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Hey, and welcome to the Short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and it's just us, but we're going to do it. No problem. Everybody just calm down. This is Short stuff.

That's right. I thought about getting one together about this topic because my daughter Ruby got the wind knocked out of her for the first time.

Oh, no.

A couple of weeks ago and told me about it. I wasn't there when it happened. It happened at school, and she said it was scary, and I was like, Hey, listen, kiddo, that happened to me. I think she got hit in the chest or something, but I, when I was young, fell out of a tree about, I mean, it wasn't super high, but it was probably like seven or eight feet directly on my back and got the wind knocked out of me really bad. I think maybe the only time that's happened. If you've never had it happen, it's a very panicky, scary situation because you literally cannot get a breath. You're just like, I wish people could see because I'm silently freaking out. But you cannot inhale or exhale for a very short period, for a period of a few seconds until you go and get your breath again, finally. But I was like, What's going on there? And we found out.

Yeah. Also, that's funny that coincided with somebody wrote in an email in the last week or so asking for us to explain getting that knocked out. Oh, really? Yeah. It's in the air right now, apparently.

Well, I wish we could name that person, but I didn't realize that. So thank you to whoever that was.

So there's another name for this. It's called phrenospasm. The reason why it involves your phrenic nerve, which controls your diaphragm, which is essentially at the center of this whole thing. And to understand, I guess, how all this works, you have to understand how we breathe, right?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. I'll tell everybody how you breathe. So that diaphragm is a huge mass of muscle and tendon. It's dome-shaped. It almost looks like the insignia for the Star Trek Federation, right? It's right underneath your lungs. I'm trying to bring some of our nerdier fans back.

Okay.

And when it expands, we exhale because it forces our lungs, it forces air out of our lungs. When we inhale again, the diaphragm contracts and gets smaller so our lungs can fill with air. Eventually, they reach a point where they're low enough in pressure the air inside of our lungs is low enough in pressure compared to the outside air pressure that the outside air is like, I can't stand it anymore, and rushes in to fill our lungs up, which allows us to breathe again.

Exactly. If we're just hanging out, if we're relaxed, or even if we're doing something athletic, the diaphragm is working as it should. Briefing is involuntary. It's an automatic function of our nervous system. Our body is just doing it, and there's really no problems that are happening. The problem with getting winded happens when you get either a sock to the chest. If you ever look up martial arts, where should I hit somebody to take them down. They'll list a bunch of things like the side of the neck or all these different places where you can punch someone to not paralyze them necessarily, but at least stop them. They always say, aim for that solar plexus, which is very near the diaphragm, and it acts like a bullseye if you're trying to, say, punch there. If you get soft right there, either by a fist or if you fall out of that tree and land on your back or something, it can potentially, at least temporarily, paralyze that diaphragm because it's spasming to the point where nothing is working as it should. It is super, super scary.

Yeah. So your diaphragm is either, like you said, paralyzed or else it's spasming. And when that happens, not only can you not breathe in, the reason you start panicking immediately is part of getting the wind knocked out of you. And the reason that name is so perfect is the first part of it is all of the air in your lungs is expelled suddenly. So you've got no air in reserve, and you can't breathe. That's why it sucks so terribly, terribly bad.

You're like dying for a few seconds.

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you are. The thing is, is from everything I've seen, it's not a life-threatening thing. No, no, no. Your diaphragm stops spasming like clockwork in just a few seconds, and you start breathing again. It takes a little while for the panic to subside because your lizard brain is on like, overdrive. Yeah. But you will start breathing again. And talk about the solar plexus for a second. May I stand in my soapbox for a second? Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you read around on the internet, what causes the wind to get knocked out of you or what happens, people will add the solar plexus in. And at base, the reason that it gets added is exactly as you described it. That's where your diaphragm is, right? Yeah. But the solar plexus, specifically, is a bundle of nerves that controls your guts, and your stomach, and your spleen, and your liver, and all that stuff. And it's actually the thing that slows down digestion when you're in fight or flight mode, it's that solar plexus bundle of nerves that's like, Oh, okay, we'll just sit here for a little while while we run. The problem that I found, and this is why I'm on my soapbox, is plenty of people who have written articles on this thing go a step further and say, Well, your your solar plexus is temporarily disabled, and so your diaphragm doesn't work. Your solar plexus has nothing to do with sending nerve signals to your diaphragm. And it just drove me nuts to see it over and over and over again because they wouldn't explain it. They wouldn't go any further. They just tossed that out.

And for anybody who doesn't know or doesn't care to look further, that's somebody who knows what they're talking about, wrote this fact-based, researched article, and it's just wrong. And that drives me so crazy, man. It's everywhere. It's just so lazy, and it's just a form of spreading this information through laziness.

Yeah. I think, well, first of all, I don't think it's a very big deal.

