IBS and Breathing Habits
#218989 - 10/11/05 06:16 PM
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hawkeye
Reged: 06/16/03
Posts: 705
Loc: NYC
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Hi everyone,
I'm interested in doing a little poll - have you noticed, as I have, that your breathing seems connected to IBS attacks?
When I'm having an attack I'm often short of breath, and breathing shallowly. I always wonder, if the cramping in my stomach is causing me to flex fwds which constricts my breath OR what I think is more likely, that my shallow breathing and sometimes held breath is one factor in bringing on an IBS attack.
I've noticed this since I was a kid - but somehow never was curious enough to really investigate it until now. I'm paying a lot of attention to my breathing lately...I could be completely off base on the ibs connection, but it certainly can't hurt to improve my breathing either way.
Let me know what you think,
Dan
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Ladies & gentlemen take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice.
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Well, shallow breathing and anxiety go hand-in-hand. If you are breathing shallowly, it means your body is feeling tense. This alone can lead to an attack!
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Christine
Those who can do; those who want it done better teach.
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Hi there. I can definitely relate, but I'm not sure (for me) if the breathing patterns are physical (i.e. moving in and out of the stomach like you said) but rather pyschological/stress-anxiety related.
I know that I can usually stop or ease a mild attack by deep, slow, focussed meditative breathing. And if I'm really anxious about something that will usually bring on an attack - and anxiousness is usually accomanpanied, for me, by breathing more quickly.
But I'm not sure if it's so much the breathing as much as it is the anxiety that's bringing on both the attack AND the quicker breathing. (Does that make sense?) Slow breathing slows my anxiety... which slows the attack.
Hope that's helpful to you! 
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Come to think of it, I do kind of breathe differently, but I think it's more of deliberate long breaths, trying to calm myself.
The thing I do the most is rock. Whenever I'm on the edge of my seat, rocking back and forth, my hubby immediately says, "How's the tummy?", knowing I'm having an attack. He said it's a dead give-away. I wasn't aware that I do it, but now that I think of it, yeah I guess maybe I do.
I also shake my right leg, up on my toes, kind of uncontrollably.
We're just spastic! Ain't it fun?!
Bev
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<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~letsrow/smily3481.gif">Bevvy
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hey!
#219111 - 10/12/05 09:29 AM
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jenX
Reged: 08/11/03
Posts: 3252
Loc: Richmond, VA
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i rock, TOO!
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Me too. -nt-
#219112 - 10/12/05 09:35 AM
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Snorkie
Reged: 02/15/05
Posts: 1999
Loc: Northern Illinois, USA
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Yes what you say makes sense, I think you don't have to pinpoint whether its the anxiety or the physical act of breathing - its both. I've had ibs a long time now at least 20 years, and I've done enough talk-therapy for now. Now I'm approaching the physical side of things to affect the psychological. It works in both directions.
For instance when I'm getting anxious, my posture is usually rounded fwd a lot. If I work on releasing the muscles pulling me inward and become more upright, I find that my anxiety actually eases a little. Even if the anxiety is about something real that is worrying me. Its somehow harder to be anxious when you don't "embody" it. So I do believe that these things are all interconnected.
Dan
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Ladies & gentlemen take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice.
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