hyperventilation

I’ve diagonally read through Nicola’s panic book, and like a lot what I
found.

Now, while re-reading it at a more decent speed, I see in the intro of Phil
Mollon (whose courage I really admire, BTW) mentioning that hyperventilation
were a result of “taking too much oxygen in the blood”.

As far as I know, this is a wide-spread error that can lead to wrong
strategies.

If it were a matter of too much oxygen, the suggestion would be to breathe
out more and breathe in less.

This might make matters worse, cause hyperventilation symptoms are due to a
lack of CO2 in the blood (some may remember still from way back when what
happened when trying to fill an air-mattress – not with a pump but with your
own breath?).

Long exhalations may help, though (but it frequently doesn’t) not because of
the “too much oxygen” but

- because we slow down our exhalation, and so CO2
remains longer in the blood

- by exhaling more fully, we might release the block
in the diaphragm (a hyperventilator typically breathes on with his/ her
chest).

However, a good breath-therapist might tell you that the breathing-tendency
of a hyperventilator is a tendency towards exhaling – rapidly.

Tendency which can be seen in less stressful situations as a tendency to
sigh a lot.

Working on the breath to change hyperventilation requires:

            Releasing the diaphragm (belly- breathing)

            Developing the courage to breathe in… which might mean getting
out of a pattern of guilt/ shame and submission – which was probably highly
protective in earlier life-situations.

Best to all

Maarten Aalberse

Responsable Scientifique

Psychologue

Institut de Médecine Environnementale

157 Rue de Grenelle 75007 Paris (entrée 5 Rue Duvivier)

Tél. : +33 (0)1 45 55 63 17

Mobile : +33 (0)6 74 25 18 22

Fax : +33 (0)1 45 51 20 87

Mail : maarten.aalberse_at_ime.fr

Sites Internet : <http://www.ime.fr/> www.ime.fr et <http://www.tncc.net/>
www.tncc.net

Site du nouveau livre de Jacques Fradin, Fondateur de l’IME, et Maarten
Aalberse, Responsable Scientifique :

 <http://www.intelligencedustress.net/> www.intelligencedustress.net

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Received on Sun 27 Jul 2008 - 05:15:19 BST