Better Breathing for Better Healthby Michael White
Director of the Optimal Breathing School
Can the way you breathe make you sick?
Yes it can. You breathe 15,000 to 35,000 times daily. Anything you do wrong that often can affect you in many ways. But when developed properly the breathing length, depth, volume, balance, rate, ease, and flow will help heal or improve most aspects of life and living. Breath is life: The unanswered questions are why, when and how.
Over 90 % of your energy comes from your breathing. Oxygen is a primary product of breathing and the more difficult it is to breathe fully in a balanced and integrated way the higher becomes the oxygen cost of breathing.
Another primary aspect is the way breathing mechanics influences the nervous system via stimulation and relaxation (sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system responses). This is huge but largely overlooked by many health professionals.
Do you frequently experience any of the following? Breathing feels stuck; shortness of breath; shallow breathing; breathing feels like a series of events instead of one thing; wheezing; gasping for air; chronic yawning or sighing; breathing is labored or restricted; breathing is shallow; profound fatigue; poor sleep; anxiety; panic attacks, seizures; muscle cramps; ticklish; lowered threshold of pain; unsatisfying or shortness of breath.
Do you often feel that can't catch your breath? Does your breathing feel stuck or like a hitch, bump or lump right below your breastbone when you try to take a deep breath? Any repeated breathlessness, irresolvable emotions or cravings. Is life getting you down or do you sense you are you too easily overwhelmed?
Research and statistics on over 45,000 breathing tests clearly show that good breathing skills correlate with wellness, and poor breathing skills with a strong propensity towards illness. It is probably no surprise to most of you that have discovered that many health conditions are caused or worsened by poor breathing. During this time we also gleaned several breathing skills that correlate with optimal health and peak performance. When those skills are improved there is a corresponding improvement in most people's health and performance.
A few conditions include: Addictions, Allergies, Anxiety, Asthma, Bad Memory, Brittle Bones, Bronchitis, Cancer, Chest Pains, Circulation disorder, Depression, Gland Disorder, Fatigue, Hypochondria, Low Sex Drive, Organ Disorder , Overweight, Panic Attacks, Pain other than chest, Phobias, Poor Voice Quality, Shortness of Breath, Sleeping Issues, Stressed Out and Emphysema.
Optimal Breathing Skill:
Skill # 1 of at least seven.
A. Breathing Volume & Oxygen Uptake Efficiency
Lie, sit or stand. If you stand, then bend your knees very slightly. Take as large an in-breath as possible and then as quietly and quickly as you can count and still be heard -- like a VERY fast talking person speaking clearly --speak as fast but as clear as you can and count up to as high a number as you can reach on this one full exhale. You want to use up as much air as you are able. Slowly use up all the breath as you speak. Squeeze that last bit of air out with your stomach muscles pulled inward to get to as high a number as possible. Note the number down and try it again. Try it a third time if you think the number will be much different.
Do not:
Do:
Make sure you include the beginnings of each number such as the thirty in thirty-three.
Repeat the tests in the same position you were in for the previous tests. OK, try it now.
How high a number did you reach in that ONE long exhaled breath?
Implications:
Breathing Volume and Oxygen Uptake Efficiency is greatly impaired by UDB - Unbalanced Dysfunctional Breathing
I can reach a count of 200-250. I do not get sick. If you are uncertain that if you did it properly, try it again until you get nearly the same number twice in a row.
The higher number count points to breathing volume, flow rate and also implies levels of oxygen uptake efficiency. In over-simplified theory if you had lungs ten times larger then you do now you would expect to be able to reach a 10 times higher number count score. UNLESS you had very poor oxygen uptake efficiency and flow rate.
Poor efficiency would be breathiness or using up too much air during relaxation, sleep, activity or speaking, singing or wind instrument playing. Poor efficiency also causes excessive accumulation of either carbon dioxide or oxygen that causes blood gas imbalance. This also inhibits oxygen uptake into the blood cells which can cause, worsen, or trigger a host of maladies.
Basically this test shows strong correlations with most serious diagnosed illnesses increasing as reports of the number count skill decreases. It does not separate volume from flow rate and efficiency but we see that if you have a score of 150 or above that your health is pretty good over all as you have to have pretty good volume and flow rate to achieve that good a score. The best score so far is 310 and the worst is 4. We do not recommend trying to go higher then 250 because we do not have sufficient reason for that.
In other words, the higher the number count, the fewer diagnosed illnesses correlated with that skill level. Those with 150 or more are much less likely (by up to 400%) to correlate with a diagnosed illness then those with 4-65. Those with less then 65 are probably experiencing some malady, mild or otherwise, that they suspect or know about such as any of the above list of conditions. Our goal for you is 150 minimum. We see the 105-150 to be in the top 10%. 151 to 300 is in the top 2%.
Across the board in most illness categories, below 105 on the number count means you may well have a serious health challenge or one is capable of one occurring at any moment. Youth or conditioning may give you an edge but as age increases we see an increased health vulnerability especially when the number count lowers. We are always referring to correlation/possibility, not certainty. We let the statistics speak for themselves.
Our experience and research lead us to believe strongly that breathing is a major priority one should investigate when wishing to progress on any goal or purpose and or when any evidence of disordered energy presents itself.
Michael White is director of the Optimal Breathing School and its health practitioner certification programs and author of several books and recorded training tools for home study and self help. He is a continuing education provider for massage therapists NCBTMB and Naturopaths (ANMA). Visit his website at breathing.com and take the Free Breathing Tests.