Breathing wields incredible power over your health, as it supplies your body with oxygen and removes excess carbon dioxide (CO2) to keep you alive. However, the way you breathe — whether fast or slow, shallow or deep — also sends messages to your body that affect your mood, stress level, blood pressure, immune function and more. What's interesting about breathing is that it's both a voluntary and an involuntary process. While your body breathes automatically, you also have the ability to consciously control your breathing — the speed, the depth and whether you breathe through your mouth or your nose. So, simply by changing the way you breathe, you can actually influence your health in a variety of ways. Here, I review some of the most important basics of proper breathing, and share several effective controlled breathing techniques shown to have a positive impact on health and psychological well-being. Always Breathe Through Your Nose — Even During ExercisePerhaps the most basic of all breathing techniques is to make sure you're always breathing through your nose. Mouth breathing tends to promote hyperventilation, which actually decreases tissue oxygenation. Mouth breathing also results in diminished levels of CO2 in your body and a decreased ability to filter toxic pollutants from the air. Your body needs a balance of oxygen and CO2 for optimal function. CO2 is not just a waste product but has actual biological roles, one of which is assisting in oxygen utilization. When your CO2 level is too low, changes in your blood pH impair your hemoglobin's ability to release oxygen to your cells (the Bohr effect).1,2 Mouth breathing can also elevate your heart rate and blood pressure, sometimes resulting in fatigue and dizziness.3 The elasticity of your lungs also depends on nasal resistance, which you only get from nasal breathing due to the smaller diameter of your nasal passages.4 Poor breathing is even associated with poor posture. So, breathing through your nose helps maintain your health in a number of important ways. While huffing and puffing through your mouth may be particularly tempting during physical exertion, really try to avoid this tendency. You should be exercising only to the extent that you can continue breathing through your nose the vast majority of the time. If this means backing off on intensity, then that's what you need to do, realizing that it's only temporary until your body begins to adjust to your slightly increased CO2 levels, which will happen fairly quickly. You just have to get used to "air hunger" (an admittedly uncomfortable feeling of mild suffocation), and realize it's normal and safe. So, the rule of thumb is to not push yourself to the point where you are unable to maintain nasal breathing. If you feel the need to open your mouth, then slow down and recover. This helps your body to gradually develop a tolerance for increased CO2. Assess Your CO2 ToleranceThere's a simple self-test for estimating your body's tolerance to CO2. Dr. Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko,5 a Russian physician, discovered that the level of CO2 in your lungs correlates to your ability to hold your breath after normal exhalation. You can use a stopwatch or simply count the number of seconds to yourself. Here is the process:
The time you just measured is called the "control pause" or CP, which reflects the tolerance of your body to carbon dioxide. Here are the criteria for evaluating your CP: • CP 40 to 60 seconds -- Indicates a normal, healthy breathing pattern and excellent physical endurance. • CP 20 to 40 seconds -- Indicates mild breathing impairment, moderate tolerance to physical exercise and potential for health problems in the future (most folks fall into this category). To increase your CP from 20 to 40, physical exercise is necessary. You might begin by simply walking with one nostril occluded. As your CP increases, begin incorporating jogging, cycling, swimming, weightlifting or anything else to build up an air shortage. • CP 10 to 20 seconds -- Indicates significant breathing impairment and poor tolerance to physical exercise; nasal breath training and lifestyle modifications are recommended. If your CP is less than 20 seconds, never have your mouth open during exercise, as your breathing is too unstable. This is particularly important if you have asthma. • CP under 10 seconds -- Serious breathing impairment, very poor exercise tolerance and chronic health problems. Short CP times correlate with low tolerance to CO2 and chronically depleted CO2 levels. As a result, the shorter your CP, the more easily you'll get breathless. The good news is that you will feel better and improve your exercise endurance with each five-second increase in your CP. Improve Fitness and Endurance by Raising Your CO2 ToleranceThe first step to increase your CP is to learn how to unblock your nose with the following breath hold exercise. While this exercise is perfectly safe for most, if you have any cardiac problems, high blood pressure, are pregnant, have Type 1 diabetes, panic attacks or any serious health concern, then do not hold your breath beyond the first urges to breathe.
