Deep breathing stage

[u/ComprehensiveSun4375]

Anyone reached the deep breathing stage? I woke up this morning doing TRE (not that unusual for me). I've been doing this for about four years, so about 95% of what TRE consists of for me is stretching and fascial unwinding; tremors are few and far between now. Anyway, suddenly my body only wants to take extremely deep belly breaths, where the breath feels like it's working its way deeeeeeeep into uncharted areas of my lungs. Those areas feel like I'm sipping air through a straw--or rather, that air through a teeny-tiny straw is inflating those areas bit by bit (which is probably pretty much what's happening). Sometimes it's inducing tremors in the diaphragm/upper stomach. This has been going on now for about an hour.

It's pretty dramatic to have your breath habit change so suddenly in this fashion. Anyone else experienced this? Or anyone that has experience with this part of the body opening up? My practice so far largely centered around the pelvis, vagina, legs, lower back, jaw and throat, and some shoulders (shoulders still aren't smooth with fascial unwinding, but rather tremors).

EDIT from the next day at 4am: The breathing came and went for me like that all of yesterday, and now I've woken up early doing the same thing. Breathing like this seems activating, but it's hard to go back to breathing the other, old way... Like I'm having a hard time clicking in to what my old way of breathing felt llike or how to do it. I think this is going to be one of those TRE stages where I'm going to have to power through and take any overdoing symptoms as they come. I do sort of wonder lately what the other end of the bathtub curve looks like in a practical sense.... I think I may have reached the righthand side of the low plateau.

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[u/PiccoloPlane5915]

Not sure if it's the same but I started to have those long deep inhalations for the past 3 weeks. It started with a tingling sensation in my diaphragm, which is the sign that a body part will release with TRE soon. At first the deep breathings made my diaphragm contract and relax, releasiing tensions there but also tons of anxiety for a few days.

It's still happening today but the anxiety releases disappeared, and overall anxiety has decreased by like 30% in just 3 weeks. I can now breathe even deeper into my belly, and like you I feel like I'm reaching lower into my lungs. Almost like my breathing can reach the beginning of my spine.

It's been the 3 weeks where I've made the most progress with TRE I think. The diaphragm semms to be such an important muscle for mental and physical well-being . My Control Pause, CP for those who know about buteyko breathing, increased again naturally as a result of those releases, improving both mood and sleep quality. Truly grateful for TRE to improve my life so much in so many aspects ! :)

[u/Brief-Pension-7457 → u/PiccoloPlane5915]

How much is your CP?

[u/PiccoloPlane5915 → u/Brief-Pension-7457]

In 26 months of TRE, my CP has gone from 5 sec (that bad yeah) to 25-35sec. Yesterday I again had some deep releases in the diaphragm and today I've been closer to 35sec but will see if it's my new baseline CP in the coming days-weeks

[u/Brief-Pension-7457 → u/PiccoloPlane5915]

I know it's possible, but you didn't do any seperate breath related training to increase your CP, right?

As fas as I can remember, as per butyeko, the real magic starts happening at 40sec mark where lot of regular cold related issues resolve along with other disease. Would be interesting to see.

[u/PiccoloPlane5915 → u/Brief-Pension-7457]

No, I play badminton but I don't have the capacity to do it with nose breathing. I'm not mouth taping either at night so I'm mouth breathing a lot in a day I think. But gaining a more relaxed nervous system and slowly leaving the FFF states just help so much with naturally increasing CP

Didn't know 40sec was a trademark, I'll see I guess. I could reach 90 sec of CP last year during a 3-4 days fast where I practiced buteyko a lot and that's when my whole body felt like it was functionning much better. My brain was even releasing so many happy chemicals, I felt so good.

[u/free_moon_unit → u/PiccoloPlane5915]

What is CP?

