Meditation and Asthma

[The David]

Stupid question, maybe:

I read about meditation a lot. Anything involving breathing (especially breathing through the nose and breathing 'right,' i.e letting your abdomen expand and not your shoulders. Gah!) freaks me out. I have enough trouble breathing when I'm not meditating, and it's gotten worse lately. I'm not dying or anything, I just have breathing problems and it is impossible to breathe the way they want me to.

Am I taking the breathing part too seriously? Will I get the benefits of meditation if I sit in my room and take shallow breaths through my mouth, while letting my shoulders bounce up and down?

[mentalmosaic]

Hello The David,

I have asthma and, believe me, learning to breathe from your abdomen is imperative! Breathing properly is how you feed all the cells in your body, so it's extremely important.

In my case, I learned proper breathing not via yoga or meditation, but because I play clarinet & flute. They don't call 'em woodwinds for nothing! If you don't breathe well, you won't sound good.

There were times when I felt like skipping orchestra because I was having bad asthma. But what I discovered was that after rehearsal my asthma was always much better!

I am curious what you mean about being "freaked out" about breathing correctly. Does it make you feel anxious when you try? Because learning to breathe correctly will help you to feel more calm, relaxed and alert. Maybe you could take a course in yoga or meditation to have someone help you out?

It's good to become more conscious of your breathing. If you do, you'll notice that sometimes you are barely breathing at all - I catch myself doing this when I'm nervous or even just really excited. If you take charge and start breathing properly at these times you'll feel better.

Don't give up! After all, many things in life are optional - breathing is not one of them!

Tui

[The David]

'Freaked out' was an exaggeration. What I meant was that I don't know how to apply the information because of my breathing problems.

[gijsbert2002]

Originally Posted by The David

'Freaked out' was an exaggeration. What I meant was that I don't know how to apply the information because of my breathing problems.

What is at least a good start is just to monitor your breathing. Observe yourself breathing and relax, let your body do the breathing, don't try to steer it, if you need to give more force during breathing, let your autonomic nervous system do it, like while you're sleeping and just observe all that happens. Gradually you will be able to control it somewhat and it will become more regular (and less frequent because you're using less energy while meditating).

That is how I use this meditation to calm myself down when I'm completely stressed (happens from time to time, I'm the type that always tries to do twice as much as is theoretically possible :P)

I think that this will give you a beginning, but how you will expand on this I don't know.

What I do know is that breathing from your abdomen should give you more breathing power than from the breast, but if you don't normally use it, it's not trained, so keep trying from time to time, I believe it will help you (no idea by how much, but I'm sure it won't hurt) with your asthma if you do.

[MartialDev]

Originally Posted by The David

Stupid question, maybe:

I read about meditation a lot. Anything involving breathing (especially breathing through the nose and breathing 'right,' i.e letting your abdomen expand and not your shoulders. Gah!) freaks me out. I have enough trouble breathing when I'm not meditating, and it's gotten worse lately. I'm not dying or anything, I just have breathing problems and it is impossible to breathe the way they want me to.

Am I taking the breathing part too seriously? Will I get the benefits of meditation if I sit in my room and take shallow breaths through my mouth, while letting my shoulders bounce up and down?

Abdominal breathing is a side-effect of complete relaxation, not IMO a worthwhile goal in itself.

You may initially find standing meditation more effective than sitting for this purpose; read about it on my website.

[Dolazy]

Originally Posted by gijsbert2002

What is at least a good start is just to monitor your breathing. Observe yourself breathing and relax, let your body do the breathing, don't try to steer it, if you need to give more force during breathing, let your autonomic nervous system do it, like while you're sleeping and just observe all that happens. Gradually you will be able to control it somewhat and it will become more regular (and less frequent because you're using less energy while meditating).

That is how I use this meditation to calm myself down when I'm completely stressed (happens from time to time, I'm the type that always tries to do twice as much as is theoretically possible :P)

I think that this will give you a beginning, but how you will expand on this I don't know.

What I do know is that breathing from your abdomen should give you more breathing power than from the breast, but if you don't normally use it, it's not trained, so keep trying from time to time, I believe it will help you (no idea by how much, but I'm sure it won't hurt) with your asthma if you do.

I agree. I have asthma too, and I sometimes experience difficulty meditating as well. But the medications really help. Maybe you can take a Ventolin dose about 10 mins before you start?

If you can't follow the instructions, then you can always simply observe your breathing, without trying to control it. If that is all you do, then you are still 100% meditating.

Hoping to help,
Francis