Well, last week I had work worries and brother worries weighing on my diaphragm, and I was unable to take a deep breath. You know, when you feel like your yawn impulse is suppressed. I know many people can’t catch a deep breath when they are stressed.
Anxiety, I said, and I did what I could to calm myself. Twice I traded dinner carbs and calories for a glass of Moscato. Did no good. Every few minutes I would bend over a chair and catch my breath. It’s a good trick, if you are so afflicted.
Well, let me report that the important work deadline has been met and evidently … that was the issue! All my breathing is back. My brother is not particularly better. Hah! Looks like keeping the stressors to one at a time is the trick.
7 responses to “Breathing Update”
It’s fascinating how stress is additive/multiplicative most of the time, even if we’re not consciously aware of all our stressors. (but then one goes poof and we feel the weight off and go “oh.”)
Also, the most handy stress-reducing gizmo I’ve found is deep breathing (there is a lovely geometric-shapes-expanding-and-folding-back-down gif that I like to breathe along to on occasion) and it does… not work so well… if the physical stress symptom is inability to breathe! Harrumph.
(okay, the most handy stress-reducing gizmo *apart* from staying off twitter et al. That’s got deep-breathing beat by a mile…)
KC – I suppose I should be glad my body is expressing the stress by tightening my diaphragm instead of nibbling at my nervous system.
Tightening diaphragm is Bad, even if there are Potentially More Bad options out there. I mean, sure, if it makes you feel better, then absolutely do symptom comparison with Even Worse Options, but when I try to do that, it usually just makes me feel more unhappy because *this* sucks and wow there are things that *suck even more* out there and eugh.
KC – Comparisons don’t make you feel fortunate? Did your parents never tell you about the starving children downtown (Mom was a social worker, we didn’t go to China to find starving children).
Not if I’m in an adequately horrible place. Basically, if I’m legitimately feeling “I can’t deal with this” – then finding out I could *also* be dealing with [thing someone else is dealing with] at the same time: just makes me feel more-overwhelmed instead of fortunate.
The “people are starving somewhere else” thing didn’t work on me as a child, except insofar as I wanted to minimize food waste. But feeling grateful for food when I was not hungry and was feeling kind of sick? NOPE.
I will say that if I’m just feeling kind of whiny and really am blowing things out of proportion, then the remembrance that other people have it worse does knock the diva out of me (I don’t actually go diva-ish, but it’s the best way I can figure out to phrase it?). It’s just, if things are actually overwhelming already, then… no. Just… no. If your beloved, comforting dog has just died, it does not make you feel *better* to know that someone’s child has just died? I don’t know. I think there’s a cap on what “it could be worse” can accomplish, although it certainly does a good job sometimes (and “this will make an incredibly funny story later” does a good job on other instances).
KC – well, no, your dog analogy would not work. You say “If “your beloved, comforting dog has just died, it does not make you feel *better* to know that someone’s child has just died?” That’s not how it works at all. If the dog dies, you say “well at least you have these raccoons in the back yard.” The point is, “you have these green beans you don’t like, but at least you have green beans as opposed to nothing.”
I was thinking of the “if you’re sick with X, doesn’t it make you feel better to know you’re not sick with the worse Y [that some people have to deal with]” thing that we started with – I could definitely see how, if you don’t think about the bracketed part, it would be way more likely to be reassuring!