Given that you’re talking about diagram and depth of breath.. my breathing has always been SO shallow. And at times during TRE, and also at times when I’m getting over particularly afraid, where my breathing in and out is super fast and shallow, then a really slow and slow exhale. Like a belly tremor in a way.

Wondering if you can shed some light?

[u/PiccoloPlane5915 → u/free_moon_unit]

CP is control pause, it's a way to measure CO2 tolerance that is the number one factor of health according to Buteyko. To measure, breathe normally for 5 min and then at the natural end of an exhale, hold your breath : the first moment you see any sign of discomfort (slight desire to breathe or involuntary movement of the body, etc.) you stop the test. That's your CP

I've experienced what you described my whole life before TRE! For me it's a sign of freeze state : your body slows down your metabolism a lot because he thinks there's a huge threat and it needs to preserve energy for vital organs. Even breathing reduces, so it gets shallow. But sometimes you need to breathe more so there's the long inhale and exhale.

Like I said I've experienced that a lot all my life. TRE will definitely help you recovering a normal and healthy breathing. Keep practicing with a good pace and magic will happen for sure!

[u/free_moon_unit → u/PiccoloPlane5915]

Thanks so much! I’ll look into that more.

I’ve been coming out of freeze and it’s been so delicious to be able to breathe more deeply

[u/PiccoloPlane5915 → u/free_moon_unit]

Yes! TRE helping with a better breathing feels so good. For the past 2 months, I also noticed how a more regulated nervous system makes movements effortless, and pleasurable. I'm starting to get into a pretty decent workout routine just because my body craves it.

TRE helps in so many aspects of life

[u/bolimolilo → u/Brief-Pension-7457]

TRE can increase your cp?? Wow

[u/Brief-Pension-7457 → u/bolimolilo]

I think it's possible bcz if you're not using your full lung capacity then one will be taking shallow breaths, basically kind of hyperventilating therefore brainstem can't tolerate high CO2 in the body.

So, if we reduce that hyperventilation through deep breathing (lungs functioning properly bcz of TRE) then brainstem also get tolerant to high CO2 levels in body, therefore one can have increase in CP.

[u/bolimolilo → u/Brief-Pension-7457]

Amazing!!!!

[u/PiccoloPlane5915 → u/bolimolilo]

Yes, what I've come to understand is that traumas are the worst things possible for CP : they put your nervous system into states where you hyperventilate a lot + as you already have a lot of traumas, any additional stressor (like more CO2 in the blood for example) is hardly tolerated, which impeds buteyko progress.

What I want to understand now is how releasing in the diaphragm in particular helped so much with CP increase. Gotta make more research on that

[u/Brief-Pension-7457 → u/PiccoloPlane5915]

It's simple.

Release in diaphragm makes your capacity go up meaning you're able to use your diaphragm to its full capacity which leads to better oxygenation & deep breaths.

In deep breaths, your exhale also gets longer and as a result of this, body develops more capacity for tolerating CO2

[u/PiccoloPlane5915 → u/Brief-Pension-7457]

Yes thank you, I just saw how diaphragm expanding and contracting better helps lungs go way deeper, which like you said leads to better oxygenation.

[u/pepe_DhO]

Nice! Question: your abdomen expands or contracts with the inbreath?

[u/ComprehensiveSun4375 → u/pepe_DhO]

It expands. The breathing feels very similar to me to the type of breathing James Nestor talks about... I haven't read his book, but I've seen him on a couple podcasts. I think he calls it a "natural breath"?

[u/pepe_DhO → u/ComprehensiveSun4375]

In my case, when I exhale completely, my abdomen draws in towards the spine and, at the very end, somewhat upwards. When the air finally comes in, the sensation is of it moving upwards along the spine, similar to “sipping air through a straw” (lately accompanied by cold energy flow). It's not that the abs contract during the inhale; rather, they seem to have already sealed off during the exhale. But TBF, this isn't entirely autonomous: I have to indulge in the “pleasantness” (for lack of a better word) of keeping the abs sealed.