Hyperventilation is quite common. How does it arise. And more importantly:how do you get yourself back under control when you start to hyperventilate? Guest blogger Marisa Garau succeeded with mindfulness. Read more about it.
Marisa :“Hyperventilation is a growing phenomenon thanks to the increase in panic and anxiety attacks that currently affect 19.6% of the Dutch population. In the past, it was recommended to get hyperventilation under control by doing breathing exercises and possibly breathing into a bag. Science has now proven that this has no effect. But how can you best deal with hyperventilation?
What exactly is hyperventilation?
You probably know that during an attack of hyperventilation you start to breathe quickly and shallowly. But how does hyperventilation really work? Normally, your lungs take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. But sometimes this process is disrupted by acceleration. Suddenly, because of stress or anxiety, you start to breathe quickly or deeply. Your lungs then take in too much oxygen and cannot exhale enough carbon dioxide. Because your blood transports these gases, the excess carbon dioxide temporarily gives the blood a very high acidity, and that phenomenon is called hypocapnia.
The symptoms
There is nothing physically wrong with too much acidity in the blood. But because it prompts your lungs to inhale and exhale quickly, it is a very frightening experience. I've also had hyperventilation myself, usually during intense turbulence in the plane and once when I climbed on a high rack during exercise, and that was certainly no fun. Suddenly I became extremely scared, my arms and legs started shaking uncontrollably (not so handy on a climbing frame!), I got dizzy and I thought I was going to pass out from the fear. My breathing rasped painfully through my bone-dry throat and my lungs seemed to burst.
Hyperventilation is caused by stress
It should be clear that hyperventilation does not arise when you are relaxing on a tropical beach with a cocktail in your hand. Hyperventilation occurs when you feel unsafe. With turbulence that may seem a lot more logical than on top of a jungle gym, but everyone has their own unique fear triggers and for me that is mainly fear of heights. I pick up the scariest spiders in my house to lovingly take them outside, but put me on the toddler slope during the winter sports holiday and you can be sure that I will collapse roaring in misery :-)))
The emotional impact
Hyperventilation is such a frightening experience (because it seems as if you are completely losing control of your body and in danger of suffocation) that the anxiety caused by an attack starts to take on a life of its own. Suddenly you become afraid of that fearful experience, and you start to see threatening situations everywhere… which you then try to avoid with all your might. After a few hyperventilation attacks, you're so cramped that you don't need anything to trigger that fear response. And so you are quickly caught in a vicious circle of fear.
Outdated advice
In the past a lot of research has been done into hyperventilation and especially into ways to learn to deal with it. You can still find advice on breathing in a bag on the internet, but this is now an outdated method because it does nothing against hyperventilation:it only gives you the idea that you are actively intervening. Also the advice to do breathing exercises is not really practical. 'Try to breathe easy' while your lungs are racing, your heart is pounding from your chest and the fear sweat is on your forehead is not exactly useful advice at such a moment! That is something like:'just don't be afraid' while you hang from a rock with cramped fingers and threaten to fall down.
Mindfulness:my miracle cure for hyperventilation
In my experience, there is only one way to deal with hyperventilation, and this way has helped me so much that I have never had hyperventilation again. Mindfulness is the solution, because mindfulness tackles fear and stress at the root by dealing with them soberly. How can you use mindfulness when you feel a hyperventilation attack coming on?
1. Accept that you feel fear
Most fear comes from resisting fear. You tell yourself that you feel anxious, which only makes you more anxious. But now you're going to practice mindfulness and say to yourself, "Okay, I'm scared. That's fine, because I can just be scared.'
2. Give space to your fear
After this acceptance you give space to feelings of fear. You say to yourself:'I feel fear, but I allow it completely, it now gets all the space it needs.' This immediately takes away tension and guilt. You feel anxious? So what? Who wants to say anything about it then? There is nothing wrong with fear. No one has to disapprove or condemn it, least of all you.
By applying these two simple mindfulness insights, you break the fear response that develops in the run-up to a hyperventilation attack. Instead of resisting and feeling guilty, you have accepted it and even given it space. The beauty of this approach is that fear can be diluted and dissolved in this way. If you resist frantically, you hold onto your fear. But if you can let it go by accepting it as it is, space is released and the fear can go away on its own. You will see that your anxiety disappears quickly with these two exercises, allowing you to breathe and function normally again.
Good luck!
Marisa'
This blog is contributed by Marisa Garau
Marisa Garau writes books on mindfulness and develops online mindfulness courses without time-consuming meditations. Read more about this topic in her comprehensive step-by-step plan to stop hyperventilation using mindfulness.
