Breathing Techniques for Greater Health & Fitness

Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko was born in1923 into a farming family near Kiev, Ukraine. He studied mechanical engineering at Kiev Polytechnic. World War II interrupted this schooling. During the war, Buteyko had become tired of mechanics and made the decision to go into medicine. His background in mechanical engineering, gave him an advantage in understanding the mechanics of breathing and eventually came up with a unique method to help people breath more normally. That method is now known as the Buteyko Breathing Method, a powerful approach for reversing many health problems associated with improper breathing.

Two of the most common breathing problems are overbreathing (hyperventilating) and mouth breathing, both of which have adverse health ramifications and can have particularly harmful consequences if done during exercise.

The Right Way & the ‘Wrong Way to Breathe:

We all think that we know how to breathe, since we have been doing it all of our lives. After all, you would be dead if you stopped breathing for more than a few minutes. Most of us actually breathe in such a way as to put our health in jeopardy.

Ways to breathe more properly are promoted in yoga, Pilates and meditative methods. Those strategies tend to focus on taking large and deep breaths, which is actually the opposite of what Buteyko taught.
Buteyko practitioners, examine dysfunctional breathing patterns associated with asthma, rhinitis and sleep disorders such as sleep apnea.

They detail the scientific rationale for improving your breathing habits.
In 1957, Dr. Buteyko came up with the term “disease of deep breathing,” having researched the health effects of excessive breathing for over a decade. While still in medical training, one of his assignments included monitoring patients’ breathing volume. He noticed something of interest, the sicker the patient got, the heavier they breathed.

Later, he also discovered he could lower his blood pressure simply by bringing his breathing toward normal and in this way successfully “cured” his own hypertension.

What Is Normal Breathing, and What Causes Dysfunctional Breathing?

Normal breathing volume is approximately four to six liters of air per minute during rest, equating to 10 to 12 breaths per minute. But rather than focusing on the number of breaths, you should learn to breathe softly and calmly. You can think of the saying - “breathe light to breathe right.”

The breathing volume for asthmatics, tends to be around 13 to 15 liters per minute and those with sleep apnea breathe on average 10 to 15 liters per minute.

In short, asthmatics and those with sleep apnea breathe far too much, upwards of three times more than normal. This dysfunctional breathing pattern is part of their disease profile.

Breathing for Stress Relief:

Unfortunately, conventional advice to “breathe deep” to release tension, may only worsen the situation.

Stress makes you breathe faster and promotes sighing, so to counteract or release stress, you need to do the opposite, breathe slower, softer and make your breathing more regular. Ideally, your breathing should be so light, soft, and gentle “that the fine hairs within the nostrils remain motionless.”

Importantly, make sure to breathe through your nose, not your mouth. Part of the benefits of nose breathing is related to the fact that there is nitric oxide in your nose and when you breathe gently and slowly through your nose, you carry a small amount of this beneficial gas into your lungs.
Nitric oxide not only helps maintain homeostasis, or balance, within your body, it’s also helps to open your airways (bronchodilation), open your blood vessels (vasodilation) and has antibacterial properties that helps neutralize germs and bacteria.

Nose breathing also helps normalize your breathing volume. This is important because when you chronically overbreathe, the heavier breathing volume that’s coming into your lungs, can cause a disturbance of blood gasses, including the loss of carbon dioxide (CO2).

How Your Body Regulates Breathing:

Your breath is primarily regulated by brain receptors that monitor the concentration of carbon dioxide and pH level (and to a lesser extent the level of oxygen) in your blood.

Typically, we believe the reason we feel the need to breathe is because our body needs oxygen, but the stimulus to breathe is actually to get rid of excess carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is not just a waste gas. It performs a number of important functions in your body. Your body does need a certain amount of carbon dioxide at all times and one of the side effects of overbreathing is removing too much carbon dioxide.

Hyperventilating Reduces Oxygen Delivery:

Overbreathing not only reduces carbon dioxide, it also reduces the delivery of oxygen to the tissues and organs in your body, essentially the opposite of what people normally think happens when you breathe heavily. This is part and parcel why hyperventilating through your mouth during exercise is ill advised. In a nutshell, hyperventilation can cause severe constriction of your carotid arteries, and can reduce the amount of available oxygen to your brain by half.

The Buteyko Breathing Method:

Dr. Buteyko discovered that the level of carbon dioxide in your lungs correlates to your ability to hold your breath after normal exhalation. The Buteyko Method includes a simple self-test for estimating your carbon dioxide levels.

There is a lot more to the Buteyko Method. Prior to implementing the Buteyko Method, you should talk to your doctor first to get their input.
The Buteyko Breathing Method is a powerful and inexpensive tool that can help improve your health, longevity, quality of life, and athletic performance.

To learn more about the Buteyko Method:

Read The Oxygen Advantage, which contains both detailed and simplified descriptions of each Buteyko breathing exercise, along with quick reference guides, case studies, and scientific details to help you understand and apply the Buteyko Method. There is also a DVD set.

You can find both at http://oxygenadvantage.com/

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