Buteyko Breathing - Not Just For Asthma

[AAorris]

Hello everyone!

I'm sure there are those who know about the Buteyko breathing method being used to help with asthma, but I have a hunch there's more to it.

The Buteyko method of breathing is to achieve optimum body oxygenation.

For example, breathing has an important effect on body oxygenation, even if our pulse oximeters tell us it is not so. Oxygen levels in the blood will - during any type of breathing - be 90-100%. However, oxygen levels in tissues and organs will change based on the amount of CO2 in those areas. When we work, muscles use oxygen and generate CO2. This CO2 is what tells hemoglobin to release oxygen, how much, and where. During hyperventilation, CO2 is purged from the body, meaning oxygen will be stuck to the hemoglobin and hypoxia will be the result.

I highly recommend everyone to visit Normal Breathing: Rates, Body Oxygenation | NormalBreathing.com to read about many other effects our natural breathing patterns have on not only oxygenation, but on our breath hold, too!

http://www.normalbreathing.com/index-buteyko-table-of-health-zones.php I would also like those interested to see where they fit into on this chart. On a normal exhale, plug your nose and time a breath hold so that at the end, you breathe no deeper than you did before the breath hold (a comfortable exhale breath hold). That is your CP. find the MP(maximum pause) on that column and multiply it by 3. Is it similar to your max inhale breath hold?

It is also interesting to note that at the top of this chart, CO2 levels are the highest, and so is the breath hold. Maybe CO2 is our friend. Also interesting is that if one can get to the top of this health chart, we could hold our breath for 7minutes(maybe more for us apneists) and would achieve many other health benefits touted on this web site such as only needing 2hrs sleep for full rest, complete riddance of chronic disease, painless childbirth for the ladies, etc...

I look forward to seeing any interest in the super-health aspect of Buteyko.

 

[rogam44]

Buteyko Table of Health zones I would also like those interested to see where they fit into on this chart. On a normal exhale, plug your nose and time a breath hold so that at the end, you breathe no deeper than you did before the breath hold (a comfortable exhale breath hold). That is your CP. find the MP(maximum pause) on that column and multiply it by 3. Is it similar to your max inhale breath hold?

Table doesn't work for me. Resting pulse 42 bpm, breathing frequency in rest 10 breaths/min, CP 30s, max. static 350s (no packing). Interesting informations anyway. I used yoga breathing patterns (1:4:2 breathing pattern) to improve my asthma significantly. Now I have almost no symptoms.

 

[AAorris]

Table doesn't work for me. Resting pulse 42 bpm, breathing frequency in rest 10 breaths/min, CP 30s, max. static 350s (no packing). Interesting informations anyway. I used yoga breathing patterns (1:4:2 breathing pattern) to improve my asthma significantly. Now I have almost no symptoms.

42 bpm at rest? That's very impressive! I'm interested to see if, maybe, many apneists are off the average parameters on the chart.
Glad to hear about clearing up of your asthma! My mild asthma disappeared around age 7 when I started running with my father.
And of course the main reason I bring up this web site is because it states some interesting physiological effects on the human body that may relate to freediving.
To add another bit of information from the web site, have a look at what happens to brain oxygen during hyperventilation:

Being deprived of oxygen, it may add a second layer of danger as brain hypoxia is what causes a black out, isn't it?

 

[Mullins]

Looks much like all the other quackery on the internet. The assumption is that because sick people breathe more heavily than healthy people, it must be the heavy breathing that's making them sick. Answer? Tell them to breathe less. Genius!

Edit: on the chart, I'm located right down in the 'diseased' rows. Guess that's why I'm missing out on all the extrasensory and telepathic abilities the top rows are supposed to get

 

[AAorris]

All the online junk about curing sickness is starting to make me sick, too.
I'm interested in this because it is actually a resource for superior health, and more importantly, superior breath hold. It also brings up some questions on freedive physiology. Like what we want to do with oxygen during a breath hold, do we want bronchi and muscles unable to use oxygen so we retain a lot of it during a breath hold as in hyperventilation, or do we want bronchi dilated and muscles ready to use oxygen so we can actually use the oxygen we breath?

I hope that at least some people here look far enough into this to see some of the breathing science here, and how it may apply to apnea. I'm positive there are interesting things here that isn't being picked up on yet.

Another bit for post continuity:
CO2 is a nerve sedative, which might attribute to the calmness and serenity we find even without depth during apnea. Maybe cutting out the deep breathups or changing that to sub normal breathing, starting with slightly higher CO2 will help us relax more during the breath hold.

If anyone takes the time to read some of the things on the site that could contribute/regard apnea, please throw up a post about it. I'd like to actually discuss physiology here!

And haha, that extrasensory stuff would be interesting if were true! I guess we'll see when we're both at the top, getting 2 hrs of sleep!

 

[Mullins]

This is all fairly standard stuff in freediving. We already know that elevated CO2 levels towards the end of a breathhold protect against BO - the Bohr effect is one of the freediving fundamentals. This is why divers are so careful with their breathups.

