You can no more control hyperventilating than you can control a bad case of hiccups or sneezing. It's involuntary but you aren't completely out of control, like a person is when they have a seizure.

Your technique is essentially allowing the person to be waterboarded. When I first started playing football as a kid, I hyperventilated because of the stress of workouts. Stress is not simply anxiety. I can still remember the first time it happened and I had no idea what was going on. Luckily, my coach produced a…