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Holding a bated breath

It has only recently come to my attention that slow breathing might help to prevent Alzheimer’s. I suppose I’m rather slow off the mark on this one -breath control has been taught for millennia in various forms- but my concern about memory and the general scaffolding of my neurons only emerged when I began to stumble into my dotage. There are those who have hinted that I may have waited too long however; they seem to imply that I was never in possession of a reliable calendar system and point to my many late -or absent- appearances at functions for which I had never exhibited a desire to attend in the first place. Perhaps they’d noticed that I had been breathing incorrectly for a long time, but were too polite to point it out to me. Given that I am pretty sure I’ve never had any reliably polite friends, I am inclined to doubt this viewpoint.

But whatever, I am now aware that Science is finally beginning to worry about its abysmally slow progress in dealing with dementia (apart from its success in housing its failures in separate, often locked, facilities); I am grateful however that its patina of omniscience is beginning to crack just as my need for alternative remedies is rising. I am also hopeful that a lifetime of miscreant breathing can hopefully be salvaged without having to do a Google search for local Pranayama yoga retreats, or admitting to those friends who still talk to me, that they were on to something.

And it seems like a simple thing: count to five as you inhale, then to five again as you exhale; I don’t need a guru to teach me how to do that. Still, it sounds a little too simple. I mean if it is so good for us, why didn’t evolution slot it into the genes, or something?

Anyway, a while ago I decided to give it a try -nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose. I tried counting each phase meticulously for a while, but I had to do it silently I soon realized: it is devilishly difficult to inhale while counting out loud. But I suppose during the learning phase of anything there are always things you have to amend. For example, it’s really embarrassing when you gasp, even rhythmically, in public. In fact, the first and only time I tried my slow breathing in a coffee shop, complete with undisguisable rasping gasps, the partner of a man at the next table had to restrain him from running over and Heimliching me.

No, one has to learn the wheres and whens of a new, albeit developing, skill. I decided to try it on the porch with only the squirrels and birds as witnesses. I did notice a relative paucity of birdsong with its inception I have to admit, and it seemed to me there were more than the usual group of eyes watching me from the depths of the trees that ring my property. You have to expect this stuff, though; Nature takes time to accommodate to new activities, and anyway after a while, I found I was able to do it fairly noiselessly -apart from a few grunts, when I slipped up.

The trick for me, was actually staying awake for the full 20 minutes recommended for practicing it. I put that down to several factors: first, I find it difficult to rake the world with my eyes while my brain is concentrating on rhythmic breathing -so, I close them, and closed eyes have always meant meditating (or sleeping, which, for me, amounts to the same thing in the end); and second, just try taking rhythmic deep breaths for a while and tell me you don’t get dizzy. Okay, I admit that I might be doing it wrong, or too deeply, or holding my breath for too long, but the first few times I tried it, I got the same sensation as I used to get in those childhood hyperventilation games we used to play on the prairies where there was a lot of grass to cushion the fall. I’m not proud of all the things I did in then, but boredom often leads to joining a rough crowd. Anyway, I never got chosen to participate in either team in the pickup baseball games the kids used to play in the empty lot in front of the hospital, so I had to do something, don’t you think? Children are infinitely inventive.

Also, I lose count a lot -it’s part of the memory thing I suppose, but all and sundry who have witnessed my struggles from safe distance, tell me it will improve over time. Still, it’s the time part that worries me the most; it’s why I started the ridiculously excessive breathing in the first place: to gain time, not to fritter it away with syncopated panting. And anyway, if the exercise doesn’t produce the promised memory results fairly soon, I’m pretty sure I’m going to forget to do it regularly -or at all, actually.

But then, noticing my angst I suppose, one of my friends suggested an aide-memoire that had worked for her when she was also struggling. I had to fight a wry expression that often seems to surface on my lips when I have doubts about the credibility of the source (she, like me, often conveniently forgot about dates with me she had decided not to keep) but in the hopes of improved neural integrity, I decided to employ a prêt-à-porter smile for her.

“Why not put a breathing app on your phone, G?” I didn’t know they had such a thing, actually. “You can get one of the ones that you can set for how long you breathe in, hold, breathe out, then hold again. They also come with reminders for those who forget why they’ve been advised to do the breathing in the first place.”

“So does it make gasping sounds and everything?” I asked, just in case I’d turned up the phone volume and it went off in a store and someone in the same aisle actually made it over to resuscitate me with a basket of groceries.

“That’s just silly, G,” she said, frowning, and then walked away when she noticed a friend waving at her from across the street. It made me remember why we had so many cancelled dates…

At any rate I found a free app for my phone, and it doesn’t make any noise unless I tell it to. It has quite a hypnotic expanding and contracting multicoloured circle on it that vibrates when it’s time to inhale, and again when I am allowed to exhale. A reminder to do the breathing stuff is settable, of course, but I have always had problems programming digital things. And, apart from that, I think the app has one other major flaw: the circle is so engaging, and hypnotic, that I’ve yet to make it past, I don’t know, maybe 10 cycles before my head is resting on my chest.

And, if I’m answering a text, or trying to make a call somewhere in public, and I hit the wrong key, the program sometimes starts and somebody rushes over, thinking I’m having a stroke, or a mental health crisis.

Frankly, I’m pretty sure it’s not producing its promised results; I’m thinking of deleting the app, but I always forget…

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