathslim. In the past, I occasionally had a randomly high CP after using the breathslim. Or at least my CP would show a slight improvement from it.

 

[Xisca]

How do you mean that emotional activations are physical? I think I understand but I'm not sure.

Lately I've been having the experience of feeling an uncomfortable negative emotion for a period of time, and then the sensory experience of the emotion shifts so that it no longer feels negative or uncomfortable. Sometimes I notice that the "negative" emotion now feels pleasurable. I think that most sensory experience is inherently pleasurable, when it's not being judged or resisted by old conditioning. But I'm not trying to stop or change any resistance or judgement. I'm just respecting the emotion and allowing it to be felt as much as it needs. The shift to pleasure feels like a nice release or discharge, as the strong emotion is no longer a problem.

Emotion is from the limbic brain, and the physical felt sense is from the reptilian brain, the ANS, the Autonomous Nervous System.

It is very useful to make the difference!
Basically, when you identify an emotion, like "I am angry", the best you can do is to ask yourself "how do I know I am angry?"
You will feel some tighteness, it can be in your chest, belly, arms, fists....
When you focus on it, then it CHANGES.
Always.

If you feel it is pleasurable when it changes, it means you discharged the stuck energy, and that it is flowing again.

When it does not change this way, if it gets worse, then you need RESSOURCE. It means to use what ever at hand to focus on, so that it supports the change you want to reach. If you let something get worse through the felt sense, you can come to a freeze response. In that case you will THINK the bad is gone, but it will be burried inside, like you cannot say there is nothing happening during a chirurgical event! You just do not feel, and this is better ...for a while. What is inside must come out, but in a way the system can stand.

 

[Xisca]

2 days ago I suffered again from a headache with nausea, and suddenly I thought I could do tthe breathing exercise of walking and keeping my breath.

Impressive: problem solved in 5 mns again!

Impressive: it is not automatic to do what I know that is good and problem solving!
It needs some energy to decide to do the necessary.

 

[Heidi]

When it does not change this way, if it gets worse, then you need RESSOURCE. It means to use what ever at hand to focus on, so that it supports the change you want to reach. If you let something get worse through the felt sense, you can come to a freeze response. In that case you will THINK the bad is gone, but it will be burried inside, like you cannot say there is nothing happening during a chirurgical event! You just do not feel, and this is better ...for a while. What is inside must come out, but in a way the system can stand.

I'm not sure if I've had something get worse through the felt sense. The felt sense almost always tends to lead toward change, and unraveling, and feeling better. But sometimes things feel stuck or very slow. Would this be a freeze response? Also, sometimes the felt sense can be very uncomfortable, especially if it's something that I've resisted feeling. But staying with the uncomfortable feelings helps it to give way and change. Often things are really uncomfortable right before a shift. I'd like to understand more about how to recognize a freeze response when it's happening.

2 days ago I suffered again from a headache with nausea, and suddenly I thought I could do tthe breathing exercise of walking and keeping my breath.

Impressive: problem solved in 5 mns again!

Impressive: it is not automatic to do what I know that is good and problem solving!
It needs some energy to decide to do the necessary.

That is impressive! Could you explain more about what exactly you did. I don't understand what you meant by "keeping your breath." I would like to try this next time that I have a headache.

 

[Xisca]

Well, this is one of Buteyko's exercice!
Hold your breath as if doing a CP, but walking instead of relaxed. When you feel the first drive to breath in, do, just as in the CP taking.
Breath in when you do over the mere air hunger. Do it quietly through nose of course, and keep the air hunger you reached.
Go on breathing with air hunger.
I do it still standing but you can sit.
The air hunger slowly goes down, then i keep it mild and I walk back quietly.

I guess that the co2 increase is much higher this way.

That is also why I say that I do not practise Buteyko formal exercices, that I think are made for people who are unhelathy to the point they cannot exercise. Or when you cannot go in altitude. So I just do the air hunger exercices when I move around. I nose breathe, and I do not breathe more but exercise my air hunger tolerance, because this is my conclusion that Buteyko's method is about.

 

[Heidi]

Well, this is one of Buteyko's exercice!
Hold your breath as if doing a CP, but walking instead of relaxed. When you feel the first drive to breath in, do, just as in the CP taking.
Breath in when you do over the mere air hunger. Do it quietly through nose of course, and keep the air hunger you reached.
Go on breathing with air hunger.
I do it still standing but you can sit.
The air hunger slowly goes down, then i keep it mild and I walk back quietly.

I guess that the co2 increase is much higher this way.

That is also why I say that I do not practise Buteyko formal exercices, that I think are made for people who are unhelathy to the point they cannot exercise. Or when you cannot go in altitude. So I just do the air hunger exercices when I move around. I nose breathe, and I do not breathe more but exercise my air hunger tolerance, because this is my conclusion that Buteyko's method is about.

Thanks Xisca for explaining the details. It is challenging for me to reduce my breathing while exercising. I've done steps where you hold your breath and count your steps. And short breath holds while walking up stairs. But both of those things feel strenuous. Maybe I will try reducing breathing while doing chores or very relaxed exercise. It seems like I still need good focus to effectively reduce my breathing. So it's been easiest for me to do it while I am still.

 

[tara]

2 days ago I suffered again from a headache with nausea, and suddenly I thought I could do tthe breathing exercise of walking and keeping my breath.

Impressive: problem solved in 5 mns again!

Yay!

