A common problem at this stage is the tendency to control the breathing, and this makes the breathing uncomfortable. To overcome this problem, imagine that you are just a passenger in a car looking through the window at your breath. You are not the driver, nor a `back seat driver’, so stop giving orders, let go and enjoy the ride. Let the breath do the breathing while you simply watch without interfering.
I discovered something interesting regarding this yesterday. I mentioned that when I breathe too much, I get paraesthesias (feeling of numbness and tingling).
Well, now I’ve noticed that checking to see whether I have paraesthesias also causes paraesthesias. I don’t know if this is true of everyone, but just thinking “I wonder if my face is tingling right now” causes my face to tingle quite perceptibly.
I think this was at the root of a lot of my worries over breathing “wrong”.
I did something like that the other week. I was lying in bed and I noticed a band of tingly numbness across the top of my head. I decided to try to deliberately extend the feeling across my whole head and got a bunch of perceptible twitching in various facial muscles as a result.
Here’s some advice from a guy named Ajahn Brahm:
I also had this problem for a while.
I discovered something interesting regarding this yesterday. I mentioned that when I breathe too much, I get paraesthesias (feeling of numbness and tingling).
Well, now I’ve noticed that checking to see whether I have paraesthesias also causes paraesthesias. I don’t know if this is true of everyone, but just thinking “I wonder if my face is tingling right now” causes my face to tingle quite perceptibly.
I think this was at the root of a lot of my worries over breathing “wrong”.
I did something like that the other week. I was lying in bed and I noticed a band of tingly numbness across the top of my head. I decided to try to deliberately extend the feeling across my whole head and got a bunch of perceptible twitching in various facial muscles as a result.