59 - Vikki Jones - Long Covid, Trauma & Breathing

Episode 59 of the Long Covid Podcast is a chat with the fabulous Vikki Jones, personal trainer, dietitian, wellness coach and former international athlete. Vikki is suffering with Long Covid and has developed a passion for breathing and helping others going through the "longhaul experience"

We chat through all sorts of things from her own experiences, the collective trauma we all suffer as well as some practical advice for things we can do NOW to improve our breathing.

Patrick McKeown - The Breathing Cure
Vikki's Oxygen Advantage page

(Transcript now live & checked for errors - thanks for your patience!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Long Covid Podcast is self-produced & self funded. If you enjoy what you hear and are able to, please Buy me a coffee or purchase a mug to help cover costs.

Share the podcast, website & blog: www.LongCovidPodcast.com
Facebook @LongCovidPodcast
Instagram & Twitter @LongCovidPod

For more information about Long Covid Breathing, their courses, workshops & other shorter sessions, please check out this link

(music - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Fuller Butz: A Behind the Scenes Plastic Surgery Podcast
Board Certified Plastic Surgeons Dr. Sam Fuller and Dr. Dan Butz discuss hot topics!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Transcript

Welcome to the long COVID podcast with me, Jackie Baxter. I'm really excited to bring you today's episode. Please check out the podcast website, longCOVIDpodcast.com, where there's a collection of resources, as well as a link to the Facebook support group. If you're able to, please consider supporting the show using the link in the show notes. If social media is your thing, you can follow me on Facebook @LongCOVIDpodcast, or on Twitter and Instagram, both @LongCOVIDpod. I'm really keen to hear from you. If there's anyone you'd like to hear on the podcast, or if you've got any other feedback, please do get in touch through any of the social media channels, or email LongCOVIDpodcast@gmail.com. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. So here we go.

Jackie Baxter  0:00  
Hello, and welcome to this episode of the long COVID Podcast. I am absolutely delighted to be joined today by Vikki Jones; personal trainer, dietician, wellness coach and former international athlete who also has long COVID, as well as a passion for breathing. So we're gonna be talking about all sorts of things, but probably quite a lot about breathing. So, welcome to the podcast.

Vikki Jones  0:24  
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jackie Baxter  0:26  
It's wonderful to have you here. So to begin with, would you mind just introducing yourself a little and and what it is that you do?

Vikki Jones  0:34  
Okay, my name is Vikki Jones. I'm still in the long haul process, I think is funny, because if you're listening to this, you probably got long haul. We've gone back to our birthing timeline of - we say how long we've had long haul for in a matter of months. So I'm a 27 monther. I'm not, you know, a year in whatever it's like, I'm 27 months in. I got COVID back in July 2020. And prior to getting COVID, I was teaching fitness classes, was a golf fitness coach, and personal trainer, wellness coach. Back in my earlier days in my youth, I was involved in sport and modern pentathlon, and also triathlons. So that was kind of my background as an athlete. And I considered myself fit, healthy, strong when I got COVID. 

So it was for many of us, I mean, you just get blindsided by COVID. That's the number one thing. And then the whole journey of long COVID is just that roller coaster. And, you know, for people that were the initial COVID people, those are the ones that seem to be hanging on to the long COVID the longest because it was the very different variant. And, you know, back then nobody knew about long COVID. You know, when we got COVID, and then we didn't recover, it was like What on earth is going on with us? And I was in that situation, I'm here in America. And it was my family in England that said, you know, Vikki, you need to start looking into this long COVID or Long Haul COVID. And I started reading about it. And I was like, oh my goodness, here we go. Or I didn't think here we go. Because we don't think that, we don't have that idea that this is going to be a journey of X number of months, we think that this is going to be I don't know, a couple of weeks, you know, because that's what COVID is, isn't it? It's like, you know, maybe two weeks at the most. 

But long COVID is so different from that. And it's so misunderstood. And the community of people that have got long COVID are the community of people that are actually supplying the answers to what it is. Which is really unheard of, in most medical diagnosis. It's like, okay, we know what this is, and we know how to treat it. That's not what long COVID is, they didn't know what it was. So we're all coming forward. And we're saying this is what we're suffering with. And some people listen, and some people don't.

Jackie Baxter  3:44  
Yeah, I mean, the term long COVID was actually made by a patient themselves, wasn't it? So it you know, it's sort of turned medicine on its head a little bit.

