Coping As A Caregiver: Part 5, Don't Forget To Breathe!

Barbara continues her series on caregiving and caregivers! In this talk she focuses on the power of breathing techniques and how breathe can actually give us a break. She describes three techniques to try and this talk includes a demonstration of one paced breathing count that you can breathe along to.

Transcript

Hi,

It's Barbara.

I'm a certified health and life coach and this is the fifth part in a series I'm doing on caregiving and caregivers.

I want you to know that I've been there personally.

I cared for my late husband as he battled a rare form of cancer.

But I do like to give the caveat.

Caregiving covers a lot of ground.

You could be caregiving for your children.

Caring for a spouse or partner.

Or caring for your own parents.

Today I was really reminded about how relentless caregiving can be.

I have this visual in my head of riding a merry-go-round.

Around and around and around.

Now it isn't always possible to stop the merry-go-round.

But you can step off from time to time.

And I wanted to share some thoughts I have on breathing that can be done anywhere at any time.

And what I like about breathing is when you use these techniques it actually fools your brain into thinking you're calm and relaxed.

Imagine your brain saying to itself,

Well if she's breathing this way she must be relaxed.

It's ways to use breath to override the stress response that we have in our bodies.

And I would argue as caregivers you might be experiencing the stress response so chronically that you don't even realize how on high alert your body is.

There was a study done by the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.

And this study set out to better understand how breathing affects our brains and our moods.

And what this study found,

And there's many other studies that back this up,

Is that when we're breathing rapidly or shallowly that can trigger feelings like anxiety,

Anger or fear.

And on the flip side when the participants in the study slowed down their breathing and were more intentional with their breathing there was a reduction in feelings of fear and anxiety.

So I'm back to thinking about that merry-go-round and that need we all have to step off and calm our emotions from time to time.

The website psychcentral.

Org has three breathing techniques that they suggest that you can try.

And the first one is breathing through your diaphragm.

And you know your diaphragm sits like just on top of your stomach.

And really that just means deep breathing more from your stomach rather than your chest.

And I sang in a choir all through high school and this is the type of breathing that singers rely on.

So what you want to do to sort of engage your diaphragm is you want to place your hand on your stomach and as you take a deep breath your hand should actually be pushed out.

You can actually feel your hand being pushed out.

So if you're having trouble with this,

If you're still stuck in your chest which is fine,

You can actually lie down flat and this will more automatically engage your diaphragm and you can get a sense of what it feels like to be breathing deeply using your diaphragm.

The second suggestion is to do some paced breathing.

And what I mean by that is there's many variations on this but I personally like this pace of using a 5-5-7 count.

So what I mean by that is you take a breath in for five through your nose and you hold the breath at the top for a count of five and then you release the breath out of your mouth for a count of seven.

So let's try this together now.

We'll do three and I invite you to close your eyes and I'm going to talk us through it.

So here we go.

We're going to breathe in for five.

We're going to hold it at the top and we're going to breathe out through our mouth for seven.

Let's go again in for five.

Hold it at the top and out for seven.

And last one in for five.

Hold it at the top and out for seven.

Oh I really personally like that one.

I find it so centering.

So finally psychcentral.

Org suggests combining meditation with breathing and I'm going to quote them here.

They say on your inhale think the number one to yourself and on your exhale think the word relax.

And on the next inhale it's number two and on your exhale think relaxed.

So you want to repeat that until you reach ten.

So again to recap there's three easy techniques you can try.

Breathing purposely with your diaphragm.

Doing some pace breathing.

That's that five five seven count.

And using meditative breathing that combines or attaches words or mantras with the inhale and the exhale.

And this is something that can make a difference even if you do it for two minutes a day.

It's just something to keep in your back pocket for when you need to regroup.

Thanks for tuning in and thank you for your caregiving.

Reviews

Thanks for making this valuable resource for caregivers. I am grateful to have found you. 🙏 I have used all three of these breathing techniques WHEN I remember them. When I don’t remember them I feel anxious and stressed and hopeless - not a good place to be. ‘Breathe’ is one of my mantras. When I catch myself in that state and remember to breathe, I feel so much better! Also I have been listening to Insight Timer for a few years and love their stress and anxiety meditations.
I hope you add to this series.
BTW I am fortunate to have a life coach who is invaluable to me! So, so helpful for me.

Sometimes I just want to hear someone as if they were talking both in a conversational and personal way - and Barbara does that. Thank you… the breathing tip is good. I like imagining that my body can read my breath.

Liked the breathing styles meditative worked for me. Please keep these sessions coming as they are relaxing.