How To Breathe Your Pain Away

There are two stress-response systems in the body: the sympathetic (fight, flight or freeze), and the parasympathetic (rest and recovery). Each has it’s purpose.

If there is a car approaching a little too fast because you are crossing against the light, or a robbery at the bank where you work, the sympathetic system needs to kick in. You want to be alert, eyes dilated, heart rate up, breathing quickened, and muscles  tensed for action. Alert, you can move quickly. Stress hormones flood your system, frontal lobe (executive function, rational thinking ability) stops working, and the lizard brain (survival mode) takes over.

Pain agitates the lizard brain and pain dominates all other thoughts. When you hurt, emotionally or physically, you’re cranky, thinking fogs, you crave comfort food; you do not want flak, helpful life suggestions, or criticism. What you want is the pain to go away. Now. What you need is blood vessel dilation and some oxygen to your brain. What you need is the parasympathetic nervous system to take over, and calm you so you can function with reduced, maybe gone, pain. What you need is a trigger to allow the parasympathetic system to do it’s work. Which it cannot do if your only thought is of tubs of mashed potatoes because you will probably die anyway, lashing out at anyone in your line of sight, and the relentless and pressing pain.

Whether you believe it will work or not, try this trigger: pay attention to your  breathing. What have you got to lose, except how awful you feel. And tubs of mashed potatoes. Take full, longer than usual breaths. Slow breaths. Exhale longer than you inhale. Clear your mind and think of something pleasant. Close your eyes to help the relaxation process. Place a hand on your chest and another on your gut. Feel how it feels when you expand and contract your rib cage. This is body awareness. This is you learning about how you function. Slow the breathing down. Feel your body responding to breathing.

Here’s what happens. Blood vessels dilate as you relax, and more blood goes back to the center of the body where the lungs and heart live, muscles relax, and oxygen goes to your brain. Tension reduces, and with it, pain. It might take awhile, longer than that 6 seconds you are giving it. Stay with it, keep breathing.

I could be wrong about breathing minimizing pain, but what if I’m right?

That’s Aging Intelligently.