BREATHING EXERCISES FOR HYPERVENTILATION

 

                                                                   

 

                                                      BREATHING EXERCISES (NHS)

Normal breathing pattern

Is gentle, silent diaphragmatic (tummy) breathing, with very little upper chest movement. The rate should be about 10 to 12 average sized breaths a minute, at rest.

Hyperventilation

Is erratic sometimes noisy breathing, mainly with the upper chest. The rate of breathing is fast, often more than 15 breaths a minute and the depth of each breath varies, sometimes giving deep sighs.

Contrast

Tighten up a group of muscles as hard as possible, then relax them completely and feel the difference between tension and relaxation.

For tense shoulder and neck muscles pull your shoulders down towards the floor and release them gently a few times. Try tightening and relaxing each muscle group in turn, starting at your feet and working up to your neck and face.

General relaxation

Loosen tight clothing then lie or sit comfortably so that you are fully supported. Close your eyes and without moving, try to concentrate on each muscle group in turn. Let it relax as much as possible, starting at your feet and working up to your head and face. Spend two minutes thinking of your breathing and letting your whole body relax a little more with each breath out. Repeat the sequence two or three times more, so that the session lasts 15 to 20 minutes. When you move, get up slowly and try to keep this relaxed calm feeling going for as long as possible.

Visual relaxation

With your eyes closed, try to visualise a scene such as a beach or garden where you can feel comfortable, warm and relaxed. Concentrate on letting your muscles let go and keep your breathing slow and gentle. A relaxation CD can be useful.

Practice

Concentrate on your breathing regularly throughout the day and correct it if necessary. Formally relax for 20 minutes at least twice a day. Beware of stressful situations, even excitement, which may upset your breathing pattern. Try to slow down in everything you do and take life at an easier pace, so that you allow yourself time to breathe and relax. It takes several weeks, even months, to break the bad breathing habits of many years, so do not expect quick results from these exercises. Be patient, practice often and the end result can be very rewarding.

Breathing exercises

Become aware of your breathing by placing one hand on your upper chest and one on your tummy. Let your upper chest relax down, and with the next breath allow your tummy to swell forwards as you breathe in, and fall back gently as you breathe out. Try to get a steady rhythm going, taking the same depth of breath each time. Next, try to slow your breathing rate down by putting in a short pause after you have breathed out and before you breathe in again.

At first you may feel you are not getting enough air in but with regular practice this slower rate will soon feel comfortable. Try breathing in for a count of three and out for a count of four.

Breathing is something you do all the time so check that you have it right in all positions whether lying, sitting or standing.

On exercise there will be a natural increase in your breathing rate, but check afterwards to make sure that you go back to the slow steady rhythm.

Try to talk slowly, do not say too much with one breath and pause to take a gentle breath in from your tummy, before carrying on.

Relaxation

We all have a certain amount of tension in our bodies, but beware of unnecessary tension and stress, and learn to control it. Try the following techniques:

Relaxed breathing

1. Relax your upper chest and shoulders.
2. Breathe in, keeping your shoulders relaxed.
3. Let the breath gently out. Breathing out requires no effort.
4. Breathe at a comfortable pace.

Repeat three or four times.

Books

Hyperventilation Syndrome by Dinah Bradley, Celestial Arts. Books on Relaxation by Jane Madders, Laura Mitchell and Dr Claire Weekes can be obtained from the library, or try visiting online sites.

Further advice

Please be aware that this handout is to be used as a guide. If you find these exercises painful please seek advice from your physiotherapist or GP.

MARTIN HARROW ON SCHIZOPRENIA by Robert Whitaker

 

                                                     Martin Harrow (1933-2023)

                                                    ARTICLE BY ROBERT WHITAKER

                                                                               

Robert Whitaker

EXCERPT FROM MY INTERSECTIONAL LGBT HISTORY

Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness. There is however ever increasing concern in the psychiatric survivor movement as to how many so-called mental illnesses can be beneficially treated using a medical model, whether they can be responsibly diagnosed, and as to how many mental health issues are created by socio-economic and working environments rather than underlying chemical imbalances or medical deficiencies.

My selective history of psychiatry focuses, in part, on its the history in London and Edinburgh, but also on international material collated during my years twelve or so years campaigning against problematic twenty-first century psychiatry. The seminal work on depressive disorders by Professor Joanne Moncrieff at UCL has epitomised the urgent need for, albeit belated, change to, or replacement of, the entire discipline of psychiatry.

Psychiatry has frequently been used to damage or destroy many queer people’s lives e.g by imposing courses of aversion therapy for ‘sexual perversions’ (Davison, 2020). Even when a psychiatric maltreatment damages people regardless of their gender or orientation, it injures a disproportionately large number of queer folk, simply because queers are more likely to have mental health issues. For Martin Harrow’s empirical investigations that invalidate the standard treatment of schizophrenia by anti-psychotics, see Whitaker (2023).

REV. JIM WYNN-EVANS: GAY CANON EXTRA-ORDINAIRE:

 

                                                

Excerpt from Lavender Rising, An Intersectional History of the Queer Struggle, by Thomas H. Leonard, with contributions from Purple Nails, Allan Turkington, and Jim Liddle, in preparation. Your comments and suggestions please.

During the 1990s, the hard-nosed churches of most dominations were largely back-tracking or pussyfooting around. That’s with the exception of Bishop Richard Holloway and several of his Scottish Episcopal colleagues, including my neighbour, the redoubtable Rev. Canon Jim Wynn-Evans, who relished living and partying in his immense flat on Bellevue Place, within walking distance of the delights of Edinburgh’s Pink Triangle.

