Home › Forum Online Discussion › Practice › Breathing tips that turned my world upside down
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November 26, 2009 at 9:01 pm #32720BeginnerParticipant
I love when this happens. As a yoga practitioner and teacher for many years it was using all parts of the lungs and three part breathing and exercises that increased a balanced intake of oxygen into the body.
Here is the link to the theory behind the practices I am trying out for 100 days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buteyko_method
The main idea is by inhaling too much we incapacitate the transfer of oxygen into the system. Co2, not the waste product we were taught is the key to unlocking the oxygen!
I am not much of a theory sort of guy. If something works for me I try it out and then go back and use the theory as part of my creative imagination.
For example I have been experiencing left leg cramping, especially in the morning. I have tried various nutritional approaches and exercise, chalk it up to older age…but when I read that his studies showed that hyperventilation (in his view what most of us do- overbreathe)causes calcium and magnesium to bind and not be utilized in the body and what do we get then?
Cramping -and my leg cramps are of the voluntary muscles….his theory is asthma and many other conditions are a result of cramping from low Co2 levels.
In my own practice I focus on the cramp as I do the exercise of increasing co2 and watch as the tension eases. I was impressed.
They encourage..get this…shallow breathing! My yoga persona dropped his jaw. But when I realized that the breathing exercise we do in yoga or in our chi kung are for a specific period for a specific purpose I eased a bit.
This is for all day normal living and special practice periods retraining the body to not over breathe is the work. As practitioners we have experienced this slowing down of breath and using visualization using both the inhale and exhale and the pause for effect…that pause at the end of an exhale not only has classic stopping time effects, the fullness of no thought, but also is a healing agent on a chemical level.
Why am I surprised? Barry~
November 27, 2009 at 12:38 am #32721singing oceanParticipantInteresting, reminds me of the female immortal sun-moon breathing method that uses inhale-only breathing for most of the practice. It seems that would also increase the Co2 levels in the body.
CD
November 27, 2009 at 5:43 am #32723StevenModeratorVery interesting link, Barry.
Thanks for sharing!I think it’s the slowness of the breathing (i.e breath rate)
that is really the driving force here, as opposed to breathing
shallowly. Shallow breathing is chest-centered which
activates fight-or-flight, and shallow breathing tends to
become rapid.Slow breathing is actually the same thing they teach to get people to
calm themselves down from an anxiety attack. That is,
to concentrate on breathing fully but to focus on slowing down
the inhale and exhale. Doing so causes the body to relax.Now we have another mechanism. Too little CO2
and a resulting pH imbalance!This slowing down of the breathing and relaxing into the
inhale, exhale, and pause is actually a practice that
MW teaches in QF3. Now we can appreciate this practice
on another level!Best,
StevenNovember 28, 2009 at 9:34 pm #32725russellnParticipantlink – scroll down to 9 major benefits
the 5 grounding postures are fantastic for breath therapy – real boon for anyone needing to clear up respiratory ailments.December 1, 2009 at 6:47 pm #32727StevenModerator -
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