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Sleep Apnea - Breathing Exercises
Posted by Jackie
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Sleep Apnea - Breathing Exercises February 10, 2006 12:14AM |
Registered: 6 years ago Posts: 18,881 |
Breathing Something to think about
Recent posts have inquired about sleep, breathing and some exercises for controlled breathing. Last year, I posted (below) information on the Buteyko Method of breathing. It's highly effective because it allows the concentration of carbon dioxide to be at levels important to homeostasis.
All it takes is a timer that counts down and up; time and discipline. One doesn't learn this overnight. A half an hour practice twice a day is a good start toward correct breathing....which is always through a closed mouth.
Ive mentioned a few times previously the respiratory therapist I know who is only one of nine in the US certified to teach the Buteyko Method of Breathing. She recently sent me an invitation to attend an introductory talk and included this information.
Improper breathing is a common cause of ill health - Dr. Andrew Weil
Dr. Buteyko demonstrated that hyperventilating is the cause of allergic reactions, asthma, panic attacks & more than 150 other diseases...including sleep apnea.
"You should breathe through your mouth only as often as you eat with your nose!"
Author: Jackie (---.159.249.46.Dial1.Chicago1.Level3.net)
Date: 02-24-05 07:03
Peter, I'm bring forward I post I just did for Marshal.... it's back a few pages....
contains some interesting information sleep apnea and mouth breathing and the relationship to the vagus nerve, etc.
Just informational. Jackie
To Marshal & all Sleep Apnea, Mouth Breathing, GERD, etc.
Author: Jackie (---.159.250.50.Dial1.Chicago1.Level3.net)
Date: 02-19-05 10:00
Sorry this was so long in coming to you. There has been discussion in the past about sleep apnea being involved with AF. The mini-seminar on Correct Breathing I attended recently indicated a connection between overbreathing, mouth-breathing, sleep apnea and also GERD. Finally, I received input from the registered respiratory therapist, Carol Baglia, the speaker and Ive borrowed some reference material have online addresses and will run through a very basic conceptual detailing of the information she teaches in her courses to correct a myriad of problems brought on by hypercapnia (over-breathing or hyperventilation). The file I have is about six inches thick and thats just a minor portion of whats available. This is a huge topic and why she retrained to become certified in Buteyko and a registered respiratory therapy. Shes one of 9 certified in the US. She cured her asthma with correct breathing.
Shes provided me with brief descriptions which should be helpful and at the end, provided a self-test to determine your own hyperventilation status. You can go to her website for more details.
Her method is the Buteyko technique; Ive referenced some info on pH involvement from the Baroody book, Alkalize or Die, and from another, The Carbon Dioxide Syndrome. Ive given complete references at the end, but in the text of this message, Im just referencing by the source in ( ). Back in 2002, there was some dialog on the BB about the Buteyko method of breathing to help eliminate AF. Im bringing this up again because of the GERD/sleep apnea connection. I have the former posts saved and I can send them to you if youd like to review. References at the end.
You can review, online, the history of Dr. Buteyko and his studies into why hyperventilation brings on disease conditions and how he developed his technique to cure the symptoms. It was initially used for and still is the treatment of asthma symptoms. As the work became known, other conditions that develop because of hyperventilation were also found to be eliminated or controlled significantly.
Buteyko Correct Breathing Concepts is a drug-free breathing technique consisting of a series of safe, yet simple-to-learn breathing routines. Chronic hyperventilation or excessive breathing causes the loss of necessary carbon dioxide, setting off a chain of events and an imbalance in the body which leads respiratory and other symptoms.
1. The body requires carbon dioxide in order to free oxygen molecules from hemoglobin in the red blood cells. Without an adequate carbon dioxide level, our bodies cannot effectively make use of the oxygen we breathe. This is called the 'Bohr Effect' and is described in standard medical textbooks.