Vikki Jones  3:53  
And it's turned us on our head! I mean, you know, we've always looked to medicine for answers. And suddenly, you know, we are having to almost - and I use the term so many times is - we have to doctor ourselves, because not one of us has the same experience on this journey as one other person. And I think that's also very difficult and frustrating for us to deal with. Like I said, there's not one of us who's had the same symptoms, the same severity, the same duration. We're all a mix match, and we're just put into this - We've got long haul COVID. And still you can talk to people today and they will look at you and they'll go well, you look good. You look great. And you'll just want to punch them. It's like you have no idea how I feel on the inside. 

And I think that's part of that whole - I hate to use this term - gaslighting, but it's that whole thing. It's like I don't believe that you're actually sick, because you don't look sick. And it's like, you know what, you need to walk in my shoes for a couple of months, years. And that's another frustrating thing. It's like often the people that are suffering with long COVID were fit, and healthy and strong before getting COVID. And people are like, Well, then why is this happening to you, you were the picture of health. And then you get that level bluh bluh bluh of trickle down from that. So it is big, big learning curve for ourselves, but also for our friends and our family and our co workers and, you know, everyone around us.

Jackie Baxter  5:47  
Yeah, it is, it's a huge impact on yeah, everybody that you come into contact with really isn't it, you know, it's completely turned my life on its head. But, you know, I think I sometimes get so fed up with how things are for me that I actually forget that, you know, it's completely changed things for my partner as well, you know, although he's not physically dealing with the symptoms, and the illness itself, he's definitely been hugely affected by it. So it's not just us,

Vikki Jones  6:16  
Our families, you know, maybe we've got partners, but our family, you know, I think they are as much on edge about our journey with this, because it's an unknown for them, too. And I don't know if this is this is usual, but often when we're not feeling good with whatever symptom we're dealing with, it's not something that we share with our sort of outer family, because we don't want to worry them. And so a lot of it is put on us, and our partners, you know, the people that are very close to us. 

But I know, you know, personally, there's a lot of times that I've been admitted to hospital, and I don't want to worry my family with what's going on. And my husband always says we can tell them afterwards, when you're okay, you know, because we, thankfully, we're still here to tell our story. And, you know, why would we worry them with the, you know, your mom's going to the hospital or your, you know, your sister is, so I think it's, that's another thing that's very, very strange about this illness, is that, how we hold on to it, because the sharing is sometimes difficult to do,

Jackie Baxter  7:39  
and exhausting as well. I found, you know, having to have conversations with friends or family where you explain, you know, I can't do this, I can't do this, this is what I need, this is what might happen. And you know, there's about a 50% chance that I'm probably going to cancel on you - explaining all of that, you know, you've got to have that conversation. But it's tiring having it over and over again. And I don't know about you, but I sort of tend to avoid people because I don't want to have the conversation because it's difficult and stressful. And, you know, all sorts of reasons. But then you know, you become more and more isolated, which is another problem. So it's hard.

Vikki Jones  8:20  
You know, when you're healthy, and you come into this. And then you suddenly realize that I have to carry a medical card on me at all times. Because heaven forbid, if something happens to me, I need the people around me to understand that this could be something that they might need to deal with. And it's so bizarre to have that. But yet for me, it has been so necessary, because to watch somebody with long haul symptoms, if they get very intense is scary for anyone. So to have that sort of This is what's going to happen to me, because I think we know what our symptoms sometimes manifest as - this is what's going to happen. This is how you can help me. And I've actually got it on the back of my phone, because I've got my phone with me most times and it's like, Please pull out this card and read, this is what I have. I'm not having a stroke. I'm not having a epileptic fit. It's just an explanation. And that's also something that's very foreign to me, but I know that it's it's helped. Because I can now say Alright, well I can go out and do this. Because if something does happen to me, the people around me will understand what's going on.

Jackie Baxter  9:45  
Yeah, that's actually a really good idea. And it would just kind of take a little bit of the worry away as well, I think knowing that it's there if you need it.

Vikki Jones  9:53  
Yeah, like the time when I'm walking around our local supermarket in my pajamas because I've forgotten to get dressed and someone finds my phone. They go, Oh, yeah, she's got brain fog, which actually happened. I was like, why am I here? What am I doing? Why am I still in my pajamas? You know what? It's a horrible thing to have happen. But I have amassed and pretty amusing stories about long COVID. But that's like I said, we're not here to talk about the humor of it. Because it is. It's not funny.

Jackie Baxter  10:27  
Yeah, I mean, it's a terrifying thing, isn't it? But my defense mechanism is to make fun and to laugh at things. Because that's how I deal with things. And you know, I think a lot of people are the same. You know, there's definitely some quite dark humor out there. 

Vikki Jones  10:41  
Yeah it's dark humor, because, like we said, we do try to find a little positive or a little sunshine in in our daily routine. And sometimes it's so bizarre, that it's actually quite amusing. 