CO2 triggers the urge to breathe, so I don't think it's responsible for any serenity at depth. There is typically a tradeoff between performance and safety - competitive divers underventilate and put up with the pain of hypercapnea in order to perform well. Recreational divers usually hyperventilate to a greater or lesser degree, giving up ultimate performance (time to BO) in exchange for increased comfort.

It's contentious and probably differs between individuals, but optimum gas balance seems to be somewhere in the region of tidal breathing - which does make sense. This means that most divers hyperventilate more than they really ought to, because they've learned it makes them feel better.

 

[AAorris]

Okay, that makes a lot of sense!

But it seems that if one trains their tidal breathing to be more shallow/infrequent, their comfortable breath hold would increase in time. If someone with 5% CO2 in alveoli can hold a comfortable exhale for 30s, and someone with 12% CO2 in alveoli can do the same for 150s, what else is creating the gap? obviously this isn't even close to blacking out because it is a comfortable hold.

Maybe beyond direct apnea, but as a lifestyle: natural breathing was reduced and we could increase our breath hold while still maintaining oxygen safety?

Sounds like this is all pretty average stuff I guess, but this particular web site had me interested in the idea that increased natural levels of CO2 positively have an effect on comfortable breath holds. I can only feel that proper tissue/muscle oxygenation is the key.

 

[Mullins]

But it seems that if one trains their tidal breathing to be more shallow/infrequent, their comfortable breath hold would increase in time. If someone with 5% CO2 in alveoli can hold a comfortable exhale for 30s, and someone with 12% CO2 in alveoli can do the same for 150s, what else is creating the gap?

If the gap exists at all, which is dubious given some of the claims made on that site, it will probably be because very fit people with low resting pulses tend to have longer time-to-discomfort breathholds than unfit wheezy cardiac patients. Their breathing rates will be an effect of their physical condition, not the cause. The Buteyko approach seems back-to-front; like trying to heal a broken leg by ordering the patient to walk without limping.

For what it's worth (i.e. SFA), my CP is about 25 seconds. Resting pulse is around 55bpm and breathing rate is 12-15/minute. Probably best not to let this stuff rot your brain...

 

[John P]

I don't know much about this but the Buteyko method of breathing has been proven to help with athsma though hasn't it? (I read that it had)

 

[jay cluskey]

it has been proved to aleviate asthma attacks .
it is basicaly a practice of hyperventilation tecniques to build up CO2 wich staves off attacks.
i was toying with practcing this but i am leaning more towards pranayama exercises as they have been proven to benefit lung function and body oxygenation and body detoxification.
there are documetaries on youtube which professor buteyko demonstrates his practices. which at the time were seen as controvercial.

 

[Mullins]

Yeah the asthma thing makes sense. I'm just a liiiiitle more sceptical about it resulting in the ability to digest wider varieties of fibers, painless childbirth, production of antibodies in saliva that prevent cavities, natural reduction of sleep down to 2-4 hours, extrasensory psychic and telepathic abilities. Claims like that kinda knock its credibility around.

 

[jay cluskey]

I've not read any other bs about it my self dave. I was introduced to a practicioner by a hypnotist I was using last year .
I wasn't aware I would develop super powers as well if I would of known that I would of auditioned for the new series of heros
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Mullins]

How's my aura?

 

[jay cluskey]

Its great and your freedivings ok too
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[jay cluskey]

dave Just give me a shout if you start struggling with distance depth or static , a little bit of butekyo will sort you out , don't do too much it may stunt your growth
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[AAorris]

How's the painless childbirth? I hear the Russians are doing it.

 

[jay cluskey]

oh you know my wife is on baby number two and i never had a single pain with the first one and not even a stretch mark either

 

[Erki]

Buteiko method could be used for the training of CO2 tolerance and may be it has some effect to the effectiveness of oxygen consumption too.
My CP time increases temporary about 3 times (from ~30' to ~1:30) after performing a conventional CO2 tolerance table.

But it seems that they have not updated the theory behind this method since 1960-s then Buteiko founded his technique. It is suprising that most of the freedivers have not heard about this methods.

 

[AAorris]

Yes, I would imagine that you could use the ideas behind Buteyko breathing as an active part of training. As in, slowing down your breathing and pausing every exhale could be something you could do at any part of the day, and it would be reasonable that you could do that often to naturally build up a tolerance to CO2.

This could allow apneists to achieve the same breath holding times without purging CO2 and could reduce blackouts. Buteyko or not, active apnea training would be exciting and useful for anyone! I'll try to be a guinea pig and see if it has any effect on me, and update that on here if the thread is still active.

As far as training, it would be an interesting schedule to make reduced breathing a 24/7 CO2 training, and all formal statics could be no warm up max statics!

 

[trux]

It is suprising that most of the freedivers have not heard about this methods.

I do not think it is the case. Buteyko is discussed here on DB rather frequently:

http://forums.deeperblue.com/general-freediving/62344-new-discovery-regulation-breathing.html
http://forums.deeperblue.com/beginner-freediving/65881-buteyko-asthma-breath-holds-training.html
http://forums.deeperblue.com/safety/69913-forehead-pain.html
http://forums.deeperblue.com/freedi...68931-02-co2-tables-effective-waste-time.html
http://forums.deeperblue.com/general-freediving/41450-asthma-freediving.html