Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Getting Winded

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Getting the wind knocked out of you is scary, but passes quickly. Learn exactly what's happening with all that today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you get your podcasts. 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,

probably about, I mean, it wasn't super high, but it was probably like seven or eight feet, like directly on my back. And got the wind knocked out of me really bad. I think maybe the only time that's happened. And it's, 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 me now because I'm sort of 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 that coincided with, somebody wrote in an email in the last like week or so asking for us to explain getting knocked out of.

Oh really? Yeah, so 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, um, there's another, 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. Um, and to understand, I guess, how all of this works, you kind of 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 like muscle and tendon. It's kind of like dome-shaped. It almost looks like the insignia for the Star Trek Federation, right? Right underneath your lungs. I'm trying to bring some of our nerdier fans back. Oh, okay. And when it expands, like 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 that 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, and 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. Breathing is involuntary. It's an automatic function of our nervous system. Our body's just doing it and there's really no problems

that are happening. The problem with getting winded happens when you get a either like a sock to the chest. If you ever look up like martial arts, like, you know, where should I hit somebody to take them down? They'll list a bunch of things like the side of the neck or, you know, all these different places where you can punch someone to kind of not paralyze them necessarily, but at least stop them. And they always say like aim for that solar plexus, which is very near the diaphragm.

And it sort of acts like a bullseye if you're trying to say like punch there. And so if you get socked right there, either by a fist or if you fall out of that tree and land on your back or something, it can potentially paralyze, at least temporarily paralyze that diaphragm because it's spasming to the point where you're just, nothing is working as it should and 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. Right. So you've got no air in reserve and you can't breathe. That's why it sucks so terribly, terribly bad.

Um, you're like dying for a few seconds. Yeah, pretty, pretty much. I mean, you are, the thing is, is from everything I've seen, it's not a life threatening thing. You're, um, your diaphragm stops spasming, um, like, 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, um, but you will start breathing again. Um, and talking about the solar plexus for a second, may I? Sure. You stand on my soapbox for a second. Yeah, yeah. So if you read around 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 like your, like the, the, um, 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 kind of thing go a step further and say, well, your solar plexus, um, is temporarily disabled. And so your diaphragm doesn't work. Your solar plexus has nothing to do with, um, 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, they wouldn't explain it. Yeah.

They wouldn't go any further. They just toss that out. And for anybody who doesn't know, or doesn't care to look further, like that's, that's some, 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 misinformation through laziness.

Yeah. And I think, well, first of all, I don't think it's very big deal. So it's, it's just a form of spreading misinformation through laziness. Yeah, and I think, well first of all, I don't think it's very big deal. So, settle down. It's not but collectively, cumulatively it is. Yeah, but I think it's just sort of a more specific bullseye and a shorthand for like, 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 sort of midway between your navel and I guess what is that? The bottom of your pecs I saw. Yeah, the bottom of your pecs. So I think it's just sort of shorthand, but it's such a thing, such a shorthand that getting the wind knocked out of you, like a doctor might even call it a solar plexus attack. Go see a different doctor if the doctor says that.

I wanna 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 of 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 all worked up like you though, huh? No. No, he was a cool... He played it pretty cool. Yeah. 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. Man. Welcome to season nine of Next Question with me, Katie Hurrip. It is 2024, and we're going to get through this together, folks. My campaign promise to all of you here on Next Question is going to be a good time the whole time, we hope. I have some big news to share with you on our season premiere featuring Kris Jenner, who's got some words of wisdom for me on being a good grandmother, or in her case, a good lovey. You know, you start thinking of what you want your grandmother name to be, like, are they going to call me grandma like I called my grandmother so I got to choose my name which is now lovey. I'll also be joined by Hillary Clinton, Renee

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["I'm On My Way To You"] All right. What can you do buddy? If you get, if you get sucked in a land on your back or something. Well, the stuff that we found is basically talking to the coach of the little league team. Um, basically what you want to do is you have your, your, the person who had the wind knocked out of them, take a knee, right?

So Wendy's on the ground, Wendy's forward, have them raise their hands above their head and arch their back and stick their chest out. You want to hold their hands up and kind of pull it back a little bit and tell them to breathe deeply, long inhalations, short inhalations, long exhalations, and very quickly 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 and in like a Krauts position, try and again, breathe through your mouth, breathe in through your mouth that is, push your stomach out, then suck your stomach back, like try and be real just intentional with your breathing

and try and relax, try and stay calm. That's like the biggest thing is like, all right, I know what's happened to me and that I will breathe again. So try and kind of 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 kind of out of luck, I guess, but if there is a pillow,

you can put 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 over a tree, but they were jumping out of a tree, so they strapped a pillow to their front and

back as padding. Oh, sure. 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, 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 sort of breathing normally in a few minutes Usually I saw like 10 to 15, but I haven't seen it really even takes that long really long

Yeah, I don't remember when I or what the circumstances were for me getting the wind knocked on 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 like 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. Huh? I guess that would help.

It's just, I think that a deep tailbone bruise just takes a long, long time to go away. You gonna gonna tell us how you got that was it through rope trauma. No golf cart injury One of those deals, you know the golf carts when you're sitting there They have the little handrail that's very hard on the side. Mm-hmm right by your hip if you're going to sit down and your golf cart buddy hits the gas and It just it just drove right into my butt bone. Oh my God. Yeah, I'm all right though.

That's a great way to end this one. All right. Short stuff now. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.