Jackie Baxter  10:54  
Yeah! So are you able to talk a little bit about your sort of long COVID?

Vikki Jones  10:59  
Yeah, I mean, I got COVID, a mild case, I was hospitalized for pneumonia. But I was released from the hospital immediately. So I had like a lot of muscle aches and pains. I had pneumonia in my lungs. And then I lost my sense of smell and taste. And then I didn't get better. 

So one of the things that I think that we know now, but we didn't know back then was because I was an athlete, or I was healthy. I thought, You know what, even though I don't feel up to it, I'll go out for a walk. Or even if I don't feel up to it, I will try and do some sort of movement or workout. And I was doing that during my kind of COVID recovery. And I look back on that and think I probably caused more damage to myself. And the other thing is that those things usually make us feel better. And it didn't make me feel better at all. In fact, it made me feel worse, because the next day, I didn't understand it at the time, but I would have a huge relapse. 

And then things like my speech began to be affected, my neurological system like the brain fog, and fatigue, like I had never experienced. And my husband and I were living in a very small accommodation, and I could barely get from bed to bathroom. That's how tired I was. And I just remember thinking, I don't know what's going on, but I'm not getting better. So when I eventually tested negative, which was something like 60 days, you know, I kept testing positive. And I managed to get into a doctor. And I'm like I'm having all this brain fog, I'm having these neurological issues, and I had a great doctor, she sent me away for all these tests, and they all came back normal. 

And I'm like, You know what, I know, I'm not normal right now. And that's when you start looking. I mean, you know, you find a Facebook page, and you start looking into what is going on. So it was literally being bombarded with different symptoms that I had never experienced in my life. So incredible joint pain, or, you know, we talk about the brain fog, shortness of breath, you know, I was a runner, and I was an athlete, and I could barely breathe, I would try and hold my breath. I couldn't hold my breath. I couldn't even finish sentences when I was speaking. I got mouth sores throughout my mouth. And obviously, I had no sense of smell or taste. So I started losing a lot of weight. 

And then you kind of get a little recovery time where things just sort of settle down. And then it's almost like boom, here comes another set of symptoms. So then I started having heart rate issues where my heart rate would spike, or it would dip. And then the other symptoms I had were things like peripheral neuropathy, which is the burning of the feet, and the hands, especially at night, you'd wake up with literally burning feet. And they're all things that you start chasing an answer for. Not realizing that it's all coming from one thing. You know, it's coming from what we call long COVID. And whatever that may be is just sort of running rampant through your body. 

And I've also had what most people would look at as a seizure, but it's more a neurological issue where I'm actually unable to speak. And I find it very difficult to breathe and my muscles start going into massive tremors. And it lasts anywhere from a few minutes to 20 minutes. And then it passes. And after that for a couple of days, I will literally feel like I've run a marathon, the fatigue that it leaves in my body is very, very intense. And we know what it feels like when you do a really hard workout, everything hurts and you're really fatigued. But I've suffered with that. And I think that's the hardest thing, because those are things that people see. You know, a lot of the stuff is stuff that we feel. But when people see that I can't breathe, or I'm having these neurological episodes, then it's a visual that, Wow, something is wrong with that person. 

But over the 27 months, it it has been for me a roller coaster, it's like, you know, here's one set of symptoms, okay, those have kind of diminished now. Well, let's have a little bit of digestive issues here. And it's like this seesaw of, okay, I've got something going on, and the other thing stopped, and then it all switches around. And I know that all of those things add to the trauma that long COVID puts on us as human beings. So I always think of trauma as something that happens to us without our consent. And long COVID is one of those things. And symptoms aside, there are many, many different symptoms, we all suffer very differently. But what we're all suffering from is trauma. And so I think when we look for things that help us, we need to look for things that reduce the trauma that we are feeling on a day to day basis. And I think that's where the whole breathing thing comes in. We all need to breathe. And we are all suffering from trauma. So that is something that is a support to people with long COVID. Because breathing helps with trauma. 

Now, I can't say that breathing helps with long COVID. But breathing has helped with my trauma. And that's why I started studying it in such an in-depth way. Because we're all trying to grab at something that is going to help us. For all of us, it's something different. We're all grabbing at many, many different things. But you have to find that pillar that you can always go back to. So for some people it is you know, meditation, but for me it was breathing.

Jackie Baxter  18:14  
And then you've kind of just touched on this trauma issue. And I think it took me quite a long time to realize that that's what a lot of this actually was. You know that actually, you know, I was completely traumatized from the fact that I was lying in my bed thinking I was dying for like a year. And you know, of course that's traumatic, but you never really think about it at the time, you know, I think trauma is some - that's what soldiers get in wars. That's not what I have. I was just ill. But we're gaslighting ourselves when we do that, aren't we?

