Breathing is important. Humans can live for days without food or water, but for most people, uncomfortable breathing for only a few minutes will bring on a serious stress response. A variety of life events both singular or cumulative in nature can disrupt effective breathing and create adaptations which plant the seeds for breathing pattern disorders to take root and progressively grow over time.

These patterns can be thought of as breathing in excess of metabolic bodily needs or over-breathing. These patterns of over-breathing can present on a mild to severe spectrum with a combination of many of the following symptoms:

• Occasional mouth breathing
• Frequent sighing
• Upper chest breathing
• Snoring
• Asthma
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
• Upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS)
• Sleep Apnea

Breathing pattern disorders play a part in many of the following chronic health conditions:

• Anxiety
• Brain fog
• Chronic fatigue
• Daytime sleepiness
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Fibromyalgia

Dr. Konstantin Buteyko devised his breathing therapy by drawing inspiration from ancient yogic texts and Traditional Asian medicine to integrating them with his western medical training. His system of breathing re-education involves learning how to habituate nasal breathing with three main concepts.

• Light
  Biochemical: breathing less to gradually decrease the body’s accustomed normal volume of air per minute which optimizes the gas exchange chemistry at a cellular level.

• Slow
  Habitual: retraining the muscles of respiration to move slower, improving the neural relaxation response in the body, particularly as it relates to restful sleep.

• Low
  Biomechanical: using the greater volume of lung tissue in the lower half of the rib cage to increase the opportunity for gas exchange in the lungs to support breathing less.

Buteyko Breathing has been shown in clinical studies to be effective in treating asthma (Bowler, Green and Mitchell 1998). Learning how to breath more efficiently can decrease stress and pain in the body, increase energy levels, improve sleep quality, and promote greater longitudinal health and quality of life.