Sweating in the hot yoga room, I work to hold the pose. I fell, but try again. And again. It’s a challenging experience, so struggle is normal and expected. The teacher reminds us to pay attention to our breath. While we can’t control the heat or how long she holds the position, we can control our response to help us stay calm and focused during the challenge.
Despite the discomfort, I try to inhale and exhale slowly—a count of four to six for inhalation and four to six for exhalation. I call it my yoga breathing and it helps me deal with them stress situations both on and off my mat, including the frustrations of living with hearing loss.
What is yoga breathing?
When practicing yoga, the goal is to inhale and exhale through the nose, with a balanced length and depth of inhalation and exhalation. For example, if you breathe in for four counts, you breathe out for four counts. Keeping your mouth shut shows the body that everything is fine and lets the body nervous system to relax and bring a sense of peace.
Why does mindful breathing help us relax?
The human autonomic nervous system consists of two main parts: the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s response to perceived threat or stress (fight or flight), and the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls homeostasis (rest and digestion). During fight or flight, breathing slows and speeds up to increase oxygen flow and prepare our body for action. In relaxation and digestion, the opposite happens – breathing becomes deeper and slower, bringing the body back to rest.
These responses are automatic, but you can trigger them remember breathing Three slow, mindful breaths are all it takes to relax and digest, lower our blood pressure and heart rate. It’s like a switch that tells the body it can rest because everything is fine.
Shortness of breath and hearing loss
Hearing loss is stressful.
Can I enjoy this party with friends if they forget to talk at the same time?
How can I understand the doctor’s instructions behind the mask?
What if this Zoom meeting doesn’t have a header?
Just participating in a conversation with hearing loss can be exhaustingespecially difficult. It’s like a game of Wheel of Fortune where some of the letters are filled in and others are missing. We use speech reading and other strategies to fill in these gaps so we can understand what people are saying. But then, of course, we’re not done, because now we have to answer. It requires a lot of mental energy and does not always work perfectly, it creates stress, frustration and even creativity anger.
But negative emotions cannot solve communication problems. In fact, stress can trigger fight or flight – the opposite of the calm self-awareness mindset we need to communicate well. Mindful breathing can help.
Not when I encounter a particularly frustrating listening experience to be in a panic or giving up, I try to just breathe. With three mindful breaths, I slow my heart rate and move my body into a more relaxed state. Then I can easily shift my focus from worrying about what I’m not hearing to taking the steps I need to communicate better.
Listen your way to better conversations
One tool I rely on is HEAR, which we introduce Hear and Beyond: Living Smartly with Hearing Loss. HEAR helps you assess any hearing situation, evaluate possible solutions, and advocate for your needs:
- H- Hearing test: Assess the condition of the ear. Can you hear the person you are talking to? If not, a change is needed.
- E – Rating: Consider what solutions might help given the specific problem you’ve identified. Some may be environmental (moving to another location), while others may involve communication partners (requiring them to speak louder or slower).
- A – express: Let your communication partners know what helps you understand them better so you can participate. Hearing loss is invisible, so if you don’t express your need, change is unlikely.
- R – Review and Reminder: If environment or your hearing partners change, repeat the steps. Sometimes gentle reminders are needed even during the conversation if our communication partners revert to the old way of speaking.
Just breathe…
But maybe the first real step is just to breathe.
Back in the yoga room, I don’t panic when I fall out of a pose for the third time. I take a breath and try again. The next time a conversation overwhelms you, try the same thing: take three slow breaths before answering.
Copyright: Shari Eberts. A version of this post also appears on LivingWithHearingLoss.com.