Vikki Jones  18:45  
Yes, yeah. And it wasn't something I learned about until someone said to me when I was doing my breathwork certification that, you know, breath work helps people with trauma. And then I'm sort of filling in the dots and going, well, that's what I've got. I've got trauma. I didn't ask for this. My whole life has changed without my consent. That is trauma. That's a definition of trauma right there. And that's why you can sort of bring people with long haul together. It's like, we can all be sympathetic to other people as long haul. We've all got a very different story. But what we've all got, we've all got trauma.

Jackie Baxter  19:28  
Yeah, it definitely brings us all together. Absolutely. And I love that you have actually done my job for me and brought this around to breathing. So I mean, yeah, breathing was definitely something that I - I was gonna say early on, it actually wasn't early on, but it was one of the first things that I kind of grabbed on to and you know, there are plenty of people like myself that actually as a result of COVID ended up with dysfunctional breathing. So there's a lot of people where that is a thing. So breath work is obviously hugely beneficial to them, but on top of that, you know, helping with a lot of the other symptoms it's huge, isn't it? It's an absolutely massive thing.

Vikki Jones  20:06  
So I mentioned I had pneumonia very, you know, severe shortness of breath. And someone suggested that I try this breathing exercise that was very well known. And I downloaded the app, and I'd lie in my bed and try and do these breathing exercises. I was like, Whoa, you know, this is making me worse. It was a lot of, you know, experiencing the air hunger and holding your breath. And you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, if I hold my breath, it's like a muscle, I'm making my lungs stronger. But it didn't, it actually made me worse. And so I put it on a back burner. I was like, well, this whole breathing thing, it kind of just disappeared from my thoughts. 

And it wasn't until nine months into COVID, long COVID, that I read an article in The Atlantic magazine that was put on the long COVID site, and it mentioned that Mount Sinai was doing a breathing program for people with long COVID. And it was a free program. So I signed up for it, because I thought, You know what, at that point, I was having relapses, left, right and center, you know, I was pretty much disabled by then. So disabled that when I sat for the session, my husband had to sit there with me, and write the notes and write everything because I really couldn't comprehend what was going on. 

But I was able to process it enough to think What they're saying is correct. But it was unattainable for me. So they were saying, Alright, so this is how we want you to breathe. And I was like, Yes, I kind of get that. I was a dysfunctional breather, which was a huge eye opener to me. Even as an athlete, you know, I learned that I was a dysfunctional breather. So I was thinking, okay, then now, this will all make sense to me, but I can't actually do it. So it was great, great program. But when you can hold your breath for less than three seconds, you've got a platform that you're trying to kind of get up from, but it's a very difficult first step. 

I kept at it. And, you know, it was like two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back, but I learned the biomechanics of breathing. And at that point, I started seeing a lot of benefit from it. I saw some incremental increases. And I thought, you know, this is great. But this needs to be modified for people with long COVID, a long COVID program needs to be modified for people with long COVID! But it was something that I really got on board with, because like I said, I could see it helping me. On my initial coursework with this breathwork program, I sat there with people lying in bed, you know, we're on a Zoom call and people on oxygen and people are in bed and just unable to breathe. And that was the first time I actually saw people that had long COVID. You know, I remember just sitting there crying, and thinking, this is horrible. And we need to do something that we can help people with. 

So I wanted to become certified as a breathwork instructor for long COVID people. And I reached out to this program and they said, you know, the guru of this is Patrick McKeown, who lives in Ireland, he is Buteyko method and Oxygen Advantage which you may or may not have heard of, but it is literally certifying people to either help people that are medically compromised with their breathing or to enhance their performance. And Patrick was my instructor. And he listened to me. We know when we've got long COVID most people don't listen to you. And he was so interested in my journey with long COVID and how it had affected my breathing. He was willing to entertain changing his ideas about what he was putting out there for long COVID breathing. And I think that I will forever be indebted to him for that because he listened and we started talking and coming up with breathing exercises based on my experience with my own breath work that will would suit people with long COVID.

And from there, we put together exercises, we really talked to other breathwork instructors about how to work with people with long haul, you know, because if you haven't had it, if you haven't experienced it yourself, it's very difficult to work with people with these symptoms. It's a very real thing. But it's very difficult if, like I said, if you haven't experienced it, how can you empathize with people that have it? And that's been kind of my journey. It was literally that along the way, you know, we're grabbing other things, what can I do? What supplements can I take what, you know, acupuncture, and grounding and all these other things, but it came back to What do I'm doing all the time, throughout the day, I'm breathing, I'm having panic attacks, I have a lot of anxiety, how can my breathing, support my body's healing, or just support my body. 

