Self Care #6 – Deep Breathing

Once again, I had written a whole post about my trip to the dentist and deep breathing, then realized that it was a few hundred words too long, and who really wants to hear about my trip to the dentist? (If you do, leave a comment! I would love to tell you!)

Long story short – I hate dentists, but after 2 hours, 3 times the amount of anesthetic and two breaks so that I could cry and have a little meltdown, I had two fillings done. I feel proud. (No sarcasm there, I am proud. I survived the freaking dentist!!)

How all this relates to the next self-care tip of deep breathing is that there was several minutes during the procedure, where I had three hands and two heads doing their best to get into my mouth and even with all the numbing-ness I could still feel a really sharp sensation that I was pretty sure that I was about to go into full panic mode. They said to breath through my nose, but I can’t do that well because it’s perpetually blocked so there I was, hands and heads and drills and feeling like I was only just drawing in enough oxygen to sustain a baby mouse, let along a full human being. (Yes, a short one, but a full human none the less)

The only thing that was stopping me freaking out and just leaving was counting my breaths down from 10. When I reached one, I would start at 10 again. Slow and steady, feeling my lungs expand and contract. (Ignoring the fact that they were only expanding a baby mouse lungs worth.) Feeling my heart start to slow down to match my breathing. All I had to do was think breathe in, 10. Breathe out, 9. Each ten seconds of breathing meant that I was ten seconds closer to it all being over.

Is deep breathing truly an act of self-care? I don’t know, but it sure works. Even in a situation that causes me massive anxiety I was able to stay calm, and even managed to slow my heart rate and stop my hands from shaking.

The reviews of studies that I looked at said that deep breathing, especially deep abdominal breathing (DAB, was beneficial in turning off your stress nervous system. DAB could help improve anxiety, the cardiovascular system, constipation and can even reduce pain levels. The studies weren’t able to specifically measure if deep breathing improved quality of life. Even if it didn’t have all those potential benefits, (which I’m inclined to think that it does, because turn your stress response off and your body can have a chance to function a bit better) I now have a proven method of calming my anxiety. Instead of ‘I’m about to have a panic attack’, it’s ‘this is uncomfortable, I hate it but I will survive’.

This is on my list, Jim!

(Movie quote. Drop a comment if you know from where…)