Breathe Less and More LightlyWhile "breathe less" might sound like a terrible recommendation, most people chronically over breathe, meaning they breathe more than is needed, which depletes their carbon dioxide reserves. Typical characteristics of over breathing include mouth breathing, upper chest breathing, sighing, noticeable breathing during rest, and taking large breaths prior to talking. Clinical trials6 involving asthmatics show they breathe between 10 to 15 liters of air per minute and people with chronic heart disease tend to breathe between 15 to 18 liters of air per minute. On the other hand, normal breathing volume is between 4 and 7 liters of air per minute, which translates into 12 to 14 breaths. This suggests breathing less is a sign of better health. Conversely, the more you breathe, the more likely you are to experience significant health problems. What's more, if you are breathing through your mouth during the day, odds are you're also doing so at night, which can lead to health problems such as dehydration, snoring and sleep apnea.7,8,9,10,11,12 Mouth breathing is associated with several other health problems, including:
The trick to minimize these problems is to breathe more lightly, and this happens automatically when you shift from breathing through your mouth to your nose. Remember, the deeper and more quickly you breathe, the more constricted your blood vessels will be and the less oxygen will be delivered to your tissues.21 Breathing through the nose, on the other hand, slows down and regularizes your breathing, thereby improving oxygenation. Nasal breathing also has a calming effect because it activates your parasympathetic nervous system.22,23 Three Steps to Proper BreathingThe following steps will help your breath become lighter, such that the hairs in your nose barely move. Again, this type of light breathing helps you to enter and remain in a calm, meditative state while lowering your blood pressure and reducing nasal congestion for easier breathing. You may feel a slight air shortage at first, but this should be tolerable. If it becomes uncomfortable, take a 15-second break and then continue.
After three or four minutes of air hunger, you'll start experiencing the beneficial effects of CO2 accumulation, such as an increase in body temperature and an increase in saliva. The former is a sign of improved blood circulation, the latter a sign that your parasympathetic nervous system has been activated, which is important for stress reduction. Breathe Horizontally, Not VerticallyAnother near-universal breathing abnormality is breathing vertically rather than horizontally. This is something clinical psychologist Belisa Vranich points out in her book "Breathe," which details her breathing program. Vertical breathing makes you feel a bit taller on the in-breath, as it raises your chest and shoulders. The problem is that this kind of breathing actually triggers your sympathetic nervous system, basically signaling your body that you're stressed. Correct breathing will cause your midsection to widen, while not raising your shoulders or puffing out the upper part of your chest. This is the horizontal breath. At first, you may find it difficult to take a proper breath, as your midsection and diaphragm may be tight. To relearn proper horizontal breathing, Vranich suggests the following exercise:
Eventually, this exercise will teach your body to use the diaphragm to breathe. A related problem here is feeling short of breath, which is caused by insufficient exhalation that leaves excess residual air in your lungs. Engaging your diaphragm and intercostals — the muscles that run between your ribs, allowing your chest wall to move — will allow you to take more complete in and out breaths. You can also train yourself to exhale more fully by making sure your exhale is slightly longer than your inhale, and by engaging your diaphragm to really squeeze the air out as you allow your midsection to collapse inward. In the 4-7-8 exercise below, for example, your exhale is twice as long as your inhale. The condensed version of Vranich's interview is included above for your convenience. For the full interview, see "Breathing Program to Improve Mental and Physical Health." The Relaxing Breath — Improve Sleep With the 4-7-8 Breathing ExerciseDeep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which induces the relaxation response.24 There are many different breathing practices that will accomplish this, but the following is both powerful and easy to perform. I first learned this exercise when I attended a presentation by Dr. Andrew Weil at the 2009 Expo West in California. Here's a quick summary of the process.25 Weil also demonstrates the technique in the video above.
You can do this 4-7-8 exercise as frequently as you want throughout the day, but it's recommended you don't do more than four full breaths during the first month or so of practice. Later you may work your way up to eight full breath cycles at a time. The benefits of this simple practice are enormous and work as a natural tranquilizer for your nervous system. Ease Stress and Anxiety With Controlled BreathingAnother powerful technique is the Buteyko Breathing Method, which will help reverse health problems associated with improper breathing, the most common of which are overbreathing and mouthbreathing. When you stop mouthbreathing and learn to bring your breathing volume toward normal, you have better oxygenation of your tissues and organs, including your brain. The Buteyko Breathing Method and many other controlled breathing methods are also very effective for controlling anxiety and quelling panic attacks. As reported by Scientific American:26
Research27 also shows the relaxation response enhances "expression of genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion and telomere maintenance," and reduces "expression of genes linked to inflammatory response and stress-related pathways." Scientific American lists six breathing techniques shown to relieve stress, anxiety and panic attacks, including alternate nostril breathing and abdominal breathing. The Buteyko Breathing Method is also indicated for this, as it allows you to retain and gently accumulate CO2, which calms breathing and reduces anxiety:
For Better Health, Control Your BreathTypically, the respiratory rate of humans is about 10 to 20 breaths per minute. Slowing your breathing down to a rate of four to 10 breaths per minute appears to offer many benefits, however, including effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular, cardiorespiratory and autonomic nervous systems.28 Further, according to research29 published in the medical journal Breathe, optimized respiration in humans may be in the range of six to 10 breaths per minute, done in a way that activates your diaphragm. The researchers also note that nasal breathing (such as taught by the Buteyko method) "is also considered an important component of optimized respiration," and that:
Aside from the techniques already mentioned, there are many others. Following is a short list of a few additional breathing methods you can try, all of which are backed by scientific evidence30 showing their beneficial influence on human health.
from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/01/31/best-breathing-techniques.aspx
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