Because the thing is we breathe, how many times a day - I think it's 26,000 times a day. And if we're not breathing correctly, if we're not breathing to support our body, then we're actually adding to the problem. Or we're slowing down our recovery. So that's where the whole different exercises of breathing, learning to breathe when we sleep, because we all have dysfunctional sleepers. You know, we're long COVID, we're all lying on the couch all day exhausted, and then we go to bed, and we can't sleep. And so all these patterns of what should be our normal recovery time, get interrupted with long COVID. And sleep is definitely one of them. 

And so it's been a journey for me with my own symptoms to learn how breathwork helps me, how it hurts me, if I do it wrong. Or if I do too much, you know, we get back to that whole pacing thing. And also helping other people with long COVID and saying, You know what, let's go back. And let's teach proper breathing to these people that are suffering with this.

Jackie Baxter  27:34  
I mean, it was a complete eye opener to me when somebody said to me, Oh, well, I think actually, if you work on your breathing, that will help a lot. And I was like breathing? That sounds a bit like, you know, Everyone breathes? How can you breathe wrong, you know, you're talking rubbish. Then once I really understood; I read Patrick's birth can I was working with somebody else who was taking me through some of this stuff. And it was like, Oh, my goodness, you're right. Breathing is everything. And it was you know, I was on the breathing soapbox from then onwards, it was a huge thing for me. And it was a way into a lot of other things as well, which have also helped.

Vikki Jones  28:10  
I think that's one of the things - it's like you start breathing properly. And we all know now this term called Vagus Nerve, Parasympathetic, or Sympathetic nervous system. And when you look at breathing, and how that can then help those systems, you know, whether you want to stimulate your body, or whether you want to down-regulate your body, whether you want to increase your vagal tone, then these are breath exercises that you can do for that. So yes, it is learning to breathe properly. But then we all know that we could actually get a little bit healthier and stronger in some of our breathwork exercises.

Jackie Baxter  28:57  
Yeah, it's when you hear somebody who's like a breathwork King. So someone like Patrick, for example, you know, and you hear someone like that say, I still work on my breathing every day, and you're like, but But you must be perfect, right? And then you realize nobody's perfect, we could all be better, we could all be healthier. And that kind of made me think, Okay, well, if he's still working on it, then you know, I can get more, more better.

Vikki Jones  29:20  
But one of the things that I think about breathing is - if you look at top performance athletes now. So let's take this to how we train a body. So we train a body by doing strength work, we train a body by doing mobility and a little bit of cardio work. Now we're finding that one of the best ways that we can train our body to make our performance better is by breathing differently. And I can guarantee that the top athletes who are on this breathing performance journey. They are doing exercises every single day, before a workout, they are going out and warming up their diaphragm. Because your diaphragm is your breathing muscle, and they're doing different exercises, because we all know if our lungs are working better, and we're getting more oxygen to our muscles, then our body actually works better. 

So let's take that back to someone who's compromised medically, then it's important that A we're breathing properly, because the quickest way we can change the biochemistry of our body is by changing the way we breathe. It's quicker than your thoughts. It's quicker than food, it's quicker than supplementation, it's quicker than medication, all you do is change your breath and settle your body down. And I'm saying settled, because as long haulers we're all on hyper fight or flight. And that is the quickest way to change our biochemistry. And then you get the trickle down effect of Okay, so now my body is a little bit more calm. And now I can just kind of get into that relaxation mode. 

So we should all be breathing through our nose 100% of the time, unless we're talking or unless we're eating. So we shouldn't be walking around with our mouths open. So that's your starting point, you learn to breathe in and out of your nose. And that will then affect your sleeping. And then once you've done that, you start building your breathing muscles, you start building your breathing by doing different exercises, and I use breath work to calm myself down. I use breath work to try and increase the strength of my breathing. 

And it's just like everything in life if you learn the tools. And I would say this to all long haul people, you know, you learn it, but you've got to have your partner learn it as well, because sometimes we're not compus-mentis enough to know, let's return to breathing right now. Because we're in a panic, or we're having really anxious thoughts. And our partner or post it note needs to be on the wall to say, breathe, return to your breath. Whatever it is that we have to learn about, you know, are we sitting there hyperventilating and inhaling and exhaling through our mouth, because we're trying to get air. And it's a counterintuitive thing to try and slow down our breath. Because we've all been taught to take a deep breath. And most of us would take a deep breath with our mouth. *Big inhale* We take one big inhale, that is actually not what our body needs in any time that I would say.

