Keyboarding, screens and breathing

Did you know you may be experiencing brief moments of apnea while keyboarding on your devices? You do not have to be sleeping to experience sudden or longer term effects of apnea. You can be wide awake, not even noticing your breathing slowing, becoming shallow, or even halting momentarily while you are typing away, often relating to the nature of your content or the presence of irritating technical glitches.

This article looks at James Nestor's work on breathing practices for greater somatic and neurological wellness. As the article, and Nestor himself note:

Breathing properly has an immense positive impact on our health and well-being. Slow breathing lowers our stress levels, increases focus, regulates our emotions and even helps us make better decisions. Luckily, Nestor feels confident that it's possible to retrain your body to breathe well. "I think you can absolutely be a healthy breather looking at a screen, without a doubt," he said. https://www.npr.org/2024/06/10/1247296780/screen-apnea-why-screens-cause-shallow-breathing

In preventive mental health care we look for ways to short-circuit disruptive patterns that may be developing in our client's lives and to help retrain these for consciously chosen, healthier patterning. One technique I'm starting to use in my own keyboarding is periodically stopping to breath out slowly through a long, narrow drinking straw in taking intentional "exhalation breaks" in my work day.

This technique comes from singing training for improving diaphragmatic strength in breath control, in which singers sometimes use a straw for compressed exhalation, or for slowly blowing bubbles in a glass of water, or combined with low humming through the straw, using it like a kazoo. All of these have their own benefits, but simple straw exhalation is a start to slowing your mind and body down in your work day. Here's a video to help you get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyMH1nbMbH0

Please note that this technique is not for everyone, especially if you have asthma. It is not an empirically driven, evidence based therapeutic tool, but simply an easily accessible one that you may find helpful in your work day.

So the next time you get caught in lengthy or exasperating periods of typing or texting, pause at intervals to reflect on your posture, and especially your breathing in response to your concentration on that tiny keypad or keyboard.