This is the third installment in a three-part article series accompanying the video How To Get Through Air Hunger, with Simon Spire (available on the LNB homepage). This third article includes a text version of the third section of the video (15:55-26:20), which provides context for understanding the process of restoring natural breathing and our program, Liberating the Natural Breath, which is designed specifically to help people suffering from non-medical air hunger (also sometimes referred to as chronic breathing tension, hyperventilation, breathlessness, shortness of breath, pseudo-dyspnea, or chronic sighing).
Help for Those Struggling with Air Hunger
and Chronic Breathing Tension
In this final article, I’ll share understandings around why restoring natural breathing typically requires being in a process rather than finding a quick fix, along with some information about Liberating the Natural Breath, which is the online course we offer to help people get through air hunger.
Let’s return to a point made in the first article: What causes air hunger? The short answer is it’s the result of accumulated habitual tension and interference with your natural breathing, which causes you to get stuck in a self-reinforcing pattern of trying to compensate with effortful chest-breathing or with some other variation of tense and dysfunctional breathing.
The important question now of course is, how do we get out of this pattern? Essentially, it’s a process of, first, learning to recognize and gradually release your habitual interference, and second, learning to sense into and allow more of the natural movement of your breathing that wants to happen. So we unwind the habitual interference and tension that’s throwing everything off, and we reawaken the movement of our natural breathing that has been restricted.
This might be a good time to address one question that can arise for people. If natural breathing just happens on its own, then why can’t you just ignore the whole thing and feel better? Well, you can always try, and if that works, great. Some people are able to let go of some patterns of tension simply by understanding that their interference is at the root of the problem, and that’s one function these public videos on YouTube can sometimes serve. We’ve heard from a number of people over the years who read an article of mine or watched a video, some understanding clicked, and then things began heading in the right direction and they found relief. However, we have found that those stories are usually the exception rather than the rule, and most of us don’t succeed with that approach alone, because there’s more happening beneath the surface that’s not yet obvious. These unconscious habits and tension can often make change difficult and keep people stuck. That’s why most people need more of a process to restore their easy, resilient breathing. And that’s why we created our online course and community.
You may be asking, why is this a process? Why isn’t there some simple breathing pattern I can adopt and be cured? One factor is that your natural breathing is too intricate and involuntary for you to successfully control it in the ways you’re used to.
On top of that, air hunger is by nature a little tricky. The forced chest-breathing pattern you get into—what we call the “reaching for air” habit—has its own self-reinforcing dynamics. So as you start to gently ease off of some of your interference, such as your active involvement in the “reaching for air” habit and the compulsion to try to force a big breath to an artificial completion, the dynamics that have already been set up by the pattern will try to keep pulling you back into it. So you try to let it go, but it keeps pulling you back in.
Another reason it can feel very stubborn is that your air hunger pattern didn’t arise out of nowhere; it most likely arose as a compensation for already compromised breathing. So the underlying constriction that contributed to the pattern is still there, and now there’s also additional tension from the habit itself. So you’ve probably found that as you try to let go of forcibly reaching for air, these other dynamics often push you back into that pattern.
In Liberating the Natural Breath, we work through how to navigate these various dimensions. And there’s an art to this process: We’re learning to allow. Sometimes there’s nuance and subtlety involved, sometimes there are layers to explore. Often our breathing struggles are a symptom of deeper disruptions in our physicality or nervous system or experience that are asking for our attention. That’s why we’ve created a comprehensive course to guide you through the process.
For the purposes of this article, one thing I’ll mention is that the most reliable way to move through this sticky situation is to gradually start turning down the volume on the various levels of your patterns all at the same time. This is what creates the space for movement and for change.
And if we can be gentle and gradual with our process, allowing our progress to move at its own pace rather than forcing it, then we’ll likely be on the quickest path to real change and real relief—which is different from frantically searching for quick fixes, which are typically very temporary, if they even exist. Of course, if you happen to find a simple shift or fix that works for you and you feel improvement, then that’s great. But for most people, it’s going through a process of change that really makes the difference.
Liberating the Natural Breath
Navigating this process is exactly what Liberating the Natural Breath, the online course we offer to help people get through air hunger, is designed for. We’re committed to providing a path forward for those struggling with this condition, and our intention with Liberating the Natural Breath is to ensure there is a reliable destination for resources and community specifically serving those with air hunger or chronic breathing tension.
We recently launched an updated version of the course which can be found on our website. All of the video modules and reference material is self-paced and available to you at any time. And then there are also some live and interactive components, such as the monthly Zoom meetings we host and the online community forums. We encourage you to take full advantage of it all, including the monthly meetings if you can make them, because the sense of being in a supportive community is especially strong there and you can learn a lot by hearing about other people’s experiences and our discussions with them and we have some wonderful community members there learning from and supporting one another.