Jackie Baxter  33:14  
Yeah, definitely. So I mean, I've seen all sorts of people saying on support groups, and I've even said it myself, actually, Oh, you should do breath work, it's really helpful. But are you able to talk through maybe a couple of basic exercises that have helped you, you know, to sort of get people started, beyond the obvious breathing through your nose, which was the first thing for me

Vikki Jones  33:34  
Yeah to the breathing through your nose, because, like I said, that's got to be your starting point. And I would say that if you can sit there and breathe in and out of your nose for one minute, then you can nasal breathe 100% of the time. Okay, so that's the platform that we are going on. If you're having trouble nasal breathing for a minute, this is maybe not the place to start, you need to have that base. 

And the other thing about breathing or breathing exercises, is we're not trying to get a gold medal in breathing here. This is meant to support us. So when I look at the breathing exercises, I back them off from what most people would recommend, because pacing is a huge thing with people with long COVID. So if I talk about a breathing exercise, and you try it, and you feel at the end that you couldn't do that exercise twice more without feeling like it's not helping, then you should back it off again. Because we shouldn't be harming ourselves by doing these exercises. 

And that's where you've kind of got to really get in tune with how you're feeling. So the feeling of air hunger for people with long COVID is very scary, because we've all felt it. And right now, for most people, long COVID, it doesn't serve us to push ourselves to that next level, what serves us is to calm our body down. 

And often these exercises are based individually on what our breath hold is. So we all have a different breath hold. Like I said, when I first started learning to breathe, my breath hold was three seconds. And if your breath hold is actually less than 20 seconds on a, we call it a control pause, you know that you're a dysfunctional breather. 

Alright, so our control pauses is the measurement we use just so that we can set the bar for the other breathing exercises. So what you would do is, obviously we're talking nasal breathing here, you would breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, just a normal breath. And then, after your exhale, you would pinch your nose and hold your breath until you had the first urge to breathe. So if you looked at it like a mountain, all of your mountains would be the same height. So an inhale and exhale is a mountain. And then you would hold your breath, which is actually a flat line. And then you would take an inhale, but your inhale is the same size mountain is the one that you started with. 

So what people tend to do is because we're all human, we try to overdo it, we try to hold our breath longer, because we want a bigger number. That's not the purpose here. The purpose is What is your controlled or control pause. So like I said, it's an inhale, exhale, pinch your nose. And you're holding your breath and you're timing the number of seconds that you can hold your breath for, until you feel that first urge to breathe. And like I said, we've got numbers less than 20, we are candidates for doing breathing exercises. 

So the control pause obviously gives us that baseline. And the reason that we need the baseline is for the first exercise I'd like to cover which is called "many small breath holds" is the amount of time that you're holding your breath for is half of your control pause. So if your control pause is eight seconds, for example, when you're doing an exercise called "many small breath holds", you would only hold your breath for four seconds - four seconds is half of eight seconds. Many small breath holds is a brilliant exercise to do to calm you down. So if you're having a panic attack, you're feeling very anxious. It is a calming exercise. Some people have breathing difficulties or asthma. It's a very good way to calm asthmatics, okay, so any of those things where we're overstimulated and we want to calm ourselves down, we recommend an exercise called many small breath holds. 

And the way that you do this is that you inhale through your nose, you exhale through your nose, you pinch your nose and hold for half of your control pause in seconds. So it could be four seconds. And then you inhale and exhale, normally, for about 10 to 20 seconds. And you keep doing that exercise for five minutes. And at the end of five minutes, you just kind of check in with yourself. Am I feeling a little bit more calm? Or do I need to continue to do this? 

One of the things that we look for when people are doing the many small breath holds is at the end of that five minute time - do they have more saliva in their mouth? Are their hands a little bit warmer? And the reason that we are looking for that is when you have saliva in your mouth. That means that your body has gone from that fight or flight to rest and digest. So in order for us to digest food, we have to have saliva in our mouth, when our body starts producing more saliva, it means that our body's gone into that rest and digest mode. So it's a feedback that we can immediately get to, is this helping me? 

And the other wonderful thing about these exercises is if you feel like holding, pinching your nose would cause panic, then you can start by doing the exercises without pinching your nose, and then work up to that, because like I said, we don't want to make the issue worse. And if ever these exercises make you panic, you just return to your normal breath. It's as simple as that, you know, it's like, I'm just simply going to return to my nasal breathing. So that would be one exercise. 

