Breathing your way to health
You do it all the time without even thinking about it. In fact, you are doing it right now. It is one of the most powerful tools we have in recovering our health and it’s free. If you haven’t guessed by now, we’re talking about breathing and breath work. It may be obvious to you that breathing is necessary to sustain life, but you may not know how vitally important it is for decreasing acidity, regulating your nervous system, and providing oxygen to every cell in your body. It’s strange that such an important aspect of our lives and health is something that we rarely even think about, or if we do it’s as an afterthought. Breathing and breath work hold the keys to optimizing your health and improving the quality of your life!
Were you aware that each day you take roughly 20,000 breaths? That’s an incredible amount of work that your body does without you even thinking about it! How many of those breaths did you take intentionally? Most of the breaths are called “tidal” breaths in that they aren’t deep, however how many deep breaths did you take today that you can even remember? It’s astonishing how our body can function with so little effort. This all changes as soon as we need it. Breath consciously becomes very important the moment we don’t have it. Go for a run, hike to elevation, swim underwater, or just hold your breath right now and you will get a very quick reminder of the importance of our breath. Then, within moments, we forget and go back to breathing normally.
This normal tidal breath, however, is just present to sustain life. If just sustaining life was your interest, you probably aren’t reading this now anyways. We are looking to optimize our health and quality of life. Focusing on breathing and taking intentional breaths can help us make great strides in our health recovery. It seems as if it should be really easy, and in some ways it is, however the difficulty lies in the exact characteristic that makes it so incredible; we rarely have to think about it. This unconscious process makes it difficult to be intentional about breathing. Life happens and as much as we want to or believe we can, taking a moment during the day to stop and breath can be a difficult task. Many people who make a commitment to this need to set reminders on their phones or in their offices or living spaces to help them remember to stop and breathe. People even have jewelry such as bracelets that helps them remember to stop and take a breath. It’s incredible how the greater world creates so much stress and distraction that we can forget about our own vital processes.
So, what are we really talking about when we talk about breathing? We can talk about this using the medical term of respiration. Respiration is the act of breathing, and in general represents one single breath. The purpose of respiration is two-fold in that on inspiration (taking breath in) you provide oxygen (O2) to the lungs, and on expiration (blowing breath out) you get rid of carbon dioxide (CO2), a byproduct of metabolism produced in every cell. This transfer of O2 and CO2 happens in the lungs but is facilitated by the blood which acts as a delivery system. Red Blood Cells (RBCs) travel to each cell to pick up CO2, exchange it in the lungs for O2, and bring it back to the cells (more on this later). Each cell then takes the O2 and uses it to create energy. There are a lot of factors involved with this, but this is the simplified explanation. Essentially, the lungs are a major player in our ability to create energy using O2.
Great, so what does that mean for my life? Good question. Let’s get into the nitty gritty of this. Our body works really well in something called an alkaline state. This means the pH is greater than 7 (7 is neutral and below 7 is acidic). Without getting too far into the weeds in a very complicated concept, our body functions better in an alkaline state around 7.4. When we have excess CO2 in our body, it becomes more acidic. When this becomes extreme it becomes a dangerous and potentially fatal condition called acidosis, however even in less extreme cases having an acidic body is not ideal. What this all means is that taking big deep breaths brings in more O2 and pushes out more CO2 giving the body a higher pH making it alkaline. Not only does this improve your body’s functioning, but it is actually considered protective by decreasing your vulnerability to chronic illnesses. So, taking deep, intentional breaths throughout the day maintains optimal pH levels within the body, thus creating a protective effect against illness. Check!
Another benefit for breathing is to regulate our autonomic nervous system (ANS). Whoa, slow down. Let’s break that into pieces. Our nervous system (think actual nerves) is complex and requires a variety of mechanisms to keep it going. The ANS occurs without us having to think about it (hence autonomic, or automatic) versus the Somatic Nervous System (SNS) which is activated when we think about it. The SNS is allowing me to click the keys on this computer and lift the glass of water because I’m thinking about it, the ANS is regulating my heartbeat, digestion, and even breath. So, how does our ANS know when to change what it’s doing if it doesn’t respond to our direct thoughts? The ANS responds to messages from 2 other systems; the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). They act like a teeter totter to keep the other balanced. So, SNS is generally termed fight or flight (think stress response) and the PNS is termed rest and digest (think relaxation). These two systems go back and forth to regulate organ processes that we don’t consciously think about.
For instance, as I’m sitting typing this, I’m in a safe room with quiet music and plenty of sunshine. I am relaxed. This relaxation lets my body know that certain functions can be optimized. My heart doesn’t have to beat as fast or as hard, I’m able to digest my food really well, and my body can work on repairing muscles that I’ve been using to increase my metabolism, hormone/testosterone production, and build my strength. If, all of a sudden, a bear walked into this room, all those systems would immediately change. My SNS would take over as I would have increased stress. My heart would pump faster and harder to get blood to my peripheral limbs (primarily my legs to get running), my breath would increase to provide more O2 for energy production, and my digestion would cease. All systems would be primed and ready to either fight the bear (bad idea) or run from the bear. At that moment, my body is operating at optimum levels to sustain life.
Now, that is a very extreme example, and my hope is to never be in that situation, but this is essentially what is happening. What this does mean in the real world is something very different. We don’t generally have bears running around our offices creating stress, but we do have stressors. We have deadlines, and traffic, and bills, and all the things that create stress in our body. Much of the day we stay in vigilant, stressful modes that tell our ANS that we are ready to either fight or flight. When the balance between the ANS and the PNS is off, we don’t allow our bodies to regenerate and recover. This also drives us to make poor nutrition decisions (increasing inflammation), provides less energy (stagnation), and breaks down our body (catabolism), eventually leading to chronic diseases and unfortunately an early death. Look at the people around you who live stressful lives and see if that energy and the results of that life are what you are looking for.
There is a great mechanism to tell the ANS that it’s not needed and allow the PNS to take over. If you can’t guess, it’s breathing. Deep, intentional, slow breathing activates a large nerve in our body called the Vagus (pronounced Vegas) nerve. The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve (meaning it starts in the brain) and runs all the way down to your diaphragm (abdomen). Along the way it innervates many structures and is responsible for regulation of many internal organ systems including heart and respiratory rate. Recently it has been discovered that the vagus nerve also senses what’s going on in the body and sends a message to the brain to be relaxed or stressed. By taking those deep, intentional, slow breaths we encourage our body to be in a more relaxed state. We send the message that everything is good and we don’t need to stay in a stress response. This relaxed response allows our body to function optimally and efficiently rebuild damaged tissues. This is why you will take a big, slow, deep, belly breath the next time you feel stressed out in a situation, right?
Finally, breathing brings in O2 which is needed in every cell. The mitochondria in our cells are responsible for the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which is the main molecule used as energy in our body. This is created through what is called the oxidative phosphorylation pathway, which uses O2 as the final receptor. There is another pathway that creates limited energy if there is no O2 and you get some of that when you run or get out of breath, but the O2 pathway is much more dominant. Over time, if you just maintain shallow, tidal breathing, many of the cells in your periphery or in organs that have less metabolic activity get less and less O2. Again, they get enough to sustain life, but that’s not what we’re here for. To allow for optimal O2 delivery, we need to take those deep, intentional breaths, bringing in higher amounts of nutrients to let our body know we have more than enough to supply everywhere. This breath sends O2 to the mitochondria to drive more energy production.
Whew, breathing really does so much for us, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Brain oxygenation from deep breathing can improve focus and concentration, and has even been used to incite higher levels of consciousness (even psychedelic states) to treat past traumas and develop deeper coping strategies. While that isn’t for everyone, it illustrates the wide range of outcomes from focusing on breathing.
How do we get started breathing? Well, first, you may be surprised to know that there are a variety of techniques and ways to breathe to get beneficial results. It may be helpful to work with a breathing coach to navigate this complex area. One instructor can be found at flo2plus.com and provides 1-on-1 education and guidance to maximize breath work. There’s even a certification process offered if you decide to practice as a Functional Breathing trainer. Check out the website for more information and follow @Flo2plus on Instagram.
Another strategy that has been developed for use especially for people with asthma or sleep apnea is called Buteyko Breathing technique. These are a series of 7 breathing exercises that were designed by a Ukrainian doctor, Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, to normalize breathing volume, by using slow breaths punctuated by moments of holding the breath before exhaling to take less air into the lungs. The idea is that you are retraining your lungs to function optimally thereby decreasing many symptoms including sleep apnea, and improving mood.
A final technique is to practice doing breathing work at home. Focusing on all nasal breathing, inhale for 4 seconds, and exhale for 6 seconds. This normalizes your breathing pattern and ultimately helps optimize your breathing. It may be difficult to start as you may not be used to breathing this way, but over time it should get easier as your breathing improves. Take 5 minutes to do this in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening to try this. Even reading this post shows that you prioritize your breathing and have some level of commitment to improving your health.
Focusing on breathing really should be a priority as we’ve discussed the myriad benefits of controlled, conscious breathing. Taking moments in your day for a few breaths or even signing up to work with a breathing coach will vastly improve your recovery. It seems so insignificant yet this bodily function has a profound effect on how effective your body operates. Try any of the above techniques for at least 2 weeks and see the effects for yourself!
Dr.Buttler
