Asthma

I'm going to follow my last post, which I entitled Asthma Treatments Part 1, for want of a more creative title with a continuation of the kind of perhaps unconventional but effective asthma treatments I've tried with varying amounts of success. The last post dealt with probably my most successful type of asthma treatment, that of relaxation.

Now I'm going to take that one step further and let you know how I also use mental conditioning as well as relaxation techniques to warn off an iminent asthma attack when I feel one coming on.

The signs are very recognisable for me, so I know the instant an asthma attack is about to grip me. Well, I stop whatever it is I'm doing and take a very slow, very deep breath, mentally telling myself that I'm fine and I'm just going to relax. The mental state is very important because as soon as you start to subvocalise that an asthma attack is coming, its going to come no matter what you do and then its a mad scramble for the inhaler. Which is exactly what I try to avoid as much as possible.

So its a state of mind that helps enormously, because I know full well from when I first started using these asthma treatment techniques that if you can feel an asthma attack coming on, then taking a deep breath is absolutely the last thing you want to do, because of the panic that sets in and that breath gets restricted to the point where you start to feel you can't breathe.

So it has to be nipped in the bud.

I do that with positive thought, telling myself that I'm fine, I feel fine and I just want to take a very slow, deep breath to relax a little. Honstly, it works for me now, althouigh at the outset I found it difficult which is understandable, I think.

The mental trick is to tell yourself something positive.

If you tell yourself "I'm not going to have an asthma attack," you'll likely get one. That's because it doesn't matter whether you're thinking I'm having an attack or I'm NOT having an attack, your subconscious only gets the "attack" part and that's what you get.

So you have to trick your mind with positive thought and tell it "I'm fine," or "I feel good," or "I feel calm and relaxed," or something similar. That way, the subconscious gets the "feeling fine," or "feeling good" part and that's what it makes more of.

I know it will take time to master that part of it, as at first your mental thought process will fight with you because even though you say you're fine, your body knows it's a lie. So there will be a bit of mental juggling going on at first, but after a few goes, you'll surprise yourself by staving off the imminent asthma attack.

Really!

I'll write another post soon with some more things that I do as alternative asthma treatments that I know from personal experience work for me.

Chelsea