Richard Holloway and Jim Wynn-Evans were instrumental in a related, ground-breaking reform. The first of many women ministers were consecrated by the Scottish Episcopal Church late in 1994. See SEC (2019) . Two diehard gay chauvinists promptly left Old St. Paul’s and created a women-free ministry in their flat in Portobello.

4.14 GAY CANON EXTRA-ORDINAIRE

Jim Wynn-Evans sadly died from complications due to AIDS in September 2010 at the age of 76. (Obituary, 2010), shortly after he’d complained to me about the ridiculous length of time it was taking to install the tram line on Leith Walk,

Jim climbed the stone staircase at OSP into his final week. He cherished his inner circle of gay friends, some of whom also battled with AID/HIV. I met them in 2005 in Jolly’s celebrating the life of another lost one.

Jim W. developed contacts with gay Episcopalians in the USA. He had a mission throughout his life to make the world a better place for the underprivileged. During his mission he pioneered many successful charity projects, most notably during his time at St David's in Pilton, visited occasionally by my friend Eagle Allan and other OSP members.

Jim negotiated valuable income for a medical centre for Pilton, and established houses where young adults on their gap year had the opportunity to experience care work alongside other Christians.

Jim W. set up a social care service for elderly people. In 2009, a charity venture saw him spend an hour on the top of the Plinth in Trafalgar Square as a ‘live artwork’, raising an impressive £6000 at the age of 75.

In 1997, Jim took on the full-time position of press officer for the then Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. The former bishop has published at least 13 major books and served as Episcopal Primus of Scotland between 1992 and 2000. He must have therefore kept Jim busily occupied.

Jim W. also organised the repair of OSP’s tile-cracked roof, according to my (Tom’s) memory, strange breeds of plants were growing through the fissures. Jim climbed all over the roof-top himself directing the repairs with his sardonic brand of humour.

In 2005, Jim W. organised the hanging of Alison Watt’s huge, award-winning, line painting Still above the altar in the Memorial Chapel, He also decorated the back wall of the Nave with original artwork by Rev. Bridget Braybrooks and other talented artists of note.

Despite a funeral which jam-packed OSP with his many friends, and his brilliant fund-raising for OSP, Rev. Wynn-Evans didn’t receive the recognition that he deserved (e.g. an inscription in the Lady Chapel or a plaque next to Still in the Memorial Chapel) for his immense contributions to the community and to OSP

SEC (2019) Called by Name: Reflections from first women priests. Edinburgh: General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

https://www.scotland.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/Called-by-Name.pdf

Accessed 4 March 2023

Obituary (2010)Obituary: Reverend Canon James Naylor Wynn-Evans, 76 (The Scotsman) https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-reverend-canon-james-naylor-wynn-evans-76-1705451 Accessed 22 February 2023

NOTE ALSO

The Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway was a passionate supporter of LGCM (Liddle, 2023) and Canon Ian Paton of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral (much later Bishop of St. Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane) became the Edinburgh group’s chaplain. Following the Original Statement of LGCM, Richard and Ian were convinced that it is compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex, but also to express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship.

Ian Paton set up discussion groups, gave advice from the Scriptures, and helped and gave spiritual support to local members of LGCM on an individual basis (Jim Liddle personal communication). Ian was a highly supportive contributor to the gay cause to whom Scotland’s LGBT community should be truly grateful.

MOTHERS OF THE KIRK

 

Mothers of the Kirk

by Thomas H. Leonard

                                                                     

Anne Hepburn (1925-2016) was a COS missionary and a teacher, feminist and social justice advocate, wife of Rev. James Hepburn and mother of three children. During the 1950s, she served as headmistress of a mission primary school for girls in Nyasaland.

Anne was attending the COS’s annual Women’s Guild meeting in April 1982, as National President of the Guild, when God was addressed as Mother.

There followed angry reactions from the next COS General Assembly, and a small study group was appointed to consult with the Panel of Doctrine on the theological implications of the Motherhood of God.

The study group worked amid ‘volcanic controversy and feverish media interest’ during the subsequent media frenzy, and some COS members asserted that the whole matter was striking at the very foundations of the Christian faith.

Other members rejected the need to address and envisage God in ways that respect Christian understanding of personhood rather than suggest male superiority. Anne Hepburn was quite frightened by the authoritarian view of the patriarchal leadership of the COS. While the study group’s report was shelved, the issues surrounding the Motherhood of God were taken up with relish around the world. Indeed, we now feel at ease calling God either Mother or Father.

But my understanding, upon talking to a senior COS senior during February 2023, is that the report is still among the far too many shelved by COS. Indeed, the elder was surprised that I’d even bothered to ask.

Lesley Orr Macdonald composed and read the eulogy at Anne Hepburn’s2016 funeral in STAGS. Lesley is a celebrated historian, theologian and activist for gender and social justice. She has considerable experience in the public sector in relation to challenging gender inequality, violence and abuse in faith communities and wider society.

In a report published by the University of Edinburgh Centre for Theology and Public Issues in 2001, Lesley found that out of a sample of 25, 14 of whom had attended the COS, of the abused Christian women in Scotland, 19 had been in abusive marriages (of these eight had been married to clergyman),and 6 had suffered mistreatment, assault, sexual abuse or exploitation at the hands of church workers.

Lesley Orr was very peacefully married to Rev. Peter MacDonald, highly non-conformist minister of BSM until his tragic death in February2020.