[laminar]

Excellent suggestions everyone.

I think holding your breath and breathing in a controlled way can perhaps help your condition and bring you relaxation of the mind as well, which in turn can bring further relaxation.

Yoga (gentle and pranayama), QiGong, T'ai Ch'i and similar arts are obvious choices not to be overlooked.

I wonder if an inversion table might help (ie. spending several minutes inverted and relaxed allowing your spine to stretch out fully). Efattah has experience with inversion tables. Maybe others here do, too.

If relaxation, a sense of calm, and exercise/stretching/blood flow to your diaphragm and chest and back muscles are the primary goal of your practice, I would definitely recommend variations on lung volume as you hold the breath.

I'm not a huge fan of big inhalations with stretching or pack-stretching.

To "engage" your diaphragm, it helps to control it. Control the rate of inhalation and exhalation through the nose. Try a loud breath. Try a completely silent and noiseless breath. Your diaphragm will be required to do different things. Most of all if you practice this you'll better gain control of your diaphragm, which is very helpful for relaxing for longer during a breath hold and for health. This comes from pranayama variations.

Breathe through your nose in daily life as much as possible.

Holding your breath with a full inhale is not necessarily comfortable or relaxing. While you may feel better afterwards from the outward stretch, you could also benefit from the gentle inward stretch of a low volume hold. Tread cautiously with negative pressure breath holds and reverse packing (might hurt you?).

Most of all, if you view the act of holding your breath as a skill and not some innate ability, you will be able to improve the duration and the feeling you have when you are holding your breath. Whether you do it dry or in the pool (with a spotter standing next to you so you can relax even more) or with a bowl of water, if you focus on the process, one thing to focus on at a time, your breath hold will improve. Tables for the sake of C02 tolerance are perhaps the wrong end to approach this from, since they require some suffering in the contractions zone to improve.

I think if your goal is a series of relaxing and relaxing holds, you could try something like this:

1. Find a relaxed posture (on your back, sitting up, floating in the water in a sitting/standing position, or face down with a snorkel).

2. Focus on your breathing:
-tidal breathing for 2-4 minutes (minimal effort)
-hold your breath instinctively at a comfortable lung volume until you want to breathe (don't look at a watch)
-deep breathing (ie. full range of motion 1-2 minutes)
-you may find a short 10 second hold after the inhale feels best with this breathing pattern, otherwise you might get lightheaded/hyperventilated
-hold your breath instinctively at a comfortable lung volume until you want to breathe (don't look at a watch)
-tidal breathing again (2-4 minutes effort)
-hold your breath instinctively at a comfortable lung volume until you want to breathe (don't look at a watch)

3. Focus on body relaxation (from head to toe):
-repeat the set

4. Focus on relaxing diaphragm as you prolong the breath holds close to the contractions break point:
-repeat the set

5. Focus on lung volume and its effect on your body (blood pressure, feeling in chest, comfort, tension in surrounding muscles, etc...)
-repeat the set (Day 1 FRC, Day 2 full inhale, Day3 lower than FRC, etc...)
-time the breath holds if you wish, but resist temptation to push.

As you practice this way, feel free to adjust and modify to suit whatever feels best. Focusing on process will extend your breath holds almost without you noticing, especially for shorter holds. You can also change the focus to include things like mental state, body temperature, time of day, post exercise, etc...

You could also do these as "dives" in the pool. Use an extra weight to hang on to on the bottom so that to ascend you simple release the weight and maybe a gentle kick to surface. That way you can vary the lung volume without adding more weight to your belt - which I imagine might tweak your back negatively.

Hope this helps!

Peter