How To Rate Your Breathing
from The Blue Mountains Gazette, Wednesday, March 21, 2001
Here's a check list-
ARE YOU BREATHING THROUGH YOUR MOUTH? Don't breathe in OR out through your mouth. Your nose is wonderfully designed for breathing. It filters, warms & humidifies the air you breathe. When you breathe through your mouth you are exposing a tennis court sized amount of your internal tissue (your lungs) to unfiltered air. How sick do you want to be?
HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU BREATHE PER MINUTE AT REST? Count in & out as one breath. If you counted 8- 12 times in one minute you are on track. You see we all breathe 20-30 thousand times a day. People with symptoms of over-breathing such as asthma, sinusitis, eczema, migraine, snoring etc breathe up to three or four times the recommended minute volume of air. Are you an over breather with unpleasant symptoms that you are suffering? By over-breathing you are "washing" out your carbon dioxide levels from your blood. When you do this your oxygen delivery is hampered.
ARE YOU CONTINUALLY STRESSED IN ANY WAY? The chief cause of hyperventilation (breathing more than the recommended rate is hyperventilation) is the engaging of the "fight or flight" mechanism. We all have this life saving mechanism programmed into our genes. If we need to run from danger or stand & fight we need the adrenaline rush to aid our
endeavours. This adrenaline rush causes us to overbreathe. All this is O.K. if the danger passes quickly and we are able to normalize our breathing again. However, if the "enemy" is a prolonged illness, constant emotional stress, bad diet, allergies etc we stay in a state of hyperventilation on a chronic level and our bodies start to compensate for the loss of carbon dioxide by manifesting various symptoms.
HOW IS YOUR POSTURE?
If you have become sloppy with your posture your body will function at an inferior level. Structure governs function takes on a very real meaning when it comes to breathing well. POSTURE & RELAXATION are the keys to good breathing.
DO YOU OVEREAT or OVERSLEEP? If you breathe correctly you won't want to do either. When you breathe properly your metabolic rate corrects itself.
In other words if you are after optimal health you need to learn to breathe correctly.
HOW DID YOU RATE? If you are struggling with your breathing in any way you may like to book in for a free breathing assessment with Jennifer Harris of the Buteyko Institute of Breathing and Health (B.I.B.H.). Phone 0414 833 857 to make an appointment.