Eight Twelve Twenty

If you believe you may have an anxiety disorder or just don't know, contact a mental health professional; many services including in the San Diego area are covered by Medi-Cal. Consult your doctor before following any health advice.

It can happen while you are driving around and feel your heart palpitating a little. Could that be serious? It used to happen to me all the time, and I was afraid to even go to sleep sometimes.

I didn't know that I was experiencing anxiety attacks. I was gulping air, faster and faster, and still thinking that I wasn't getting enough oxygen or something.

The doctor put me on a medication, and it stabilized me within a few weeks. He told me that I was breathing so hard that I was cyanotic. I stopped taking the medication abruptly as I didn't know about titrating or risking possible seizures.

By the time I stopped taking the meds, I had taught myself breathing exercises that work for me, in my particular situation, quite well. I tried yoga first but those people are all so uptight.

If you have ever participated in endurance training like running, then you already understand rhythmic breathing, for lack of a better phrase.

At the start of a run, it's optimal to get into a breathing rhythm right away. My way, was counting out numbers while I exhaled in tiny bursts. One-exhale, two-exhale, three-exhale, four-exhale, five-exhale, six-exhale seven-exhale, eight-exhale, until my lungs didn't have hardly any air left, then, a tiny inhale, and then a pause.

The first time I count to eight; the second time I count to twelve, and then keep repeating briefly until the rhythm sets in. You know you are in proper synchronization when you are striding with minimal effort and are repeating long beats like four-counts to sips of air.

Oxygen is an accelerant; hence you only need sips.

snip

When I got home, I jumped into the pool and floated on a huge innertube, staring at the bottom. The colliding surface waves refracted bright sunshine as intertwined strands and cords of pure light on the bottom of the pool. They crashed against each other violently and I closed my eyes. When I opened them a few moments later, the refracted rays were bouncing a bit more slowly against each other. I closed my eyes again and again, until the bottom was a diffuse pattern of calmly undulating rays. I could see a spider on the bottom of the pool. About two feet below the surface, a single particle of vegetation hung weightless in suspended motion.