Skip to content

I say that a lot.

The first thing our bodies do when we get a burst of pain or other shock is, clench. Hard to breathe effectively when clenched and, oddly, it’s hard to do anything else — except let the anxiety-mad sympathetic nervous system run riot.

For normal people, the exercise I’m about to describe is a calming exercise, but for the chronically ill and chronically hurting, it’s more like an elementary coping exercise.

That feeling of being frozen? It’s shock. It’s normal to go there, but don’t dwell in it.

Ways to help yourself through it are largely little physical shifts that send a message back up to your brain that it’s time to process now.

Notice where your shoulders are. Just notice. Notice how your neck feels. No judgment or “I should”s, just notice. Notice how you’re sitting or standing. Notice how your hips are rotated in relation to your posture. Just observe these things.

Now exhale all the way. Not to the point of straining or coughing, just comfortably emptied out. Let your lungs spring open naturally and — this is key — open your teeth as you inhale.

Now, when you breathe out, purse your lips softly, as if puffing out a match. That does two things: keeps your jaw unlocked and nudges a little extra oxygen into your lungs.

When you breathe in, after that first open-mouth inhale, breathe in through your nostrils if you can. If you can’t, put your tongue tip on the roof of your mouth and breathe around your tongue. Either way, it opens the back of your throat slightly so you can…

Imagine the breath sliding down your spine and into the bowl of your pelvis. This helps your body do an end-run around the clenched-torso breathing we get into when we freeze. Just let the good air wash into your spine and slosh into the bowl of your pelvis.

Then let it out through gently pursed lips, and in through opened throat, then down, and back out, and so on.

Do ten cycles. It’ll be a different and better world after. Notice how your shoulders and neck soften, and your hips unwind. Colors are a little brighter. Feelings are closer, but less overwhelming.

You can do this. I have faith in you. You are life warriors and we handle it. It’s our gift to be this strong and still be this alive.

3 thoughts on “First, keep breathing”

  1. Thank you so much for this wonderful, useful piece! I would be pleased to link to this from Taming the Beast, with your permission. Everyone suffering from chronic pain should have access to this. And I love the last line more than words can express.

    1. I’d be delighted! Thanks, Lili 🙂 I used this a lot when I was working in the ER, so I’ve seen how powerful a tool it is for many different situations and physiologies. It’s one of the few truly fits – all techniques I know of.

  2. This was originally written as a comment to two people with multiple difficult diagnoses. As it happens, I do have complete faith in their cope-ability. I was mulling whether to keep that last paragraph for the blog, then I thought of the extraordinary and lovely people I’ve met in the comments on my posts here… and I thought, yeah. It still works. 🙂

Leave a Reply to Isy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *