Buteyko Breathing

Did you know that the quantity of air you breathe has an influence on your whole body and your health? We assume that the body automatically knows how to breathe properly, but unfortunately breathing is a learned behaviour, naturally woven into our lives. It is affected by unhealthy diets, chronic stress, asthma, anxiety, strong emotions, our modern environment and lifestyle. When we breathe through our nose, the air is filtered of viruses and pathogens, it is not only warmed & humidified, but also stimulates the production of nasal nitric oxide gas (NO).  This mighty gas aids in immune defence and acts a vasodilator  thereby keeping our blood vessels and arteries healthy to prevent high blood pressure.  With every nasal breath we take, NO gas travels into our lungs and acts a a bronchodilator, opening up our bronchioles and improving blood-oxygen gas exchange. The greatest concentration of blood in the lungs is in the lower lobes.  Breathing nasally slows down the air as it is drawn deeper into our lungs, forcing the diaphragm to contract against resistance which redistributes the blood from the lower part of the lungs to the upper lobes.  This essentially enhances oxygen uptake in the body.  If we mouth breathe, we bypass all of these benefits! 

Although many people believe that breathing more air increases oxygen content in cells, this is simply not true.   Calm nasal breath affords us the correct balance of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas that    

allows the bond between oxygen and hemoglobin to be broken, enabling the release, transport & delivery of O2 to our muscles, tissues and organs.  When we breathe through our nose, as opposed to our mouth, we can keep more CO2 inside, as the volume of air we take in through the nose is far less than thorough the mouth! This results in 10-20% more O2 uptake in our bodies.  With slow diaphragmatic breathing, we can balance our autonomic nervous system and access our parasympathetic state where we can repair our body and relax our minds.  When we breathe in excess of our metabolic requirements, or mouth breathe for instance,  we disturb the normal physiological balance of the body, resulting in too little carbon dioxide to be present in our blood and tissues. This creates fatigue both at rest and during exercise.  The beauty of our breath is that we have the power to change it.  Simply by retraining our body to breathe slowly, lightly, and deeply, we can bring our bodies from a state of stress or sympathetic dominance, to a one of calmness & relaxation.