Breathe innn…Breathe ouuuuuuuut…

Breathe innn…Breathe ouuuuuuuut…  That may look strange, but that is one of the simplest techniques to relax, to be in prayer, and to manage the perception of pain. 

When I am tense or stressed, I have a tendency to take shallow breaths. It’s mostly an unconscious thing until I realize that I am yawning a lot because I am not taking in enough oxygen. The first time I remember having an episode of this type of hyperventilating, I was only twelve. I didn’t understand it back then. All I knew was that I felt like I couldn’t get enough air. It can be a somewhat vicious cycle—tension leads to shallow breaths leads to more tension leads to even shallower breaths. It takes a conscious effort to break that cycle.

When I was pregnant, Jeff and I had taken the childbirth preparation classes, including practicing the different patterns of breathing for use during the different stages of labor. A few hours after labor began, I started having tremendous pain in my back. Jeff remembered the lessons and began giving me directions for breathing. Unfortunately, he was giving the directions for the breathing pattern for the end of labor. These breaths are shorter and more intense. This only made the pain feel even worse. My labor nurse sent Jeff out into the hall; she got right in front of me, face to face, and began breathing in the slower, deeper pattern I needed. I began to relax some, at least enough to get an epidural.

I have thought about it this week. Someone I was visiting in the hospital was having pain. Her niece was trying to guide her in the more relaxed pattern of breathing to help ease her perception of pain and nausea. That reminded me of Jeff’s struggle with pain. He had never handled pain well even at the best of times. The pain in his last weeks frightened him and made him tense up which only increased his perception of the pain. I wish I had been able to do for him what the labor nurse did for me, but his fear at that point was too great to allow it. These days I often have to work at breathing in and breathing out instead of holding my breath, or breathing shallowly from the top of my lungs instead of slowly and deeply from my diaphragm.

Breathe innn…Breathe ouuuuuuuut… God’s Holy Spirit seeks to fill my being.

Genesis 2:7

Then the Lord God formed adamah from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the adamah became a living being.