Liberating the Natural Breath is designed for people who want to get through air hunger and who are ready to be in a process with their breathing. It provides the tools, practices, knowledge, and guidance you’ll need to be in that process of restoring your natural, easeful breathing.
One thing this requires is a form of daily practice that we explore in detail in the course which comes from the Alexander Technique but that we’ve adapted and shaped specifically to be used for working with air hunger. This involves putting aside about 10-15 minutes a day to be in a setting where you can unwind the habits and tension that interfere with your natural breathing while allowing and inviting more of the inherent movement of your breath. We provide detailed guidance on how to do this through video instruction, guided recordings, and written instruction, and this daily practice is something that continues to unfold the more you engage with it—because you’re in this process of getting to know your nervous system, your breathing habits, and your emergent natural breathing.
Another major component of the course is applying what you are learning to your everyday life and activities, and you’ll find a lot of in-depth instruction and practices around that, too. We also cover areas such as the psychological or nervous system sources of breathing disruption, physical activity and exercise, stressful situations, and other common experiences. All of this can be found in 15 video modules as well as resources such as a comprehensive reference guide and accompanying course workbook. Spending some time with these various resources helps you to develop your understanding and awareness, which really is key, because if you don’t understand how the breathing disruption is being created, you’ll keep getting in your own way and recreating the same patterns that are at the root of your difficulties.
On top of working with the modules, your daily practice, and your everyday activities, further support is available for those who want it or feel they might benefit from it. Our monthly Zoom meetings, as I said, are a great opportunity for that, and you can also submit questions within the modules and community forums. Beyond this, we provide information and recommendations for finding optional in-person support in your local area, as some people benefit from hands-on guidance from a skilled somatic practitioner during certain phases of their process.
So what you’ll be doing in the course is engaging with the modules and resources as you build your understanding and as you learn and apply the practices and tools. We like to encourage people to let their progress unfold organically and gradually, while staying with their learning edge; this is the most reliable way to continue progressing, rather than either pushing too hard or being too passive, both of which tend to keep us stuck in our existing patterns. As you follow this path using the course guidance, the overall trajectory is one of growing ease and relief as your breathing moves toward its natural coordination.
We want to encourage you to consider joining this online course and community, because there are a number of factors that we believe make it a uniquely helpful and supportive structure for restoring your breathing.
First, it’s designed specifically for people with Air Hunger. This is not the case with most breathing methods, which is significant, because Air Hunger is a very specific and stubborn pattern that requires a different approach.
Second, the program is based on the principles of a well-established body of work—the Alexander Technique—that has been around for over a century and is taught all over the world, including at the university level. The course is not exclusively about the Alexander Technique, and we adapt and focus its applications specifically for Air Hunger and natural breathing, but the integrated understandings of how the body and how breathing function that form the basis of the Alexander Technique also form the basis of this course. This approach is quite different from methods of trying to adopt some external pattern of correct breathing, and we think this difference in approach is crucial for people with air hunger, because when you have air hunger, trying to impose a new pattern from the outside can often create more disruption and tension.
Finally, Liberating the Natural Breath has been conceived, created, and co-facilitated by someone who actually experienced serious air hunger for years, managed to get through it, and has spent years studying the process of how to restore natural breathing.
So I know what the process of getting through it involves, and I know that you can get through it and be free again, and that doing so isn’t particularly mysterious or magical, it’s simply a process of coming home to how your body naturally wants to breathe. I also know what it’s like to be stuck in air hunger without any support, which is why we’ve poured so much time and energy into creating this program, and why, after three years of developing and refining how to best guide and teach this process in an online setting, we’re now sharing it more widely.
We hope you find these public videos and resources helpful and that you consider joining our community. Whatever you decide for your next steps, remember that your body knows how to breathe and that our breath is our teacher. Our breath is teaching us to inhabit our body, our nervous system, our whole self. And as we learn to listen, it will lead us toward integration and ease.
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Learn more about our resources, including Liberating the Natural Breath, on our breathing homepage.
Read the other articles and videos in this series on our breathing resources page.
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The materials on this page and the associated online course are not intended to address medical conditions or mental health conditions. These materials and any associated services are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment. Emergent Inquiry, LLC recommends that you consult your physician regarding the applicability of any information to your individual situation and utilize the guidance contained in the course Liberating the Natural Breath before attempting to apply these principles to your own breathing. Full terms of service can be viewed here.