So that's one that like I said, if I'm having a panic attack, that's my go-to exercise. My husband knows it. He knows to say Vikki, we need to do many small breath holds. And one of the reasons that that works is when you're focused on that you're not focused on anything else. So if you're thinking about your breathing, you're not thinking about all the other things that are going on. So breath, if you're paying attention to it is very calming, and it increases your focus and attention. So if you're having brain fog, this is a great exercise for that, because you've got to focus on the here and the now with your breath, rather than focusing on all these other things that are going on. So that's why I use it a lot. And because it is such a good exercise, I'll do it six times a day, sometimes, you know, if I'm having a bad day, I will be doing that exercise probably once an hour to just calm me down. You know, I'm saying calm me down, just to calm my body down to stop the escalation of symptoms from happening. 

The other breathing exercise that I use for a lot of people with long COVID is a cadence breath, and a cadence breath is you're not holding your nose, but you're doing a longer exhale than an inhale. Now, if I was talking to a healthy person that had healthy lung function, we would be aiming for an inhale of four seconds, and an exhale of six seconds. And like I said, we're not pinching our nose, it's just a an inhale, and a longer exhale. Now for people with long COVID that can't even hold their breath for 10 seconds, that's unobtainable. So that's where we sort of start modifying these exercises to suit the individual. 

So for some people, I do an inhale of two, an exhale of four, or an inhale of three, and an exhale of five, or even if you do an exhale of one and an exhale of three, you know, it's shifting the balance from your inhale to your exhale. And the reason that we do that is because on the exhale, that's the calming breath. You know, when you take an inhale, that's when your heart rate goes up, and your exhale your heart rate goes down. So the cadence breath increases our vagal tone, there's that buzz word again, gets us into the rest and digest. And it has other benefits to it. So cadence breathing is another one that we teach.

There's another one that we can do often. Just learning to breathe. So the biomechanics of breathing is something that we can all focus on, because with long COVID we tend to breathe in our upper chest. Because we feel like we're not getting enough air. We will breathe upper chest and then what happens is, shoulders get involved, and we're wearing our shoulders like they're earrings. So that's how we breathe, that's how a panicked person breathes - with the upper chest. And what the biomechanics or the correct biomechanics of breathing is using your diaphragm. And the diaphragm is the breathing muscle. But we have to almost intentionally sit and look at our breath because we're out of touch with our breathing muscle, the diaphragm. 

And the way that I have people learn to breathe diaphragmaticly is by sitting or laying down and putting their hands on either side of their ribcage. And when you inhale, your fingers or your hands should be moving out. Because your intercostal muscles in your ribs are moving with the movement of the diaphragm. So on an inhale, your hands move out. And on an exhale your hands return to the starting position. And you can do that for an infinite amount of time. But once again, it's a very calming exercise because you're focused on your breath. And the thoughts aren't happening. And it also helps with your backaches and posture. 

So one of the things we know about long covid is most people are, we're laying on the couch, we're sitting in chairs, we're laying in bed all day, we've lost that movement that is normal to our usual life, or our old life. And a lot of us experience back pain. And by doing that diaphragmatic breathing, you're supporting your lower back, because your diaphragm doesn't just sit in the front, it also sits in your back. So you're increasing that intercostal pressure, which is your lower back - your core, you know, we need to increase our core. But if you were lying down, you could literally put a book on your belly. And as you inhale, you're thinking about pushing that book up. And then as you exhale, you want that book to return to its normal position. Another way that you can do is put your hand on your chest, and put your hand on your belly, and think about your hand on your belly moving, but your hand on your chest not moving. 

So that is a very simple exercise. We're not doing any breath holds. We're nasal breathing all the time. We're not pinching our nose. But literally that will also stimulate your vagus nerve, it will you know, help you learn to breathe functionally, it slows your breathing down. And it calms your mind. So that's one of the what we call biomechanics of breathing. And then the other exercises are more about the biochemistry. So how we change our body's biochemistry through breath, and are we breathing properly with our breathing muscle?

Jackie Baxter  47:53  
It's fascinating. Like, every time I hear about breathing, it blows my mind a little bit more every time.

Vikki Jones  48:00  
It does it, you know, to me, because I was a personal trainer. My clients would say She's always thinking of a torture for us. But, you know, it's like, we're always thinking of ways that we can come up with exercises, how we can modify exercises, how we can make this applicable to us. And it's the same way with breathing. You know, we're now coming up with Box breathing. So the box breathing is just like a box, you know, you're inhaling, you're holding, you're exhaling, you're holding, you know, that works for people with long COVID. We're not going to be doing a 4-4-4 and four, meaning four seconds, four seconds, four seconds, you know, that would cause us to feel air hunger and suffocated. But we could do a 1-1-1 and one, we could all do that. And it would calm us down. 

And like I said, there are other exercises like blocking a nostril and breathing through one nostril. It will calm us down. You can do alternating nostril breathing, but that's what I love about breathing exercises, if you're able to go out and walk, you know, go out and walk and nasal breathe, and maybe hold your breath for four steps. And then do your normal nasal breathing. But the thing that I will keep returning to is that we should be nasal breathing all the time. It's the biochemistry that our body needs and I can talk about that but it's - it's like just take it as this is what your body needs to function at its best, to be able to heal. 

And the other pillar that I use breathing for all the time is right before I go sleep. So there is a lot of information out there right now, of course about sleep hygiene, you know how we should turn off our devices, how we shouldn't be watching the news, how we should eat, and then have a rest before we go to bed. But what people aren't talking about is how we should breathe when we're sleeping. And so I would put out there if you're nasal breathing during the day, and then at night, you return to the habit of mouth breathing, you have negated the work you've done during the day. And if my pillar is that Nasal Breathing is best for my body at all times, then I should be nasal breathing at night. Because we all know that's when our body recovers, regenerate, rejuvenate, all the "R's" happen at night. And if we're not getting good rest, we're not giving our body the best chance to heal. 

So I do breathing exercises before I go to sleep, the calming ones, so like two inhale, four exhale. Or like a meditative breathing, where I'm focusing on my breath, even if it's a two inhale, two exhale, but I'm focused on my breath, nasal breathing. And there is a suggestion of mouth tape, which some people sort of, you know, why would I take my mouth at night, but I'm not talking about zipping it shut, I'm talking about giving yourself an aid that reminds your body not to mouth breathe. And there are tapes that go around the outside of our lips that prevent us from opening our mouth to breathe. And then you could put a little piece of 3M tape across your mouth. And it would remind you to nasal breathing. And that's also been a game changer for me. 

And it's been a game changer for people that snore, because it's preventing snoring. It's also going back to that whole saliva in your mouth, you wake up with saliva in your mouth, you don't wake up with a dry mouth. And that's good dental hygiene. So you know, it's not just a little bit, it's this is what we should be doing all the time. We should be nasal breathing during the day, we should be nasal breathing at night. And it's finding the tool that works for you. 

So a lot of people when you talk about mouth tape, they'll say, you know, that gives me anxiety. And I'll start them with mouth tape while they're watching TV. So, tape your mouth while you're watching TV and feel like - well you can still talk. And you can still breathe through your mouth if you have to. Because we're not taping our mouth shut. But it adds an element of recovery to us. And like I said, we're not trying to go for specific symptoms, we're going for How can I calm my body so that it can recover as best it can?

Jackie Baxter  53:18  
Yeah, wonderful. And it just brings it back to It's not just about the breathing, it's about the whole body, isn't it?

Vikki Jones  53:25  
It is, it is - I'll go back to it, the quickest way you can change the biochemistry of your body is by breathing correctly. And if you think about that, just think about that. That is an amazing thing. We think, you know, we all sit and drink water and we go, I'm gonna hydrate my body. You know, it takes a lot of water to hydrate your body. You know, it's not just a sip, or food. Or like I said, we're going back to the supplements or any other of the things that we do to try and help with long COVID. But breathing is - it's got to be up there. It's number one to help us. 

Jackie Baxter  54:05  
Definitely, 

Vikki Jones  54:06  
Like I said, for me, it has been a pillar in my recovery. And we can talk with experts about different aspects of long COVID. We're all going through this trauma. And breathing helps with trauma. So you know if there's one thing that you can take on board today, it is how can I learn to breathe properly? You know, It's like we all think we're breathing properly, until we actually learn how to breathe properly. And it's one of the biggest things I've learned from long COVID - I mean patience, we've talked about that, we've all got to learn patience. We have to learn pacing. We have to sometimes lower our expectations of what we're going through. 

But breathing is something that we can learn and and here's the thing. When we recover, we will be all the better off for learning to breathe properly. You know, it's a tool that we can teach ourselves, teach our kids. But when we're back to our normal life, learning to breathe properly is a pillar for good health. It's a pillar for focus and concentration. It's a gift that keeps on giving. And that's where, like I said, it's opened my eyes to a lot of wonderful things that I've learned from this journey.

Jackie Baxter  55:42  
Well thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting about breathing, which is one of my new favorite subjects. So thank you so much for indulging me and for your time and all the best with your continued recovery. 

Vikki Jones  55:57  
Thank you.

Thank you so much to all of my guests, and to you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed it, or at least found it useful. The long COVID podcast is entirely self produced and self funded. I'm doing all of this myself. If you're able to please go to buymeacoffee.com/longCOVIDpod to help me cover the costs of hosting the podcast. Please look out for the next episode of the long COVID podcast - it's available on all the usual podcast hosting things and do get in touch - I'd love to hear from you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai