Sensorimotor Breathing OCD.

[LiveAboveIt]

So.. I've struggled with this for a couple years now, although it tends to go away on it's own.. I've gone for as long as 2-4 months without it being an issue..

But it's on the rise again.. Something will spike my anxiety and then my mind will obsess with the symptoms of anxiety and obsess over the breathing difficulty/impulse to manually breathe and off it goes into a spiral.

My psychiatrist put me on 50mg of Luvox twice a day and 10mg of Buspar twice a day. But I seem to have anxiety/obsession over the anxiety and breathing ocd ALL day.

My question is... What should I be doing, mentally? I'm currently waiting to schedule an appointment with a therapist that specializes in OCD and for the moment all I can really do is endure the anxiety/OCD.

It's incredibly exhausting and often keeps me up at night because the need to constantly manually breathe frightens me and causes me to panic. I find it difficult to relax when I'm constantly having to manually breathe.

Has anyone else gone through this? What should I be doing on my end to better manage the symptoms/anxiety? I know that the brain is tricky and I just need the right steps to help reinforce that everything is alright.

Thank you in advance. :hugs:

[MyNameIsTerry]

You are definately not alone in this one.

I have asthma so I think I focussed on my breathing so much because I knew I already had a weakness there i.e. am I going to have an asthma attack.


I still have this now where I am monitoring it a lot but it doesnt bother me as much and I can do more exercise than before, although Im not doing as much as I work like to e.g.get back to the gym, go running etc.


This may sound the opposite to what you would expect but breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation and Mindfulness meditation help. When you perform these, you have to monitor your breathing (which sounds stupid since you are doing that constantly already) in various ways and learn to let your mind wander so it forgets to think about why you must breath.


You cant stop your breathing, it will do what it needs to survive all on its own.


Think about if you held your breath. Wouldnt you be forced by your body to breathe again?


If you ran as fast as you can, wouldnt you be out of breathe? But you wouldnt be able to breathe in the way you want to, your body will operate how it needs to in order to recover.


You can influence your breathing, but not control it constantly via conscious thought.


Perhaps you need to learn to trust yourself? I know I feel this way.


I also feel that I am not in control of things in my life, so maybe that adds to it for me.


All the best.




T

[LiveAboveIt]

Very well said, Terry.
I can relate to all of it.
And you're right, I guess I never really thought of it that way.
The whole.. Running out of breath thing, I always assumed that it was ME and not my body doing it.
I guess with all of the anxiety, I forgot that my breathing and body will take care of itself.
Thanks.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I too suffer more with the physical sensations more than the thoughts and its really difficult to control.

I find worse when Im sitting, especially in front of the TV in our living room as Ive felt more anxious there than other areas of the house.


I never had this in the first few years of having GAD, it came when the second bad episode came.


It does sound the opposite of what you think you should do, but it does help. The Mindfulness meditation helps more because it makes you switch off like when asleep and asks you go let your thoughts pass. When you start you perform a few methods of breathing observation and sometimes one works better than another and sometimes a different one to your previus meditation works.


Its worth it and is cheap. Its even now part of CBT over an 8 week course. You can start from books such as Jon Kabat-Zinn or the UK proponent of this, Mark Williams.


I had CBT and the therapist said it was common to anxiety.

[maddierose98]

Hello I also suffer with this terrible symptom. Is anyone else scared to sleep because in our sleep we obviously cannot manually breathe? I'm only 15 and I don't want to live like this :(

[danielgabriel97]

Hi Mental Health Forum,
I am looking for some quick practical support. I struggle with sensorimotor OCD, and have used some ERP to overcome my swallowing compulsions. However, the OCD has now moved to my blinking, which I am constantly aware of, and despite using some of these techniques to lower my anxiety or ritual by which I blink, I keep giving into the compulsion of blinking because it is a moment by moment bodily process which cannot be stopped. Swallowing was different because the thoughts that I needed to swallow came more than the actual need to swallow, so I was able to let the thought wear out and not give in. I am asking you for practical tips on how to overcome the awareness and compulsion of blinking, since it is an action I cannot stop. How would you modify the ERP or CPT? I am not looking for prescriptions, therapists (which have been ineffective), etc., but simply some practical, hands on methods to deal with blinking OCD.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hello I also suffer with this terrible symptom. Is anyone else scared to sleep because in our sleep we obviously cannot manually breathe? I'm only 15 and I don't want to live like this :(

I don't but I know I've had thoughts about it at my worst stages.

Please remember that breathing is automatic, it was learnt prior to birth and you cannot stop yourself breathing whether asleep or awake, because whilst you think you are controlling consciously, your subconscious will take control as your lungs start to signal that they need oxygen.

Look at Mindfulness meditation, it will help you to breath normally and relax as well as help with your thoughts. It takes time to learn, but it will help.

---------- Post added at 03:38 ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 ----------


Hi Mental Health Forum,
I am looking for some quick practical support. I struggle with sensorimotor OCD, and have used some ERP to overcome my swallowing compulsions. However, the OCD has now moved to my blinking, which I am constantly aware of, and despite using some of these techniques to lower my anxiety or ritual by which I blink, I keep giving into the compulsion of blinking because it is a moment by moment bodily process which cannot be stopped. Swallowing was different because the thoughts that I needed to swallow came more than the actual need to swallow, so I was able to let the thought wear out and not give in. I am asking you for practical tips on how to overcome the awareness and compulsion of blinking, since it is an action I cannot stop. How would you modify the ERP or CPT? I am not looking for prescriptions, therapists (which have been ineffective), etc., but simply some practical, hands on methods to deal with blinking OCD.

Hi Daniel,

Well done for resolving the swallowing issue, I bet that seemed impossible at first? So, you know this is also not impossible, it's just different because it is a frequent bodily activity.

So, perhaps your resolution has to change because the blinking requires less initial thought to trigger it? Have I got that right in that you don't think before it but think about it whilst your body does it?

I was reading an interesting article on this last night, it was a first for me and it helped me understand how I do some of this and that I was assumed as being part of the standard OCD framework when in fact there are sensorimotor forms.

http://beyondocd.org/expert-perspectives/articles/when-automatic-bodily-processes-become-conscious-how-to-disengage-from-sens

ERP is mentioned here, I'm not sure if that is going to help if you have employed it the way you know it should be done. The body scan may not be the best way either will it being such a quick & frequent bodily activity. I'm wondering whether the Mindfulness meditation could help so that you spend perhaps 20-30 minutes per day in a relaxed state and experiencing blinking without any emotional reaction? Could that work for you?

[Mrsmitchell1984]

Has anyone managed to overcome this? I am really struggling with an obsession related to my jaw. :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

I've overcome many of my compulsions MrsMitchell and of the ones that remain, they are not much if an issue anymore so I will get rid of them too but they are not the main focus for me at the moment.

At my worst I had touching rituals for tons of things throughout the day (light switches, door handles, windows, slippers, cupboards, soap, and many more) and many of them with additional visualisation rituals and I had rituals for reading road signs, lamp post numbers (including head nodding compulsions), car number plates, signs on buildings, labels in supermarkets, you name it. This stage was driving me mad!

I've found my GAD was driving it and stopping me using CBT work stop them, so I changed to reducing my GAD which reduced or eliminated many of them and finally allowed me to work successfully on reducing or eliminating some of the worst ones.

So, whilst thats not sensorimotor, it does show some of the things I have overcome in my OCD.

What is the obsession with your jaw?

[Mrsmitchell1984]

I obsess about whether it is open or closed. It never feels relaxed.

Thanks for replying

[Mrsmitchell1984]

Have you overcome any of your sensorimotor ocd? I am desperate for success stories - as I am feeling hopeless.

I suffer with blinking, breathing and jaw focus.
Xx

[MyNameIsTerry]

I wouldn't say I have this, more that I have too much focus on physical sensations, certain muscles and breathing. I wouldn't compare it to the severity I would expect from Sensorimotor OCD.

What I can say is that I have beaten my intrusive thoughts of harm. I have also greatly reduced my many compulsions and Magical Thinking.

I think I know where you are. I remember at my worst I didn't think I would ever get better, it was destroying me. Its taken time but I have come a long way so if I can feel that way and make progress then I believe you can too.

What helped me the most was Mindfulness. It changed my attitude after 6 months but prior to that it was making me more relaxed and less judgemental to my situation.

Do you suffer from anything else? Maybe GAD? I have often said on NMP that I just couldn't get anywhere trying to address my OCD and I learned that my GAD was so bad that it was preventing me making any progress on the OCD. I switched to reducing my GAD and found my OCD decreased greatly. Then I was more able to successfuuly work on my OCD and reduced the worst compulsions even further.