 

[Luann]

Blood Gases During Breath Holding

Science Knowledge: Holding Your Breath

sometimes holding breath is the easiest way to increase CO2, given circumstances

 

[whodathunkit]

The Frolov and the Breathslim device are for very sick people. Once you get a little better, you'll find that they don't have much value unless you use them for a really long time. What's better I found, is put in the device into a big water pitcher, and covering it with a towel, so that you can breathe through the mouthpiece. The CO2 builds up in the picture and really contributes a lot to the effectiveness of the training. You sometimes have to remove the towel or slightly uncover it, because you get too much carbon dioxide buildup in the pitcher. But doing this really makes the exercise much more effective.

For clarification, please: do you put the whole device into a big water pitcher with more water, so that there's more resistance due to more water, as well as a build up of CO2 due to covering with a towel? Or do you just put the device into an empty pitcher or tub and cover with the towel?

 

[ecstatichamster]

For clarification, please: do you put the whole device into a big water pitcher with more water, so that there's more resistance due to more water, as well as a build up of CO2 due to covering with a towel? Or do you just put the device into an empty pitcher or tub and cover with the towel?

you just put the device (already loaded with the normal amount of water) into the water pitcher. No more water in the pitcher. Just dry pitcher. It is the buildup of the CO2 in the pitcher that increases the efficacy of the exercise, because the device is too small to contain much CO2 to challenge you when you get more advanced.

The towel is important as it keeps the CO2 in but is a bit porous. The CO2 becomes so concentrated that you may have to periodically remove the towel or uncover the top partially.

 

[whodathunkit]

Thanks, @ecstatichamster. But...hmmmm. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm more confused.

How would putting it into a pitcher help unless you're drawing air through the device? My understanding is that's not how it's used. At least, not in the device directions. I've been inhaling short controlled inhales through my nose and longer, slower, controlled exhales through the mouthpiece and water. I get quite a bit of air hunger this way.

Am I doing it wrong?

 

[ecstatichamster]

Thanks, @ecstatichamster. But...hmmmm. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm more confused.

How would putting it into a pitcher help unless you're drawing air through the device? My understanding is that's not how it's used. At least, not in the device directions. I've been inhaling short controlled inhales through my nose and longer, slower, controlled exhales through the mouthpiece and water. I get quite a bit of air hunger this way.

Am I doing it wrong?

1. fill device with water. Device has a long hose to the mouthpiece

2. stick the device in the pitcher. With the hose sticking up past the pitcher mouth.

3. put towel to wrap around hose and make somewhat of a seal.

What I teach is to take deep inhales through the device. Then exhale slowly by mouth, again through the hose, with some stoppages, as slowly as you can in a rhythm, so that the very end of the exhale you have very strong air hunger. ALL exhales and inhales are by mouth through the device.

 

[Heidi]

I've been meaning to do an update and revitalize this thread for a long time. My summer has been way too busy and flown by way too fast! The good news is that my health and energy levels have been way better than usual for me. I've been so happy about that! But I've gotten into the bad habit of working too hard and doing too much. But what a relief to have the ability to do more than I typically can sustain. I think that the thing that made the biggest change for me was feeling the sensory experience of tiredness and exhaustion.

I haven't been very focused on breathing, but I think that overall my breathing has been relatively good. Mostly, I've stayed mindful of breathing only through my nose and keeping my breathing settled. I am now easily able to breathe through my nose during any periods of exercise or physical exertion. On rare occasion I've caught myself mouth breathing. I've gotten lots of sun as I've been active outdoors and keeping up with our productive vegetable garden. I've been mindful about not eating too much PUFA (though I do eat some). I've been pretty consistent with eating gelatin, but have let all other supplements and peaty things slide.

All of the health improvements that I got from reducing my breathing have held up. Female issues are much improved physically, though I am still struggling emotionally with my period, and have been working on that. The only symptom that slid back some by not actively keeping up with breathing exercises has been my level of physical tension. I am not relaxed to the degree that I had been, and I really miss that.

So recently when I've woken up early and had the time, I've gone back to actively reducing my breathing. I love the feeling of energy flowing to my extremities and my body being more deeply relaxed. I've also been intending to get back to using the breathslim.

However, this morning I fell back to sleep after reducing my breathing. I then woke up a short while later and was shocked to find myself feeling horrible: achy, cold, chills, nauseous, stomach ache and then a migraine headache. I was confused as to what was going on at first, because I rarely get migraines and don't recall ever having such severe all over body aching with one before. I worried that I had bad food poisoning or lyme disease at first. I was actually a bit relieved once the headache kicked in and I realized that I was having a really bad migraine. (My heart goes out to you @tara, and anyone else who suffers with frequent migraines. They are so disabling. It must be horrible to get them regularly. Also, @Xisca I had lots of shaking and teeth chattering, so maybe this migraine was some kind of big somatic release?)

So I'm not sure where this leaves me in terms of getting back to taking a more active approach to reducing my breathing and increasing my CO2. I had thought that I was easing back into breath reduction gently and gradually, but evidently not gradual enough.

Wish that I had the money to try the products that co2islife is offering.

 

[tara]

So I'm not sure where this leaves me in terms of getting back to taking a more active approach to reducing my breathing and increasing my CO2. I had thought that I was easing back into breath reduction gently and gradually, but evidently not gradual enough.

Bad luck with the migraine.
Do you think you could have run down your glycogen during the night, and run into low-sugar stress in the morning?

 

[Heidi]

Bad luck with the migraine.
Do you think you could have run down your glycogen during the night, and run into low-sugar stress in the morning?

I don't think that it was low sugar stress. There was a big weather shift though. What was weird was that I slept exceptionally well and got very relaxed while doing the reduced breathing. I rarely fall back to sleep like that. It was such a shock to wake up about half an hour later and feel so horrible.

How have your migraines been?