2. Professor Buteyko, a Russian medical doctor, discovered during his research that over-breathing (breathing too much air in and out) results in "blowing off" essential carbon dioxide.
3. The Buteyko Institute Method retrains people who over-breathe to reduce the volume of air they breathe in and out and therefore retain carbon dioxide. Buteyko exercises enable clients to achieve comfortable nose breathing with less air volume. As shown by independent clinical trials, this method is extremely effective, giving clients a better quality of life, a decrease in symptoms and a significant reduction in asthma medication. The method is now a mainstream therapy for asthma and other breathing conditions in Russia.
The systems affected by hyperventilation and related symptoms include:
Pulmonary shortness of breath, tightness in chest, over-sensitivity of airways, increased mucus production, long-termed block or running sinus, excessive sneezing coughing, yawning, or sighing.
Nervous Light-headedness, dizziness, unsteadiness, numbness, poor concentration, tingling and coldness, especially hands and fingers and often face. In severe cases, loss of memory or loss of consciousness.
Cardiac: Racing, pounding or skipped heart beats.
Psychological: Degrees of anxiety, tension and apprehension
General: mouth dryness, abdominal bloating, belching and flatulence, easily tired, poor sleep patters, weakness and chronic exhaustion.(Buteyko/Baglia)
We tend to breath too much. Good breathing creates more than just a transitory sense of well-being. It has vast implications on health. When you are breathing optimally, body chemistry is kept in balance by each breath. Every breath you take has the capacity to either balance acid/alkaline levels keeping cellular pH at its optimal level, or begin the process of disrupting the fine-tuning of your homeostatic balance. Take five or six breaths incorrectly and your pH starts to become unbalanced. If not corrected, this disruption of ph has the potential to affect every chemical reaction in your body and the efficiency of your metabolism. Breathing incorrectly for three minutes is enough to decrease the amount of oxygen to the brain and heart by 30%. If your breathing is incorrect for years, you pre-dispose yourself to a range of chronic illnesses from heart disease to asthma, to chronic fatigue. (Courtney) [and sleep apnea and GERD]
OVERBREATHING SYMPTOMS:
Headaches, nasal polyps, insomnia, allergies, snoring, palpitations, excess mucus, weight gain, constipation, general aches and pains, bronchitis, cough, fatigue. (Buteyko)
One of the most important reasons we must maintain correct levels of carbon dioxide has to do with the way it controls pH. The lungs and the kidneys are the two main organs controlling pH. They work together to maintain proper functioning of the bicarbonate buffering system in the body. If we lose too much carbon dioxide from over breathing, the kidneys are forced to compensate. Renal compensation, if it leads to too much loss of bicarbonate, may ultimately lead to a depletion of the bodys capacity to stabilize pH at its ideal level. (Courtney)
People who hyperventilate will be familiar with these indicators of poor sleep Repeatedly waking up during the night, waking up tired instead of refreshed, vivid dreams or nightmares, night sweats, extra mucus in the morning, talking or waking during sleep. (Stark/Buteyko)
CHRONIC MOUTH BREATHING CAN CONTRIBUTE TO:
Headache, forward head posture leading to neck muscle pain, stiffness, fatigue and/or cervical joint damage, dry mouth and throat, chronic tonsil swelling, enlarged adenoids and polyps, noisy breathing/ noisy eating, snoring, sleep apnea, increased mucus production, bloating, flatulence, belching, dental problems, bad breath, gum disease. (Buteyko)
OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA AND BREATHING RETRAINING.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder where repeated upper airway obstruction during sleep leads to a decrease in blood oxygen saturation and disrupted sleep.
Current treatment options include oral appliances, surgery and/or the use of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP machine. However, breathing retraining with the Buteyko Method is a safe, effective and convenient approach to OSA that could help eliminate the need for surgery or CPAP. (Birch)
Snoring night after night often develops into sleep apnea. (Stark/Buteyko p 123)
PROFILE OF OSA
In OSA, the muscles of the soft palate relax during sleep, leading to oro-pharyngeal and uvular collapse, causing obstruction of the airway and drop in oxygen saturation. OSA is characterized by the periodic cessation (apnea) or deduction (hypoapnea) of airflow during sleep.