It's not, but collectively, cumulatively, it is.

Yeah, but I think it's just a more specific bullseye and a shorthand for, instead of saying, punch someone in the diaphragm or punch someone in the stomach. It's a little bit higher than that. The solar plexus is midway between your navel and I guess what is that? The bottom of your pecs, I saw. Yeah, the bottom of your pecs. I think it's just shorthand, but it's such a thing, such a shorthand, that getting the wind knocked out of you, a doctor might even call it a solar plexus attack.

Go see a different doctor. I want to shout out a guy named Kevin Tokoff, T-O-K-O-P-H, at Catalyst University.

Oh, I saw that video.

Yeah, he did a great video on all this and went to the trouble explaining all that, that the solar plexus really doesn't have anything to do with it. It just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, basically.

He didn't get it worked up like you, though, huh?

No. No, he was a cool.

He played it pretty cool. All right, go check out the video because it explains this in a pretty cool way with visuals. But we'll be back to talk about what you might do if you have found that you have had a solar plexus attack right after this.

Let me I'm Elia Connie, and this is family therapy. My best hopes, I guess, identify the life that I want and work towards it. I've never seen a man take care of my mother the way she needed to be taken care of.

I get the impression that you don't feel like you've done everything right as a father.

Is that true? That's true, and I'm not offended by that. Thank you for going through those things, and thank you for overcoming them. Oh, wow. Thank God for the limits. Every time I have one of our sessions, our sessions be positive.

It just keeps me going.

I feel like my focus is redirected in a different aspect of my life now. So, how did we do today? We did good.

The Black Effect presents family therapy. Listen now on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Get emotional with me, Radhi Deblukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone. We're going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier healthier life. We're going to be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were going to go there. I'm here. The one that's going to be this is people that I admire. When we say, Listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors are books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy. And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life. I already believe in myself. I already see myself.

And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh, great, you see me, too.

We'll laugh together, we'll cry together, and find a way through all of our emotions. Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to a really good cry with Radhe DiVlucia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, what can you do, buddy, if you get sucked and land on your back or something?

Well, The stuff that we found is basically talking to the coach of the Little League team. Basically, what you want to do is you have the person who had the wind knocked out of them, take a knee, right? So when he's on the ground, when he's forward, have them raise their hands above their head, arch their back, and stick their chest out. You want to hold their hands up and pull it back a little bit and tell them to breathe deeply. Long inhalations, short inhalations, long exhalations, and very quickly Basically, you will start breathing normally, or the kid will.

Yeah. If you're by yourself, try to get into that position and raise your arms yourself. But if you're too freaked out, maybe just sit up in a crowd's position. Try and again, breathe through your mouth. Breathe in through your mouth, that is. Push your stomach out, then suck your stomach back. Try and be real just intentional with your breathing and try and relax. Try and stay calm. That's the biggest thing is like, All right, I know what's happened to me and that I will breathe again. So try and dim the panic a little bit. I've also seen where if you're near a pillow, if you fall out of a tree, you're out of look, I guess. But if there is a pillow, you can a pillow under your knees and head, and that will, I guess, get you in a better position. But again, if you're with someone, try to get them to help you, or hopefully, they'll know to help you with the over-the-head stuff.

Right. I guess you could be a kid who knew they were going to fall out of a tree, but they were jumping out of a tree, so they strapped a pillow to their front and back as Patty, and then found it didn't work. But then you have the pillows handy when you're trying to get the breath back in you.

Yeah, but just know that you'll start breathing. You'll get that big inhale in a matter of seconds, and then you'll be just breathing normally in a few minutes, usually. I saw 10 to 15, but I haven't seen that it really even takes that long.

Really long.

Yeah.

I don't remember what the circumstances were for me getting the wind knocked out of me, but I definitely have. It feels like a rite of passage.

I think so. And hopefully, it does not happen to you. But if it does, stay calm.

One other thing, though, if the breathing does not return to normal within several minutes or 10 to 15 minutes, go to the hospital because you might have a fractured rib or a collapsed lung. Totally. Something worse could have happened, but that's how you tell.

Yeah, absolutely. I have a tailbone bruise from spring break like two and a half weeks ago that just will not go away.

Man, those hurt.

Yeah. It's just every time I'm sitting for a while and I get up and walk, it just feels like someone's stabbing me in my right butt cheek.

Oh, you need one of those inflatable donuts.

I guess that would help. I think that a deep tailbone breach just takes a long, long time to go away.

You're going to tell us how you got that? Was it through rope trauma?

No, a golf cart injury. One of those deals, the golf carts, when you're sitting there, they have the little handrail that's very hard on the side, right by your hip. If you go to sit down and your golf cart buddy hits the gas, and it just it just drove right into my buttbone. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm all right.

That's a great way to end this one. All right. Short stuff, though.

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