Separating breathing from contracting.

I don’t think I have ever really synced my breathing with contractions. Sure, I have done that a little bit to get started in the first 5 minutes, but after that, I think my breathing has always been separated from contractions. In fact, there have been times where I notice that I am holding my breath while pleasure is building. Then, I have noticed once I start breathing again, the pleasure decreases, which seems counterintuitive. Anyway, I don’t seem to have any insights on whether syncing or not syncing your breathing is better or worse.

@7sdoor You did have some insight ! So holding your breath makes it better but you can't hold forever, maybe what makes the pleasure decrease is your focus going back to your breathing ? Or a release of tension, where breathing in+holding it is tension, and breathing out is relaxation. Hey maybe there's nothing to it, I find myself doing the same thing where I'll hold my breath involuntarily and I don't think it hurt results but it often startles me a little and feels like something I shouldn't be doing. 

Posted by: @zentai

... I think I've been conditioned by various audios to flex as I breathe in and release as I breath out. In a lot of erotic audios there's breathing and counting, as you inhale you'll feel x, as you exhale you'll feel Y. And a lot of Aneros strategies will couple breathing and contractions in some way. Now what I'm discovering more and more is that this pattern can become forced and clash with "Do nothing".

Any insights about this ? 

I don't think I have any insights into what you describe except to say you have programmed/rewired yourself into that that particular breathing/response pattern. It may be that your body is now indicating to you its desire to change that programming into something more flexible.

Personally, I basically use the deep breathing exercise suggested in the Aneros WIKI just to get myself relaxed at the beginning of an Anerosession but do not try to focus on that practice once I do become relaxed enough for involuntary contractions to commence. I am neutral on training oneself to synchronize breathing and pelvic floor contractions, if it works well for you then great but if it feels "...forced..." perhaps you should rethink that approach.

@7sdoor , the "holding your breath" phenomenon as one approaches orgasm is something I have never understood either. I have experienced this mostly when practicing traditional penile masturbation but not often with my Aneros use. I would speculate that it has something to do with one's relaxation and body tension levels, it does seem counterintuitive.

Good Vibes to You!

@zentai @rumel

That’s good point! I hadn’t thought about holding my breath as a lever to increase tension. Maybe some sort of cycling between holding your breath and letting go could be a way to ramp up pleasure. I might have to play around with that. The more sessions I have, the more I realize that experimentation and creativity is a huge part of this, rather than simply following a checklist of recommended actions.

@rumel I don't think it's really hurting things, just messing with me during the build-up phase, but finding about this particular pattern was a little jarring. It might also come from a long time ago when I was afraid of making mistakes when the involuntaries started and I would just stop doing anything and hold my breath. I think you're right, some deprogramming might be in order, but at this point it's mostly streamlining things. It's just funny to still find some things that can be improved upon, and breathing is pretty basic so it makes me wonder what else I still have to work on. 

Posted by: @zentai

It's just funny to still find some things that can be improved upon, and breathing is pretty basic so it makes me wonder what else I still have to work on.

IMHO, the Aneros journey is an evolutionary experience, it changes and unfolds constantly, though at an unpredictable rate. Sometimes the changes occur rapidly and sometimes there are extended plateaus where there seems to be no progress. Different aspects of the journey, both psychological and physical are dealt with in this evolution. You are now dealing with just another of your own self discoveries on this wondrous journey.

Good Vibes to You!

@7sdoor that sounds like it's starting to approach autoerotic asphyxiation, so be careful.  Whatever you do don't end up like David Carradine!  Even if you survive that would be a pretty embarrassing trip to the ER. 

For the breating/contracting standpoint I can't really say that I relate as I've also been going along the route of deep breathing and mindfulness/meditation.  As a music student I've had experience with this for nearly 15 years, and really increased this practice since COVID to build up my lung power.  I would agree with Rumel here.  I also seem to remember Barbara Carrellas calling the regular traditional orgasm a "hiccup" due to regular/contracted breathing...something to think about. 

I don’t sync either.  I wasn’t aware that that was a thing, so I learned something new here!

I have a tendency to unconsciously hold my breath, often approaching and during orgasm. Though it isn’t every time, when I do it I must be breathing shallow breaths, because otherwise I would pass out given the length of plateaus... I don’t think this is considered auto-erotic asphyxiation, which involves external blocks to breathing. You’d have to have extreme will power to stop yourself from breathing to the point of hurting yourself. Thus I imagine that we breath-holders are actually breathing more than we think, just in a staggered way. If this is at all dangerous, I have yet to see how. 

@divine_o

I can't see how it would be dangerous either, if you where to hold your breath long enough you would just faint and resume breathing right after, that's the way the body works. Unless you're mechanically choking yourself which is just a really dumb idea even if you have someone with you. Many horror stories about this kind of "play"...

As for syncing I think in my case it comes from too many hypnosis sessions, lots of counting and breath holding and patterns to follow during inductions and for "going deeper", like I said it's probably not harmful to progress but it's interesting to discuss.  

No I think the danger would be when you've trained yourself to associate holding your breath with pleasure to the point where you're using external methods to restrict your breathing.  Don't let it get that far!  Besides that I was definitely attempting to be a bit tongue-in-cheek there. 

The only thing I can think of that associated contractions with breathing was the Nikki Fatale Aneros Hypnosession but I thought she really didn't understand the concept of Aneros in that.  I suppose doing kegels you hold your breath while you contract those muscles. 

But I associate breath holding (outside of meditation) as a tensing-up reflex and always thought the goal here was to relax as much as possible! 

@faith-manages sorry, didn’t realize you were being tongue in cheek!

it’s as Dan Savage says: the only problem with auto-erotic asphyxiation is the “auto” part. It can be done safely with other people, but alone, you risk serious injury and death. 

With the risk of side tracking the conversation, it’s a shame Dan doesn’t promote these toys, seeing as he has one of the biggest megaphones in the world for sex positivity. I read somewhere (prolly on this forum, prolly) that he said a few years ago that it is new age malarkey...