Anxiety, asthma, weight gain and high blood pressure caused by these 2 breathing defects

Anxiety, asthma, weight gain and high blood pressure caused by these 2 breathing defects

In this article, you'll learn about two breathing errors that are likely to put your body in chronic stress, lower your mental acuity, and cause a variety of health problems. You will also learn a simple remedy. It's so simple that you can put it into practice as you read this.

Have you paid much attention to how you breathe? Maybe you've experienced this during meditation, in a yoga class, during a workout, or when you've been overworked. For the most part, however, you take breathing for granted. It is something your body does naturally without your conscious involvement. This is good and amazing how your body takes care of itself without you having to pay attention to this basic, life-sustaining action.

On the other hand, your body can fall into poor breathing habits - and that sets you up for:

• Fear,

• insomnia,

• brain fog,

• Asthma,

• inflammation,

• high blood pressure,

• heart disease,

• COPD,

• weight gain,

• digestive disorders,

• chronically low energy…

Two breathing errors

Did you know that your body may be making two breathing mistakes without you even knowing it? These mistakes can lead to a variety of seemingly unrelated symptoms, such as anxiety, insomnia, brain fog, asthma, inflammation, high blood pressure, heart disease, COPD, weight gain, indigestion, and chronic low energy. Do you suffer from these? If you haven't already, do you want to prevent them?

The two errors are “mouth breathing” and “overbreathing.” By mouth breathing I mean breathing in and/or out through the mouth and by overbreathing I mean taking too much of a breath or too many breaths.

This may sound counterintuitive. Shouldn't you breathe deeply and exhale through your mouth to release carbon dioxide? In yoga class, you may have been told to take a "cleansing breath," where you breathe out forcefully through your mouth to release tension. Aren't these good ideas?

It turns out that they are not healthy as normal habits. Here's why: When you exhale through your mouth regularly, you're exhaling too much carbon dioxide. Breathing too much and too often makes the situation worse.

Why is this a problem?

It turns out that a certain level of carbon dioxide in your blood is necessary to move oxygen from your blood into your cells, dilate your blood vessels and respiratory tract, and regulate the body's pH. (Source: “The Oxygen Advantage” by Patrick McKeown, 2015, p. 28). Carbon dioxide is necessary to ensure that the oxygen you breathe is delivered to your cells. Without enough carbon dioxide in your system, your body becomes oxygen depleted.

When your body senses that it is lacking oxygen, it signals more over-breathing and mouth-breathing, which makes the problem progressively worse and eventually leads to all of the health, energy, and mental acuity problems mentioned above.

(If you would like more information and research on this, I recommend "The Oxygen Advantage" by Patrick McKeown. He travels the world to educate doctors, athletes and patients about these breathing defects and offers a simple remedy and series of exercises to put it into practice.)

The cure

So what is the cure?

Nose breathing and gentle full breathing. Nasal breathing means you breathe in and out only through your nose. Gentle, full breathing means taking only as much breath as you need and letting your breath completely fill your lungs from the bottom up.

Nasal breathing is important for numerous reasons. First, breathing in and out through the nose warms and purifies the air on the way in and clears the nasal passages on the way out. Second, nasal breathing stimulates the production of nitric oxide, which dilates your blood vessels and airways, allowing more blood and oxygen to flow.

Nasal breathing also limits the outflow of carbon dioxide, so you keep more CO2 in your system. CO2 stimulates red blood cell production and is necessary for red blood cells, which carry oxygen, to deliver oxygen to your cells. The end result is greater oxygenation throughout your body.

Train

To practice nasal breathing, simply close your mouth while you breathe. You can start right away while you read.

You can practice allowing your breathing to become gentle and full by placing your hands on your stomach and chest and noticing a slight expansion of your stomach and then your chest as you breathe in. Apply gentle pressure with your hands so that your breathing is full but minimal. This ensures that you are breathing deeply but not overbreathing.

Once you're comfortable practicing gentle, full nose breathing while sitting and relaxing, try doing it while you go to sleep. (McKeown has his clients close their mouths while they sleep to shift their bodies back into nasal breathing.) Finally, try it while walking, then work up to doing it during a more intense workout. This takes some practice and should not be forced. Allow your body to gradually get used to nasal breathing through consistent, progressive practice.

My experience

I first learned this breathing style in Qigong meditation years ago, but until I read McKeown's book, I couldn't use it further. As a result, I was a chronic over- and mouth-breather for years. In my 50s, this led to trouble sleeping, low energy, more pain, tension and inflammation in my body, and shortness of breath during exercise. I found myself sighing, yawning, and taking a lot of really deep breaths. My metabolism also slowed and I felt colder. These are all signs of chronic mouth breathing and overbreathing.

When I initially tried breathing nasally while exercising, I had to reduce my exercise intensity to about 50%. It took me about 3 months to train my body to be able to breathe nasally at full intensity. It takes time for your body to feel comfortable with more carbon dioxide.

Now I breathe nasally all the time and notice that I have much better energy, generally sleep better, my movement is stronger, and my meditations are deeper. I feel more relaxed and at ease throughout the day. My head is clearer, my body is warmer and I have much less pain.

I encourage you to experiment with full, gentle nasal breathing and see what it can do for you.

Inspired by Kevin Schoeninger