Exercise R Us

Question:

Whats the skinny on this? is it like giving birth? how is it done? (HEE HEE HOOO) Like that?  keith

Response:

Breathing right can calm you down which wont make you so jumpy when the piercing is perform. Just when the piercer starts with the clamps and all start with slow deep breaths. In through your nose and out your mouth. It helps very much but its not going to kill pain.

Response:

>Whats the skinny on this? is it like giving birth? >how is it done? (HEE HEE HOOO) Like that? > keith

I hate to say it but I think I actually have to start a kill file. Chumley The Happy Clown Master Piercee BMSGU Chicago Charter In the larger scheme of things, I am still pretty Large. To reply via E-Mail remove the <tumor>

Response:

the technique I was taught was to first figure out how you breathe during stress/pain by trying an exercise using ice cubes and a timer. Sit in a relaxed position, set the timer for five minutes and put an ice cube in both hands….focus on trying to control your pain receptor reactions through your breathing… Keep your attention of the level of your breathing…keep your breathing even and focus on slow in and out breaths… Anyway…that was the exercise given to me to help deal with pain resulting from a recent surgery….(I don’t respond well to pain meds). It helped me control my breathing in response to the coldness of the ice to the point that when I do the exercise now I hardly react to the ice in my hands since I am more focused on my breathing and am calmer… So…yeah…this could be used in the field of bod mod and the like… Rose (another two cents worth from me!)

Response:

> the technique I was taught was to first figure out how you breathe during > stress/pain by trying an exercise using ice cubes and a timer. > [ ... snipp ...]

I use a similar self developed technique …. control breathing … relax … focus. If you can get the focus right then, while you are still aware of pain, it is less personal, less intense, more controllable. You can usually choose how much/how far to allow it to intrude into your focus. Note – YMMV, you may need a moment to prepare, and you **must** practice beforehand. — Clive Olivier (Remove any "SPAM" from auto-generated reply-address)

Response:

> > the technique I was taught was to first figure out how you breathe during > stress/pain by trying an exercise using ice cubes and a timer. > [ ... snipp ...] > I use a similar self developed technique …. control breathing … > relax … focus.

I’m not claiming to be a mystic/guru/expert, but DIY orientated details of the technique I use are available (for what it’s worth), and can be posted (about 4K) if there is enough interest. Somebody, somewhere, may find it useful/amusing. ObBodMod: Countdown – Six days to go. — Clive Olivier (Remove any "SPAM" from auto-generated reply-address)

Response:

>Whats the skinny on this? is it like giving birth? >how is it done? (HEE HEE HOOO) Like that? > keith

Stop your breathing for long enough and you  wont feel any pain – or anything else, I encourage you to experiment… Many different techniques exist which can aid relaxation and information processing (ie the nerve signals you are sometimes wont to call pain) – get some basic books on meditation, yoga, and the like… Erik Sprague aka Snakeboy -< http://members.aol.com/spidergod5/index.html

Response:

>Whats the skinny on this? is it like giving birth? >how is it done? (HEE HEE HOOO) Like that? > keith

My piercer told me to breathe deeply, in through my nose and out through my mouth, around the brain-digger tube and the needle (nostril was my first piercing).  Kept me distracted and worked well.  Granted, <disclaimer> I have been doing a breathing-based martial art that uses the same brething pattern for more than a year. </disclaimer> Cassie God help you if you are a phoenix, rising up from the ash A thousand eyes will smolder with envy when you are just flying past -Ani DiFranco, "32 Flavors"

Response:

> Breathing right can calm you down which wont make you so jumpy when the > piercing is perform. Just when the piercer starts with the clamps and all start > with slow deep breaths. In through your nose and out your mouth. It helps very > much but its not going to kill pain.

Actually, done right, yes, it *can* kill pain.  It can also put you in control of how you *react* to pain, which is half the battle. I’m speaking from three areas of expertise: yoga, giving birth, and getting pierced/tattooed(yeah, I know that doesn’t hurt much) and branded.  So I think I have a bit of a handle on thang by now (prolly don’t know much of anything else, but *this* one I can do.:-)) In yogic terms, yes, you want to breathe in slowly through your nose, and out through your mouth.  It may help quite a bit to establish a rythym (use your heartbeats to count if you can feel them) of a certain count in, and then twice that count out.  So, In 1-2-3-4- Out 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.  If this doesn’t work for you (experiment when you’re *not* hurting!) use a count of the same number for both in and out. This will do several things.  First, it will keep your mind on actively *doing* something, instead of running around the hamster wheel of "this hurts/this is gonna hurt/gotta stop thinking about the hurt/this hurts…". When the mind is given busywork, it keeps at least a *few* of the tracks of your nervous system from providing info about the pain. Second, a lot of pain is caused by the *tension* resulting from the fear/experience of pain.  Relaxed muscles hurt less.  This is especially true in birth of course (and er other things) but in branding, for instance, if you can let your body be truly relaxed (and breathing really helps with this) then it’s fat and not muscle that’s closest to the surface of the skin, and fat doesn’t have much in the way of nerve endings.  Tighten up, and you get the muscular pain, and you *also* get the bonus of muscle pain itself; cramping and the like. Another thing on breathing…it can give you a signal to know when the pain will come, so you don’t spend the time waiting for piercings/brand strikes that you can’t see and fearing all the time you’re about to get surprised by one…my brander, John at Puncture in L.A./Upland, would tell me, "Okay, now, breathe in slowly, and then I’ll tell you to breathe out, and while you breathe out, I’ll make the strike."  So if he wasn’t saying that, I knew I was "safe" and could completely relax.:-) Hope this helps and makes sense… Best, -Verity

Response: