Part 2 All About Rest Article - Breathing and Zero Gravity
RECUPERATIVE REST
Marvellous, we’ve cantered at great speed through sleep, what about being awake? If sleep isn’t restful, then logically, rest happens when we are awake – either during the day whilst we are trying to stay awake, or at night when we are finding it hard to sleep.
Years ago I met Hannah Clifton of The ME Trust (my then boss introduced us), who had been severely unwell and bedbound with ME/CFS but who had recovered under the care of Dr Worthley at Burrswood Hospital, and one thing she said stayed with me. She said that at the Burrswood she learned how to rest. Over the years I’ve wondered about that, was there some magic formula? Some secret knowledge? Dr Worthley kindly did a few telephone consultations with me, and sent me some handouts, I’ve got the Emily Collingridge Severe ME book, Lynsey on her home visits talked me through some techniques, so I ought to have the techniques in my toolbox and I do, but do they work? Are they what Hannah was talking about? Honestly? I’m not sure, because I’m still a work in progress, I do know that in the last few years my health has stabilised and symptoms have reduced, and I am confident that the continued stability over the last few months has been a direct result of the following techniques. What I don’t know is if they will work for you.
Remember to eat your elephant a bite at a time, choose a technique that you can fit into your circumstances and have a go, in tiny steps:
MOUTHBREATHER OR NOSEBREATHER?
Amusingly Lynsey first talked to me at home about Nose Breathing at a time when my elderly (now at peace) cat Tabitha was breathing stertorously through her mouth due to longstanding health issues. It’s the exception that proves the rule – Humans are (Tabitha excepted) the only mammals that breathe through their mouths rather than their noses, said Lynsey. Again this is one of my assumptions smashed, I had no idea there was any difference between the two, still less that they have different effects. It turns out that there’s significant differences for our bodies depending on whether we breathe through our mouths or our noses.
Nose Breathing:
· The nasal passages are specifically designed to warm and humidify the air as it passes into the body. The lungs can absorb warm humid air more easily than the ‘shock’ of cold dry air. The air temperature can rise about 4.5 degrees Celsius in the nose.
· The nasal passages are designed to clean the air – to remove germs, irritants and bacteria.
· Nose breathing is more regulated, more even, and uses the diaphragm rather than the belly.
· When exhaling through the nose, the airflow resistance means the air stays in the lungs longer and increases oxygen intake up to 20%, and we take up more Nitric Oxide, which has an important role in the immune system and vascoregulation (how the body regulates where blood goes in the body).
· Breathing in and out through the nose affects our nervous system – it stimulates the olfactory nerve, which passes that impulse on to the hypothalamus (and as I learned on the Zoom course and talked about above, the hypothalamus controls our biological body clock).
Mouth breathing
· Exhaling through the mouth expels more air than the nose. Breathing out softly, as with a sigh, releases the tension in the shoulders, the jaw and the muscles that hold our heads up, leading to a reduction in tension and potentially a quieting of the mind.
· Inhaling through the mouth isn’t such good news – the air dries the naturally moist tissues of the mouth, which can lead to dehydration, which can lead to bad breath, and an increase in acidity with tooth decay and gum problems. It increases the likelihood of snoring and sleep apnoea and also alters the natural head posture.
So, one SIMPLE CHANGE we can do, is to breathe more through our nose, when we are awake (which eventually will become a habit we do during sleep too). Not doing any fancy exercises like holding one nostril closed or trying to use the diaphragm more, just keeping our mouths shut, and using our noses to breath. Obviously it’s going to be harder than mouthbreathing, we’ll be using different muscles and that’s hard for us. So take it easy, eat the elephant a bite at a time. Maybe start just breathing once through the nose, a couple of times a day. Build up slowly.
USING BREATHING TO QUIET THE MIND
I find my mind is like a hamster on a treadmill sometimes, going round and round and round, and eventually I’ve imagined so many ‘what ifs’ that there’s dinosaurs roaming around outside the windows (not really, but my what ifs have taken me so far from reality there might as well be). I used to run or swim or cycle to get away from my problems (or sleep), then I used to read, now I can’t do any of those things, how to give my mind a break?
By concentrating on breathing. It’s very simple. You just exist. Your body does the breathing for you (apologies to anyone who needs mechanical help to breathe, your experience will be a bit different). Instead of letting your mind squirrel around, you just watch and listen to your breathing. If your mind drifts off to a worry or thought, just bring it back to your breathing. This gives your brain a break – the brain is an enormous muscle that works really hard, by concentrating on just one’s breathing which is regular and peaceful, the brain has a chance to relax.
It’s simple but very difficult. I’ve been doing this for 2 years now and at first I could only do 30 seconds. Now I’m up to a couple of minutes. I’m not remotely disciplined, I do it when I remember or when I’m fed up of my brain being squirrelly. I also do it to help me fall asleep, it’s taken a while but it is now a very good cue for my brain that it’s time to fall asleep. Unfortunately this makes it pretty useless as a ‘recuperative rest whilst awake’ technique unless I set an alarm first, because it can turn into an overlong siesta by accident…
USING BREATHING TO QUIET THE BODY
Once you’ve nailed breathing through your nose, you can expand your technique to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. This uses the muscles in the throat all the way down to the diaphragm. So it’s quite a workout in itself, so go cautiously and gently!
