2022 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 1-12
In the current society, there is an increasing number of people who are becoming aware of the relationship between breathing and the human health (both mental and physical). Many of them have also been practicing the breathing technique to aid in relieving stress and pursue a peaceful state of body and mind. However, it is still difficult to find research literature that focus on the principles such as the background mechanism in which stress causes breathing disorder, and the learning mechanism through which breathing techniques stabilize the states of body and mind. In this paper, we explicate the hidden learning mechanism of psychogenic asthma with the aid of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of hysteria and the neuroscientific account of psychosomatic disorders. By explicating the learning process of shortened and irregular breathing in asthma, we discuss the possibility of learning desirable and calm way of breathing through traditional breathing techniques.
