View Full Version : Obsessed with my own Breathing...?
Hey folks,
I've had a bad episode of strong panic related to traveling a few weeks back. This is the first time I've felt such intense Anxiety for a prolonged period.
Since then my obsessions are causing me more anxiety then in the past 10 years with ocd.
I've always had rapidly shifting obsessions from hocd to fear of schizophrenia, I lost count over the years..
Just yesterday I started obsessing about my breathing for the first time after I've attempted some mindfulness meditation. After exhalation I'd feel slightly anxious before I took the next breath. This triggered my obsession about having to monitor my breath to not fall into full blown panic.
I keep wondering if this obsession is going to last because it's feeding of the Panic feeling that I've developed after the travel Anxiety. Usually my obsessions cause me mild Anxiety, never with panic attack syringes such as dizziness, and head pressure.
I'm worried that my obsessions are now activating the latent panic anxiety that I've experienced a few weeks back and that this will make my new obsessions way harder to deal with than before the crisis.
Hope that makes sense.
What's your take? Will this obsession still disappear or shift to something else?
Thanks
Jake
This anxiety will disappear when you dont judge your breath.
Just observe it for what it is. You have been breathing for years. Has it been difficult before?
+ I have experienced this anxiety too. Usually it is a sign that there are some problems in your life. Meditation just brings them out.
It's weird, didn't think that shifting my awareness to my breath would make me feel anxious. I'm just worried that it's, and I don't know how to say it better, the worst time for this kind of obsession/worry as my reaction to any kind of anxiety shifts to panic because of my recent first contact with severe Anxiety.
I would love to hear that someone had the same obsession with breathing and managed to get over it completely. This would lighten my mood because right now it feels like this obsession will put me in a state of constant panic and eventually I'll just go nuts.
Just a thought...it isn't the shifting your awareness to your breath that's making you anxious, it's your thoughts about it that are causing the anxiety.
And thank you for your post because it has made me realize that I'm doing the same. I'm adding fearful thoughts to ordinary, reflex actions and turning them into major dramas when they can happily get on with the job without any interference
Well i had it aswell. I focused on breathing and analyzed how it felt. I also realized that while meditating i did not breath naturally, it was forced, artificial.
Meditation do bring out underlying anxiety within you. You will notice it between breaths. They key tou is to observe it as it is. Do not attach any judgement to it.
If you find meditation to be hard and forced then you are probably too anxious or even depressed and it would be better to do breathing excercises instead.
MyNameIsTerry
04-05-15, 06:02
Hi Jake,
When I started therapy I was given some worksheets for a calming breathing method and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR).
These both made me more anxious whilst doing them. Why was this? I believe it was a combination of trying something new (how is this going to affect me, maybe it will make me feel worse, what do I do if it makes me feel worse, I can't take any more anxiety, etc) and focussing on bodily sensations (I already focus on my symptoms 24/7 so don't want to focus even more on my body, etc).
It took me weeks to get beyond that and to find it more natural to do these exercises. I can remember telling my therapist that it wasn't helping at all and making me more anxious.
I was really bad back then. I was anxious brushing my teeth because of how more sensations would make me feel, I was afraid of having a shower as it meant more strange sensations, eating produced more sensations which scared me, etc. The eating was one of the worst back then as it brought on that "almost panic" feeling quite quickly.
Basically, I was on high alert all the time. I was so anxious that my natural responses were constantly looking for possible dangers and finding them in everything.
Once the breathing exercises & PMR was helping, I moved into a Mindfulness meditation track. Again, focussing on areas of my body including my breathing, which was one of my problem areas, made me feel a bit anxious. I kept thinking "surely intentionally focussing on this is just going to make me worse?". But after a couple of weeks, this changed and I started to see it as a more positive exercise.
Ironically, if I had dropped them and continued how I was it wouldn't have helped me and I would have reinforced my issues by avoiding them.
So, you have to give it time with any new technique. New things mean change & uncertainty. Control is a big thing for people with anxiety conditions and we don't feel in control when we try things we don't understand or are not used to.
Currently you are noticing something there that isn't really there. Your breathing has been controlled for you since birth by a remarkably accurate system inside your subconscious.
Think about an example like this (don't do this example as it may not help you with how you currently feel, just picture it): take a deep breath, close mouth and hold it. What happens after a minute or so? Did you die or did your subconscious take over and make you take a breath to protect you?
Remember, you are only focussing on your breath to feel it without all the other chatter that goes on in our heads. Meditation asks you to breath normally, so just observe it, you have no need to analyse it or correct it. It may feel a bit alien at first and this is because you have forgotten how to simply let it be.
If you think about your hopping OCD issue, maybe control is one of the roots? Or rather a fear of not being in control? This might make sense as you feared losing your life due to agoraphobia not long ago.
So, perhaps the context of the OCD form is less important than the reason behind it? Maybe the reason behind it is the constant to work on and the rest is like a symptom?
Rationalise it too. You were afraid you could become agoraphobic last time, but you weren't. There is no evidence that you will develop a breathing obsession (either of the 2 catagories that it could fall into) but there is evidence that what you fear you could develop hasn't happened.
The issue with the panic is something that is going to go in time as you recover. You have to remember that you had quite a severe shock when this happened and that is in your memory. When you go through issues at the moment, its going to reproduce fear based on those recent memories. Try to accept this because catastrophizing and drawing incorrect conclusions about things that may never happen, will just keep the cycle of higher anxiety going. (have you read the Cognitive Distortions as you are showing a few in here?)
Hi Zero,
From my experience via Dr Weekes´ help, OCD, obsession etc are due to tension. If you are able to relax in general then this will eventually die down. Don´t try to control, focus instead on letting yourslf go as slack as possible, loosen up, let go and accept.
If you find yourself focusing on your breath, then fine, do so. But do so as willingly as you can. It is only the worrying about it that is causing the prob.
So loosen up and accept. Loosen your shoulders, tummy muscles and arms.
Best,
Jon
MyNameIsTerry
05-05-15, 06:36
Hi Zero,
From my experience via Dr Weekes´ help, OCD, obsession etc are due to tension. If you are able to relax in general then this will eventually die down. Don´t try to control, focus instead on letting yourslf go as slack as possible, loosen up, let go and accept.
If you find yourself focusing on your breath, then fine, do so. But do so as willingly as you can. It is only the worrying about it that is causing the prob.
So loosen up and accept. Loosen your shoulders, tummy muscles and arms.
Best,
Jon
Its a bit different to normal focussing on a symptom in this case Jon, as Jake is trying to follow a guided exercise that relies on him focussing on his breathing. Its not doing it willingly, its doing it from a position of natural curiosity & being non judgemental but this part takes time to develop. Some inductions also involve tensing & untensing.
Tension & anxiety will certainly cause OCD to be worse but it doesn't cause it to start in my opinion. In the absence of tension, compulsions/rituals still take place and obsessions too.
Science has also moved on a lot since Claire Weekes days and I would hope she would have continued to develop her practical methods inline with that but the various studies of workings of the limbic system, how memory plays a part, neuroplasticity is something that is accepted by the medical world and they are still working on understanding it.
Neuroplasticity, for example, has been around since the 1950's but it was only in 1998 that it became accepted science in humans. I'm sure Dr Weekes would have been very interested in it and advanced her methods to take advantage of it.
Acceptance, relaxation and not letting anxiety stop you doing what you should will get many of us there regardless though. If you read about epigenetics, it talks about methylation and how we create an envonment where anxiety starts to occur and take route as a disorder. So, in having balance & healthy behaviours, you restore the balance.
Hi MyNameIsTerry,
Thanks for the info!
Personally I can only speak from my own experience. The less tense and anxious I feel the less obsessions I have. Whether they be obsessive thoughts, that go round and round in my head, or obsessive actions such as checking the oven etc!
I thnk breathing exercises are good, but I think, in my opinion, there must also be a focus on, loosening up, letting go, let your shoulders, arms, and tummy drop, and hang down, sag and go limp.
I think this together with the breathing exercises and acceptance in general will have the best effect. At least it does for me!
Cheers,
Jon
MyNameIsTerry
05-05-15, 10:20
I'm the same Jon and I know I've spoken to plenty of others with OCD that say the same. To prove it in my case I reduced my overall anxiety by switching away from my work on OCD to GAD. Doing this reduced my OCD with it greatly when before it just wouldn't budge. In fact, many of my rituals disappeared by doing that alone.
The Mindfulness courses work in stages so they start off with breathing and then move on to body scanning, movement forms, etc. Its just to learn a different element each time to add to what you learned before. It just starts with the breathing one as it is easier.
Hi Terry,
From my experience with meditating, minfulness etc is that it helped but I felt like it was missing the mark.
When I, after listening to Weekes´ recording started lossening up more this for me made the real difference.
It wa strange cause I´d always thought that I was letting go, but at the back of my mind I knew I was holding onto tension, to myself.
Two simple words, loosen and accept have made a massive difference for me!
Thing is it feels strange to loosen up and let go, cause nothing happens immediately, you feel the same, and nothing may happen for hours, or days, but the weight finally lifted!
I wish you the best!
Jon
MyNameIsTerry
05-05-15, 10:40
Hi Jon,
Thats how it was for me with Mindfulness. It took a while and then it clicked. 6+ months down the line and other changes occurred related to compassion.
I must be the reverse of you because I went the acceptance way first and thought that. This seemed to fit better for me as I liked the guidance through the exercises.
I guess its a matter of finding what clicks for us all. I'm glad you have.
All the best.
It's interesting to see how different things work for different people. For me accepting and loosening up had a tremendous short term effect on my panic and obsessions so I'm re reading her book right now and it's helping to calm me down for the moment. I do believe once acceptance can be established as a mood, things will get much better. Isn't that what mindfulness is also about? I feel like the combination of mindfulness with physical relaxation (loosening up) is very powerful for any Anxiety disorder.
Today im having a particularly heavy day since last night I had quite a few nocturnal panic attacks where I wake up from my sleep in absolute terror and fear of death. These attacks have been happening for years now, usually when I'm going through a stressful time.
As a result, I've been very anxious today and I realized that I'm not really paying attention to my breath and that this is not the cause but rather the trigger for my fear of having another panic driven episode.
Even when I'm paying attention to my breath, I merely get a bit more anxiety but the feared and anticipated panic episode does not occur. I've developed this very threatening chain of events that makes this breathing obsession so scary for me and it goes like this :
Hyperventilating causes panic hence
Focusing on my breath might trigger an episode of Panic
Since my already so sensitized to panic I will continue focusing on my breathing because I'm afraid of it causing panic, I will experience even more panic.
The Panic will escalate and the cycle of focusing on my breath and panicking will never stop anymore
I will be completely disabled and since breathing cannot be stopped there will be no way of getting past the obsession with my breath, hence
My panic will continue forever on the highest intensity possible.
Because breathing is always there I constantly feel threatened by it especially because I can't run away from it or avoid it.
In my twisted mind the threat is very real, even more so than agoraphobia because with agoraphobia I can avoid leaving my home and calm down the Panic and with breathing this is no option.
I don't know if that makes sense to you but I just can't cope with this threat and I can't assess, in my suggestive and weakened state, how likely it is that focusing on my breathing will eventually cause me to fall into eternal panic... ��
As always, if feels like this combination of my previous panic attacks and the threat of focused breath are something I've never had to deal with and that this time it will be the end of me.
I can't believe that somehow, someday I will forget about it and Life will go on...
MyNameIsTerry
06-05-15, 05:38
Hi Jake,
Yes, Mindfulness does include acceptance amongst its 8 elements. Bearing in mind acceptance is not something anyone invented as it has been inside human beings through our evolution, and Mindfulness has been around for thousands of years across various spiritual disciplines...does anyone wonder where Dr Weeks & co actually got that idea from?
You will also learn relaxation through Mindfulness, but there are stages to learning its different elements and breathing is usually where it starts since we can't relax if we can't breathe freely first.
There is no reason why Weekes' approach wouldn't help you or that you could use other techniques such as CBT. Just be wary of the sharks out there. There are some that have taken Weekes' approach and created their own products and some are very unpleasant people who downcry every scientifically proven therapy going. There followers can also be quite irrational based on my own experiences with them. These are the gurus to avoid but Weekes is safe.
There is no reason you couldn't try Weekes to get more comfortable and move on to others or run them side by side. I will just point out that in a method like Mindfulness, follow the teacher completely, don't use the untense/release stuff with it if it takes your focus otherwise you won't really be doing the Mindfulness.
I can understand what you mean with your explanation and it follows the typical path of irrational negative thoughts we have when we are struggling. The absolute fact is - you cannot be stuck in perpetual panic as panic involves physiological responses to and they would not cope with permanent panic and neither would being without sleep. Your body has its own safety mechanisms to stop this happening.
When you have a panic attack, it lasts a certain time. This is because there is that initial spike of adrenaline. After this you feel anxious and that is because there is still too much adrenaline in your body. Your body responses by slowly metabolizing this adrenaline into other chemicals that your body needs and some is excreted in urine. Thats how the body works, its knows how to preserve its survivor independently from thought when if comes down to internal processes.
I can certainly understand the issue of not being able to get away from a trigger. As a GAD sufferer my anxiety has been 24/7 to high levels during the worst periods. The minute I woke up to the minute I somehow fell asleep. This was all day thinking about how I was feeling which just makes it worse. However, this doesn't last, its just one of the really bad stages you can experience and it can take some time before you start to see the changes but they will come.
I thought I was doomed to spend the rest of my life like that. I was wrong. I couldn't see that I was wrong back then because I was all consumed by the current reality. Does that sound familiar?
The fact that you have noticed you are not paying attention to your breath confirms that you are not taking on the obsession that you thought. Its more that you fear what it could lead to as you say.
The way through that fear is to change how you think about it and expose yourself to it bit by bit.
Hi Jake,
You can also try loosening your mind/attitude. Take deep breaths, and loosen your shoulders, arms, and tummy muscles and loosen your mind, float, let go!
Best,
Jon
---------- Post added at 11:37 ---------- Previous post was at 11:33 ----------
Hi Terry,
Personally I think Weekes´ method is enough by itself. I know several people who have recovered via her method, and although I haven´t fully recovered yet, I have overcome agoraphobia, and no longer take meds. The only symptom I have left is slight tummy tension.
I´ve never had more confidence in my life as I have now. I´m just way more chilled. Things whcih were once difficult, going to the shop, talking to a stranger, even chatting up the ladies, lol, have become much easier!
Personally, in my humble opinion, trying too many methods can confuse things. When I´ve done this I tried to force it, but in the end I always came back to Weekes´ method.
Just my personal experience anyway!
Best,
Jon
Jon, I agree that her method is great. I'm keeping on it and I'm seeing some improvements. I do belive that mindfulness can have some additional benefits so I'll keep doing that as well. I've seen a few methods out there but so far I'm most convinced of that combination
MyNameIsTerry
07-05-15, 07:15
Hi Jon,
I agree about using too many techniques, some times following a clear method is better. However, I don't think that is the case for everyone and its a question of whether it is really too much or just a combined strategy that provides greater results than they would in isolation. So, it depends whether combining these would be an issue but I don't know enough about Weekes' methods and I doubt you know enough about Mindfulness, so Jake will have to determine that for himself and ask any questions so we can try to answer them.
I don't doubt that Weekes' methods help & cure people, just like I don't doubt CBT or Mindfulness does, each have people who say it has worked for them. The latter two have clinical data backing them up. However, all 3 are capable of not helping people to recovery too as nothing is 100% in anxiety. I know there are also people on here who have said they have found Weekes' methods dated but they have benefitted from reading more recent authors who have attempted to bring it more up to date. Its just a matter of finding what works for you. For me, thats not pure acceptance because I see it as a tool in the toolbox so I stay away from methods that promote that as the be all & end all because I know that a combined strategy is better, just like how Weekes' promotes not allowing it to rule your life as well as floating, acceptance, etc.
I don't believe there is a single method or therapy that addresses everything, there are far too many factors including physical ones. There is also the issue of science moving on and much more is known about OCD thesedays.
Hi Terry,
Thanks for your words!
--------------------------------------------------
Hi Zeros,
How is the accepting going for you? Are you able to let go of the tight hold you have on yourself and go into the tension the symptoms, or do you find yourself holding on, afraid to fully let go?
If I could offer you some advice, it would be, don´d be afraid of letting yourself fall apart!
We hold into ourselves think that if we let go ¨our house of cards will fall down,¨ as Weekes said! But it doesn´t, the only thing that happens is the tension eventually subsides!
Loosen them shoulders, arms, and let your tummy drop! And repeat!
Let everything fall, your body sag, take deep breaths and go limp!
I know it ain´t easy!! That´s for sure, but continued practise is slowly getting me there! I hope it does for you too!
Best,
Jon :)
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