When we breathe it is important that we are breathing right. You think ” I am pretty sure I am breathing like any regular person would breath,” the fact is when we are born we diaphragm breath and we slowly unlearn the technique. There are many benefits that when breathing properly or trying particular techniques; we can reduce strain in the body, lower our CO2 levels, and the acidity levels in our body reducing inflammation. Helps reduce strain on our central nervous system and can improve digestion. The most common issues with breathing are overbreathing ( excess oxygen consumption combined with excess carbon dioxide exhalation) and mouth breathing, which contributes to poor sleep and sleep apnea.
The breathing technique that we will be talking about today is Buteyko breathing. Buteyko breathing – named after the Russian physician who developed the technique – is based on the fact that when you stop mouth breathing and learn to engage in slow whispers – like nasal breathing, you can oxygenate your tissues and organs far more effectively.
Ron Buteyko describes the common belief among experts is you must breath deeply to remove the access CO2. But you must still maintain ideal CO2 levels in your lungs because lack of CO2 constricts your blood vessels and may detrimentally affect your heart function, tissue oxygenation, and blood pH.
This technique keeps you from both excessive oxygen consumption and excessive CO2 blow-off. Nasal breathing transports the gas nitric oxide more readily into your lungs because your nasal cavities produce and contain higher levels of nitric oxide. You’re like ” okay what does all this help?” It significantly dilates blood vessels and bronchioles tubes, along with neutralizing germs and bacteria.
The control- Pause Technique (CP)
CP is a breath- hold of air after a normal exhale until you experience the tiniest desire to breath in.
Do this before you’re about to get up or go to bed. You need 10 minutes of rest before this exercise.
1. Begin to breathe through the nose , after exhaling normally through your nose ( not a full, deep exhalation) squeeze the tip of your nose with your fingers and look at a stop watch. If you experience even the slightest inclination to breath in or gasp for air at six seconds, immediately let go.Your ( CP) is six seconds. If you have to take a big breath at the end of the breath- hold , then you held your breath too long.
How do judge what a good (CP) would be:
– good CP is 30 second
– very good CP is 45 seconds
– 60 seconds is where you want to be at, that is a good indication that your immune system is working the way you want it too.
– A CP lower than 30 seconds room for improvement
– CP lower than 15 seconds you might have symptoms of respiratory issues, disordered sleep breathing, anxiety, and stress.
Mouth Tapping
1. This concept is simple; you tape your mouth prior to sleep to force your body to learn nasal breathing. You can use medical tape or 3m micro tape from amazon, if your skin is sensitive you can try somnifix it contains a hypoallergenic with fewer chemicals than the 3m tape.
Apply a small amount of olive or coconut oil to your lips and edge of mouth this will help if you need to take the tape off anytime and place it back on. Once tape is applied, slowly inhale through the mouth to make sure you do not have any openings. Now you just fall asleep, your body will adapt and adjust to start with nasal breathing
Don’t worry you can improve this technique by practice , just like any other exercise just a little goes a long way over time. Also, if you are unsure about any of these techniques, alway ask your doctor or a health professional. These techniques are suggestions not prescriptions, if you would like to try either technique – work your way up to the full night sleep, like a nap.
I would like everyone to at least try the CP breathing and let me know how many seconds you are at!
Have a great day
Source on techniques – Boundless by Ben GreenField