The effect of this diaphragmatic breathing is that it gives both the mind and the body recuperative rest. The body’s tension begins to ease and muscles relax (which can be painful if they’ve been tense for a long time) and the brain also gets a break. It provides a pause from the agonies of daily life that at first I found painful and difficult, but as it’s got easier to do, I welcome it.
Get someone to search for Mindful Breathing or Box Breathing techniques online when you get to this stage because the eventual technique is that (shock horror and outright rejection) whilst you are breathing diaphramatically you let your mind notice your pain. Yes. Really. I don’t think so!
The idea behind it is that by looking at an area that is hurting, and telling your brain that everything is ok, your brain stops ramping up the emergency signals that there’s a problem, and the extreme sensitisation to pain that can build up may begin to reduce (more on this below). Have I tried this? Only when fully painkillered up because I’m scared of pain getting worse and not stopping. I’m working on my courage for this technique, so yeah, I’m not really doing this, but I know it exists and if I have a day when nothing much hurts, I have a very cautious attempt…
ZERO GRAVITY/ TILT IN SPACE LYING POSITIONS
Speaking of how painful it is to have tension in the muscles and body, and also how painful it is for those to relax, the first time I experienced pain whilst relaxing was years ago at an Iyengar Yoga relaxation class. How hard can it be I thought? It’s just lying down… One of the exercises was to lie with eyes closed and relax the muscles around the jaw and face then the eyes – relax the eyes to make them ‘soft’. I honestly yelped with unexpected pain! With severe ME/CFS, I get pain whenever there’s tension or relaxing or a change between the two. And I don’t enjoy it, I resent it, and I’d like it to stop.
Back in 2013 when I first went Severely affected, I discovered Emily Collingridge’s Severe ME book. The back page (being a page of diagrams showing supported sitting and lying positions) was a revelation! The relief for my limbs and muscles by putting pillows under my arms and legs was enormous. Mind you, the effort of moving those pillows so I could turn over or reach the commode or toilet was even more enormous, several times I got myself trapped and had to wriggle at a slothlike pace to free myself, so whilst they are tremendously useful, they’re a lot easier if you have someone around to put them in place for you! I have no idea how these compare to a hospital type bed that provides similar support via a remote control, but if you are alone, that would be safer than finding you are being laid siege to by an accidental pillow fort!
For the last couple of years, this house
has been undergoing disabled adaptations (more accurately it’s been waiting a
long time between the adaptation stages being done). And I have no sofa or
comfortable chairs, so fed up with trying to sit up in (a bog standard non
moving) bed, I had a look at riser/recliner chairs, tilt in space chairs and
that led me to Zero Gravity seating. There’s some very expensive options out
there, but there’s also garden chairs that give you a tilt in space
approximation (if you have the strength to tilt yourself in the first place)
for about thirty pounds sterling. The idea is you put your feet on the bar at
the front, push (or you get a carer to push on the back of the chair for you) and
the chair reclines to an almost zero gravity position – your feet are higher
than your heart and it gives an immediate feeling of lightness and relief. In a
‘zero gravity’ or tilt in space position your muscles are no longer having to
hold your body together against the effects of gravity. Years ago when I was
moderately affected I asked a friend who is a GP why I had more trouble
standing still than walking – I expected her to say it was all in my mind and I
was being ridiculous – but she just smiled as though it was common knowledge
(maybe it is, but as already established the detail of science isn’t a strong
point for me), and said my muscles had to work harder to keep me still than
keep me moving. I have mild hypermobility (my joints don’t hold tight onto
themselves) and my muscles have to work harder to do what the bone/cartilage is
failing to do, so my muscles are working far harder and get more tense than
they need to, and with my lying down so much, they don’t get much movement, so
they aren’t staying strong with resistance as they did when I could move around
back when I was moderately affected. It’s all just so needlessly painful!
I’m currently saving up for a hospital type bed and a riser/recliner (though
Wheelchair Services have provided me with a tilt in space power chair for which
I’m enormously grateful) and in the meantime, I use my pillows for the
positions in Emily Collingridge’s book, and when I’m up to it, my zero gravity
garden chair to provide relief for my muscles.
When I combine nose breathing or diaphragmatic breathing with the pillows or
the garden chair, or my power chair, the relief is much longer lasting, and the
change in muscle position and the act of relaxation of those muscles hurts far
less. I also have an enormous collection of strangely shaped pillows and
cushions I’ve bought over the years in a fruitless attempt to replicate proper
supportive adaptive furniture. They do work, but not as well. But my best is
good enough! And so is yours!!!
I also have a pillow each side of my body in bed whilst I sleep, which I position between my thighs and knees, as I’m a side sleeper, and restless with it, and it reduces the pain in my hips and legs whilst asleep and also the following day.
**********************************************************************
All About Rest article parts
Background HERE
Part 1 Sleep HERE
Part 3 Vagal Nerve and Mental Anxiety HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment