Buteyko Breathing Technique

There are various references present now. However, I find this book and DVD set, entitled, Buteyko Clinic Method by Patick McKeown, a Moscow-accredited Buteyko Method instructor, the most educational. First of all, it gives you a background information about asthma - its symptoms and what causes it. Secondly this book teaches the techniques, from treating an on going attack to maintenance exercises. There are even instructions on how to use the Buteyko breathing techniques to reverse snoring, and other common breathing ailments. The DVD is a two hour-long video, with close, step-by-step and easy to follow instructions. (Check the above video for a sample.) Best of all, the author lets you contact him for further questions.

The Buteyko Method was also known as Voluntary Elimination of Deep Breathing (VEDB). This is a set of execises that focuses on deliberate control of ones breath to treat asthma and other breathing ailments.

The Buteyko breathing technique was developed in the 1980's by Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko, a Ukranian Doctor who specialized in asthma and other respiratory diseases. In Moscow, where he practiced medicine, while observing his patients with breathing illnesses, he realized that there was an association between the severity of their illnesses and their breathing rates.

After various experiments with patients, an effective set of exercises that focuses on deliberate breathing control was formed to control asthma and other respiratory ailments. Various professional groups were trained, and the practice was spread in Australia, the USA and the rest of the world.

Time to get Scientific. You are now hopping into the Geektron 2000. Fasten your seatbelts!

To fully understand the theory behind Buteyko breathing techniques, we must first grasp the concept of three things: Hyperventilation, the Vertigo Effect and Carbon Dioxide.

Hyperventilation is when you breathe more often than what is needed. (Not necessarily normal, more on that later.) This makes you breathe in more oxygen and release more carbon dioxide.

Vertigo is when you feel light headed when you breathe in too much. Is it because you are too flushed with oxygen? No. It is because you lack oxygen! Parodox, huh?

Carbon dioxide is a catalyst in our blood, acting as an unbinding agent between oxygen and hemoglobin (taxi for oxygen). Without carbon dioxide, oxygen stays glued onto the hemoglobin and cells won't get food. Less carbon dioxide, more oxygen atoms miss their bus stop.

Carbon Dioxide is barely present in the atmosphere (it is mainly nitrogen) and your body produces this air (as a waste material of energy production).

With these theories combined, we can say that the more a person hyperventilates, the less that person gets oxygen, although he has a lot of that in his body. I said necessary earlier, because lots of people breathe very fast, and that is innate to them.

Now with those support theories clear, let's say an asthmatic hyperventilates by default. Let's just call that person... hmmm.. Roth.

Because Roth hyperventilates by default, he will eventually breathe out enough carbon dioxide for his body to scramble for oxygen. Of course his body does not want to perish, so what does it do?

It thickens the air passages. Lungs produce more mucus. Because of that, he begins to cough, and because his air passages in his lungs are full of mucus and constricted, whistling sounds are audible. Sounds familiar? Congratulations, Roth, you're having an asthma attack!

Give the body what it wanted in the first place: more oxygen by adding more carbon dioxide in your body, and the symptoms will subside and will appear less frequently in the future. That is the concept of Buteyko breathing techniques.

Thanks for riding Geektron 2000.

* Scientific explaination of the Buteyko Breathing Principle
* A Summary for Doctors
* Theories about Carbon Dioxide and Hyperventilation
* The Russian Clinical Trial
* Buteyko and Asthma in Children