Re: Buteyko Breathing Technique

Yes. When you practice breathing exercises, you breathe less and your blood become more acidic (more CO2). However, you improve cellular oxygenation and the CP (control pause) test or stress-free breath-holding time after exhalation is the main parameter of the Buteyko method. Get more oxygen by breathing less! Why?

When a person breathes more than the medical norm at rest, over-breathing (or hyperventilation) REDUCES body oxygenation. This physiological law is based on 3 fundamental observations or facts of respiratory physiology:

1. Red blood cells are about 98% saturated with oxygen during miniscule normal breathing (6 l/min; 12 breaths per min; 500 ml for one breath; diaphragmatic, strictly nasal, invisible, inaudible). Hence, when we breathe more than the medical norm, we cannot improve, to any significant degree, arterial blood oxygenation.

2. Hyperventilation (overbreathing) decreases CO2 concentration in the arterial blood and other cells causing constriction of arteries and arterioles since CO2 is a vasodilator. As a result, breathing too much leads to reduced blood and oxygen supply for the heart, brain, kidneys, liver, colon, and other vital organs. (This is reason why we can easily faint or pass out, if we try to breathe very heavy for 2-3 min: oxygen availability for brain cells is reduced about 2 times.)

3. Less CO2 in the tissues means a shift in oxygen dissociation curves for blood to the left causing “suppressed Bohr effect” (a reduced oxygen release by the red blood cells in the capillaries).

Therefore, the more one breathes, the less oxygen is provided for vital organs. More oxygen in cells means more alkaline cells and better health!