Maryse Lemay

Hi Buchibabu, last year, before learning I had aphantasia, I discovered I had, since childhood, apical breathing pattern, the inception of my breathing movement was the apex of my lung. No apparent dysfunction, but I had chronic back pain, discomfort while laying on a hard surface, chronic stress, incapacity to inhale for more than 4 seconds. It is very efficient time wise but requires a lot of energy at each breath to pull the entire thorax up without using the diaphragm. After few days of intense trial and error, I have corrected the dysfunction by activating my autonomous natural breathing pattern. For me, it was simply forgetting my body all together and focus only on pull of the air from my nostril, focus all my attention on the air flowing through. I learned that you should control only the impulsion of the movement and let your body do the rest. I would suggest trying to pull the air from all the possible place (nose, mouth, throat, vocal cords, belly, thorax). Feel the difference in the movement and sensation. The one the seems the best for me is the vocal cords. As for following your breathing while meditating, I struggle for that too when I need to count the second, I prefer meditating without focusing on my breath, I focus on the sensation in my body and while having an internal discussion, maybe like me you will discover that your body is talking to you all the time, we simply have forgotten to listen.

Hi Joe, I can't give you any advice, but I can give you hope. I have aphantasia and ADHD too. There is a amazing world, an utopia, that I have been building in my head for the last 25 years of chronic and extreme insomnia. Recently, I received an amazing gift form the universe, a path to bring it to life. In this new world, your amazing, but different, brain will be recognized and cared for so that you can use your creativity and talent to build anything you want, virtual or real, it doesn't matter. You won't ever have to remember anything has you will have a perfect external memory buddy, a recording of your entire frequency that can talk, it does much more. Hold on, don't despair, you are not the problem, the human world we live in is the problem as it doesn’t see your incredible value, that can only be found in marginal people like you and me. The boring majority will see what we, neurodivergent people, are capable of. They will be dumbfounded.