Box Breathing

This! Also, probably connected to bad posture, specially when sitting in front of a computer.

My posture when using the computer is terrible and usually when I'm distracted, I slouch and kinda slide down on the chair, that makes my back arch forward and compresses my stomach. Since I'm distracted reading or gaming or something I just notice it when I already start feeling my heart on my chest, or slight discomfort or shortness of breath.

I have health related anxiety and this has caused me lots of stress in the past (bad posture making me overly mind how heavy it is to breathe, or starting to feel my heart beat on my stomach out of nowhere and get stressed out etc). I've been focusing on sitting better when in front of the PC and correcting myself early when I slide down and the issue has gone away so quickly and in such a way that it even feels ridiculous to have been so stressed out about it. I truly believe our best friend and also our worst enemy is the self, so we need to get our feelings in control, and that means good breathing... and that can require you to better your posture :)

The timing of this post was very good because I tried doing the breathing exercise 5 mins ago and while I didn't had shortness of breath like the poster above us, it wasn't calming to me either... I then corrected my posture, redid the exercise and yes, it did relax me quite a bit :)

Good posture, mates!

>The advice is to count on the finger of one hand. [...] count breaths in increasing cycles: 1; 1 2; 1 2 3; ...; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 //

Is this hand counted? Knowing BSL I can count to 0-19 with one hand using unique gestures. Is there an acknowledged way: knuckle counting, binary, other? I note one can get to 19 (from 1) by moving ones gaze from finger joint to joint if you include finger tips.

Always curious to see alternate modes of counting on the fingers.

You could count from 0 to 35 in base 10, by counting in base 6 by using each hand to count from 0 to 5.

This is only because you're not able to recognize your urge to breathe for what it is...a buildup of CO2 rather than a need for O2. With practice in breathing exercises, you learn to recognize the start of contractions (in the diaphragm) as a stage in the breath hold that's typically around 1/3 of your maximum. With more practice, you can start to recognize more subtle symptoms of low O2...tingling in the extremities is the easiest to notice, but there's a few more.

Hyperventilation is stigmatized in the apnea community because it doesn't increase the level of O2 in the blood. This can be measured with an oximeter...you'll never get above the 94%-98% saturation you achieve at rest while breathing comfortably. All hyperventilation does is purge CO2. During a breath hold, CO2 levels rise and O2 levels fall. The body detects the CO2 rise easily since the PH level becomes more acidic (carbonic acid). But if you've purged your CO2 from your body, it's entirely possible to run out of O2 without the buildup of CO2 being great enough for the body to register the change in acidity and trigger the urge to breathe. And running out of O2 underwater leads to black outs, especially in shallow water as water pressure drops fastest when surfacing those last 10m-20m.

Source: I've practiced apnea/freediving for the past ~7 months and my personal best is 6:48. My training plan is to hit 8 minutes on my 1-year anniversary of beginning my training. Hyperventilation is counterproductive for me since I need to be as relaxed as possible during my holds. My current breathe-up is a 2-1 short to long breath cycle for about a minute then a 3/4 breath, full exhale and a full breath in. This is a slight over-breathe, but not enough to purge much CO2.

I had the good fortune of learning yoga from a teacher whose core focus was on the breath. He taught this technique and other breathing techniques first and foremost before any movements ever came into play. The difference in the relaxation, stress-relief, etc., between that and the way I see yoga taught at these chain studios is incredible. I wish that was the standard, but obviously much fewer people have the patience to learn this way.