Apnea is defined as the total cessation of airflow of the nose and mouth, lasting at least 10 seconds, associated with a decrease in oxygen saturation of 4% or more. Hypoapnea is generally taken to mean a greater than 50% reduction in airflow lasting 10 seconds or more associated with a 4% or greater fall in oxygen saturation. However the difference between the two is of little clinical importance since both events have similar pathophysiology.
There is no clear consensus in medical literature as to why OSA occurs, although it is thought to be associated with aging, obesity or airway anatomy. Both children and adults, can suffer from OSA and many people who do are of normal weight.
PHYSIOLOGY OF OSA
When a person hyperventilates, they exhale excessive amounts of carbon dioxide (Co2). Lowered CO2 levels in the body are critical in many conditions.
The optimal level of CO2 in the air sacs is around 6.5%. If the CO2 level falls below this due to hyperventilation, there is a gradual alkaline reaction in the lungs.
When alveolar CO2 is lowered, this gradual alkaline reaction in the lungs is carried through to the blood and total blood CO2 will also decrease.
Oxygen (O2) is carried by means of a hemoglobin (Hb) molecule. When CO2 is low due to over breathing, O2 is bound tighter than normal to the HB molecule due to a chemical bond. For the bond to loosen, CO2 levels need to increase and the blood pH needs to become less alkaline.
As blood pH decreases, the Hb/O2 bond decreases in strength, hence more O2 is more readily released from hemoglobin and it can then oxygenate the body and maintain homeostasis.
This phenomenon, called the Bhor effect, the Verigo-Bohr effect, or oxygen-hemoglobin disassociation curve, is described in standard physiology text books.
(Birch) Go here to view the complete article
Obstructive Sleep Apnoea and breathing retraining
Source: Australian Nursing Journal (Thursday, September 23, 2004)
Link: [www.anf.org.au]
GERD
Bicarbonates formed from dissolved carbon dioxide act as buffers within the body and help to neutralize acids and maintain the bodys optimally alkaline state, which is very important for digestion. A balanced pH level in the blood is maintained through respiration. It is particularly affected by carbon dioxide levels. Hyperventilation causes us to breathe out more carbon dioxide than we should and is responsible for a corresponding shift in the bloods pH. Oxygen is alkaline and carbon dioxide is acidic. The essential balance between these two is needed for the digestive system to work properly. A low level of carbon dioxide in the lungs leads to respiratory alkalosis.
After a single meal, hydrochloric acid is secreted by the stomach walls for food digestion. Since most H+ (hydrogen ions) are borrowed from the blood, this acidification of the stomach is accompanied by the alkalization of the blood. There is a narrow pH range in which the body can survive and if it is already in respiratory alkalosis from over-breathing then sufficient H+ can not be pulled into the stomach. Adequate hydrochloric acid is not made to properly digest the stomach contents. This can result in the partially digested food reflux back into the esophagus. Carbon dioxide is also a muscle relaxant. Cramps or spasm of the digestive tract can be caused by insufficient levels of carbon dioxide. Low carbon dioxide is directly responsible for an irregular peristalsis and an abnormal tone of the GI tract.
The amplitude of these processes is proportional to the caloric value and type of the meal. Increased ventilation and decreased carbon dioxide are going to take place due to necessity of food digestion. Fruits and vegetables produce the least impact on ventilation and often have their own enzymes making their digestion easy. (Buteyko/Baglia)
The online article by PC for the Conference room - Entitled, Magnesium & Potassium in LAF, covers GERD physiology go here to read www.afibbers.org/conference/PCMagnesium.pdf
URINARY AND DIGESTIVE STYSTEMS
There is a lot of smooth muscle in the digestive tract as well as mast cells that release histamine. Kidneys also play a vital role in maintaining the ionic balance, so it is little wonder that people with carbon dioxide syndrome notice problems with these parts of their body.
A frequent complaint is increased need to urinate. They wake up two or three times a night or cannot sit through a meeting. This frequent urge can be for a number of reasons.
- When the fight or fight response is triggered, blood pressure rises quickly. To regulate this, an enormous amount of urine is produced and rapidly needs to be voided.
-Hidden hyperventilation cause smooth muscle in the bladder wall to spasm with extra discomfort.
-When hidden hyperventilation has become the norm, the kidneys are required to dump bicarbonate regularly to balance the pH. This means an increasing need to urinate.
The fear of needing a bathroom during meetings or other times contributes to the problem by creating more stress.
People with dysfunctional breathing also often have digestive problems like producing too much gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, ulcers and nausea. Hyperventilation shuts down digestion and hypocapnia stimulates mast cells in the gut to release more histamine, contributing to inflammation and spasm of smooth muscle. Instead of food being pulsed smoothly through the body, its passage slows or speeds up as the smooth muscle wrapped around he digestive tract contracts and relaxes with surging carbon dioxide pressure. (Buteyko/Stark)
Alkaline Needs of Glands and Organs (Baroody p. 23)
Glands and organs function properly in exact proportion to the amount of alkaline and acid levels in the system.
The Heart is one of the most alkaline dependent organ is in the body. It is partly innervated by the vagus nerve which functions best in an alkaline environment. The heart pumps about 520 quarts of blood an hour and about 13,000 quarts a day. If blood is not toxin free, it puts a tremendous strain on the heart. Correct heart beat is altered by acid wastes These wastes rob the blood of proper oxygenation and degeneration of the heart follows. An alkaline system creates an ideal heart function.
The Lungs have the primary mission of keeping us alkaline by the exchange of gases in our breathing and the elimination of formed acid waste products in the blood stream. An unclean or even slightly acid bloodstream augurs great trouble.
The Stomach. Most of this book (Alkalize or Die) relates to stomach malfunction in relation to alkaline and acid. The Hiatal Hernia Syndrome, which is discussed in Chapter 4, The Incredible Vagus Nerve, can very quickly reduce hydrochloric acid by pinching the vagus nerve. Without proper hydrochloric acid breakdown of food, the foods become too acidic. This creates a multitude of problems see checklist of symptoms which indicate presence of the HHS. (covered in a separate BB post)
Carol also provided me with course information on carbon dioxide which helps explain the Buteyko method and why it works.
Carbon Dioxide
If you ask most people why we breathe, theyll say to bring in oxygen. Its commonly believed that only oxygen is required for our health, and that carbon dioxide is just a waste gas. The truth is carbon dioxide is just as important for our health as oxygen. We dont exhale to get rid of carbon dioxide. We exhale to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in our bodies. There is an optimal level of carbon dioxide that our bodies try to achieve. Too much or too little can be a problem. Breathing too fast or deep eliminates excessive carbon dioxide, and this has some serious consequences for our health.
Heres a simple way to prove this fact. If you were to breathe as fast as you can for the next 60 seconds, then you will find yourself getting dizzy, your fingers and lips will start to tingle and you might feel like you are going to pass out. Now, why does this happen? Shouldnt you have felt invigorated? Didnt all that breathing increase your oxygen supply? Why do you feel worse? Heres what actually occurred. The rapid breathing brought in lots of oxygen, but made you lose too much carbon dioxide, and it was this loss of carbon dioxide that made you feel ill.
One of the many things, that carbon dioxide does, is help oxygen get released into the cells. Without enough carbon dioxide, we actually become oxygen deficient as well. When you take a breath of air, oxygen enters your lungs, where its attracted to the hemoglobin in your red blood cells. This oxygen rich blood is then pumped by your heart to the rest of the body. But did you ever wonder how the oxygen gets out of the blood and into the tissue? If oxygen is so attracted to the red blood cells in the first place, why would it ever let go? The answer is carbon dioxide. Blood cant just drop the oxygen off; it EXCHANGES the oxygen for carbon dioxide.
Now what if there isnt enough carbon dioxide to do the oxygen exchange? When this happens, the oxygen is forced to stay in the blood. It never releases into the tissues. The more you breathe, the more breathless you feel. You end up with healthy red blood, full of oxygen that never gets released into the tissues. Its useless. So, a carbon dioxide deficiency gives you an oxygen deficiency. The faster you breathe, the less oxygen you get! Carbon dioxide is required for the availability of oxygen.
How can carbon dioxide affect our immune system? Every day were exposed to viruses and bacteria. With the advent of jet travel, an infection in a Hong Kong market, can be in a New York coffee shop in 24 hours. Our first line of defense is our white blood cells. When a white blood cell finds a foreign invader in the body, its job is to attack the infection, and then to make antibodies to let other white blood cells know about the infection so they can get involved too. Scientific research has shown that carbon dioxide not only helps these white blood cells move faster and attack well, it also helps these white blood cells make more antibodies. In other words, carbon dioxide makes your immune system stronger and faster, and better able to recognize these infections.
Another key role carbon dioxide plays in the body is the regulation of proteins. Carbon dioxide helps keep all the proteins of the body in balance. Almost every protein in the body has something called an amine group attached to it. These amine groups are very sticky.
These sticky proteins are supposed to be attached to carbon dioxide. When they are, theyre protected. But what happens if there isnt enough carbon dioxide available to attach to them? In the absence of carbon dioxide, these sticky proteins attach to the sugar in our bloodstream. Now sugar attached to a protein is worse than useless, it is toxic. Not only are these proteins no longer functional, they are waste products that have to be removed from the body. This is a problem because proteins are essential components.
Although there are thousands and thousands of different proteins in the body, each with their own special job to do, lets just look at 5 groups of them: The structural proteins, hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes and antibodies.
Structural proteins are the proteins that we use to grow and to repair ourselves. Take skin for instance. Without enough carbon dioxide to keep the structural proteins available, the skin wont be able to repair itself properly. Instead of making healthy new skin when the old skin wears out, the skin will get filled with toxic protein-sugar complexes. You can see this happen as you get older. Age spots, also known as liver spots are examples of these toxic accumulations.
Of course, age spots dont just show up in the skin, they accumulate throughout the body in places like the heart, the brain and other internal organs. If you can see them in your skin, you can be sure that they are on the inside of your body as well.
The next group of proteins are the hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers that help the body communicate with itself. Take insulin for example. Insulin is a hormone made in the pancreas that tells the cells of the body to open up and let glucose in so they can make energy. Now what happens if the insulin protein gets a sugar molecule stuck to it instead of carbon dioxide? When this happens, the insulin cant work properly. Without insulin, the cells cant get the fuel they need, so the pancreas makes more insulin and the liver releases more sugar into the bloodstream.
This additional insulin only gets more stuck with the additional sugar just released, all the while the cells are starving and losing energy. If this goes on long enough, there is a clinical name for it, diabetes.
There are thousands of hormones in the body that help keep things organized. Diabetes is what happens when just one hormone doesnt work properly. Can you imagine what happens when all of the hormones start to gradually fail? Of course some people try to fight the aging process by taking additional hormones, but this doesnt solve the problem. Without the carbon dioxide to protect them, these additional hormones just get stuck to sugar losing their effectiveness and making more toxins.
Taking a look at the third group, the neurotransmitters, are the chemicals that the brain uses to think and to feel. Dopamine gives us drive and ambition, seratonin gives us happiness and peace of mind, melatonin helps us sleep and keeps our brain healthy. These are just a few examples. When these neurotransmitters attach to sugar instead of carbon dioxide, they not only keep us from being as smart and as happy as we can be, they also end up forming deposits in the brain itself. Having adequate levels of carbon dioxide allows us to make better use of our neurotransmitters and keeps our brains healthier longer.
Enzymes are another group of proteins in the body. There are thousands of different enzymes in the body with more being discovered every day. Just consider the ones youre probably most familiar with, the digestive enzymes. Without enough CARBON DIOXIDE to protect these digestive enzymes, the ability to digest food gets weaker and weaker until we only absorb a fraction of the nutrition that we actually eat. We want more and more food, but absorb less and less of it. Without proper digestion, we can have neither the energy nor the raw materials to function properly.
By protecting your enzymes with carbon dioxide, digestion is well maintained.
The last group of proteins mentioned are the antibodies. Antibodies are special proteins that our immune system uses to identify infections. When white bloods cell find an infection, they destroy it. Still the immune system knows that while it may have killed this one bug, there are more of the same kind of bug elsewhere in the body, so it makes special proteins called antibodies to let the other white blood cells know what to look for. Now, rather than having to wait to bump into an infection at random, the white blood cells have a head start. If you have enough carbon dioxide to keep your antibodies protected, then your immune system can often destroy an infection without you even knowing its there. If on the other hand, your antibodies get stuck to sugar instead of carbon dioxide, the antibodies wont be able to do their job as well. An infection, that might have taken hours to clear up, now can take days or weeks.
Carbon dioxide is involved with more than just the protection of proteins. It is also involved with their removal as well. When a protein reaches the end of its useful life, it turns into ammonia. When theres enough carbon dioxide available, it combines with the ammonia to form urea, which is harmlessly removed from the body. Should the carbon dioxide be in short supply, ammonia builds up. Some of the symptoms of ammonia toxicity include tremors, fatigue and aversion to high protein foods. If the ammonia levels get high enough, it can damage brain cells. We make ammonia every day. Only carbon dioxide stands between us and this chemicals damaging effects.
Some other ways that carbon dioxide helps us besides protecting and detoxifying proteins is that carbon dioxide is also one of the main ways that the body relaxes. Its natures tranquilizer. When theres enough carbon dioxide in the body, muscles relax. On the other hand, when theres not enough carbon dioxide in the body, muscles contract.
Now there are 2 separate muscle systems in the body, the voluntary and the involuntary muscles. The voluntary muscles are the ones that we have control over, like those found in our arms and legs. We use them to walk, to talk and to move about. The involuntary muscles we have no direct control over. These muscles are found in our internal organs. When voluntary muscles get overly contracted, its obvious, they hurt. When the involuntary muscles get overly contracted however, all kinds of symptoms can occur that you would never associate with muscle cramps.
What happens when the involuntary muscles of the body get overly contracted?
Starting at the top:
When the muscles that line the arteries of our brain cramp, blood flow to the brain diminishes. This can result in symptoms ranging from headaches and poor memory, to fatigue, poor eyesight, poor hearing, depression and even stroke.
Moving down; when the muscles in the throat cramp, you can have difficulty with speech, swallowing food, snoring and sleep apnea. Continuing on, when the muscles in the lungs cramp you get asthma and breathing problems.
Now the heart is an involuntary muscle too, so when the heart muscle cramps, it causes angina, and if the cramp is bad enough, it can cause a heart attack.
Moving on, the length of the digestive tract is lined with involuntary muscle tissue. If the stomach cramps, you can get gastric reflux, if the gall bladder cramps, you can get gallstones, and if the colon cramps you can get constipation or spastic colon. Muscles also line the bladder, so a cramp here causes incontinence.
When the muscles of the uterus cramp, you get menstrual cramps and if the muscles that control a mans reproductive organs cramp, you get impotence.
Many of the conditions that we medicate ourselves for are really nothing more complicated than muscle cramps.
In addition to relaxing our muscles, carbon dioxide also helps us relax our minds as well. Our minds are constantly active; wondering, thinking, remembering. Even when were asleep, our brains are active in our dreams.
But have you ever tried not to think of anything. Its almost impossible to do for more than a second or two. Its our capacity for thought that makes us human, but too much thinking can drive us crazy. Have you ever tried to go to sleep, but you just couldnt stop thinking about one thing or another? Thats one example of what happens when the brain cant turn off.
The problem starts when we run low on carbon dioxide. You see its carbon dioxide that lets the cells in our brains turn off when theyre not needed. When carbon dioxide begins to run low, these brain cells cant turn themselves off. They stay on, whether we want them to or not. This causes two problems. First, brain cells arent designed for non- stop use. They need to rest and recuperate. When they stay on too long from lack of carbon dioxide, they wear out more quickly. This causes our brains to age faster than they would normally.
Secondly, hyperactive brain activity can cause physical and psychological problems, such as difficulty concentrating, chronic fear and anxiety, muscle twitches and insomnia.
The secret to a more peaceful and relaxed mind isnt hidden away in some distant mountain sanctuary, its in the way you breathe.
If youre like most people who ignore their breathing by leaving it on auto pilot, you probably breathe about 18 times a minute. The optimal breathing rate is closer to 8 times a minute. Most humans breathe twice as quickly as they should. But if breathing slower is better for us, why do we breathe faster in the first place? The answer is stress. Every time we get stressed, we breathe faster. Thats just the way our bodies are made.
Now if our lives were mostly calm and peaceful, a few stresses could come and go without causing much harm. In todays world, stress is continuous with such things as: traffic jams, bills, arguments, pollution, food additives, medications, illnesses/injury, emotions, world affairs, caffeine, etc. All this contributes to keeping our breathing rate high, and over time our brains reset themselves to this faster breathing rate. Now, even without the stress, our breathing rate is elevated.
So, finally ask the question. How do we slow our breathing rate down and increase our carbon dioxide levels? The secret is simple to reset your bodys natural breathing rate.
Buteyko breathing techniques, taught by respiratory therapist, Carol Baglia, with Correct Breathing Concepts is the answer. www.correctbreathing.com
Whereas stress causes you to breathe faster and faster, carbon dioxide calms you down and lets you breathe slower. In addition to the long term benefits of lowering your breathing rate and raising your carbon dioxide levels, you also get certain immediate effects, such as more relaxed the muscles and a calmer mind so the effect is quite pleasant.
In summary, carbon dioxide is required for the delivery of oxygen into our bodies, the efficiency of our immune system and the synthesis, regulation and detoxification of protein such as hormones, neurotransmitters enzymes and antibodies. Carbon dioxide is one of the main ways that the body relaxes its muscles, brain and nervous systems.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Carbon dioxide is also one of the bodys most powerful anti-oxidants. Its the main way that our body maintains its important acid-alkaline balance, it helps stimulate fat loss and muscle gain, it decreases allergies and reduces inflammation.
To find out if you have the appropriate levels of C02 in your body contact carol@correctbreathing.com Telephone: 440-357-5834 or 216-952-7048
TAKE THE HYPERVENTILATION TEST
Take the following test and mark each symptom that currently appears in your life. Try to do this test honestly and without inhibition because you will use it as a reference in the future to monitor your progress.
Rate your symptoms on a scale of 0 - 4 for the following symptoms, where 0 is never, 1 is rare, 2 is sometimes, 3 is often and 4 is very often. This is not the kind of test where you add up your score, but simply note which symptoms you have and how much they impact on your life.
Airways are extra-sensitive
0 1 2 3 4
Allergies, rhinitis, hay fever
0 1 2 3 4
Bloated abdomen, flatulence or belching
0 1 2 3 4
Blocked nose
0 1 2 3 4
Breathing through mouth
0 1 2 3 4
Chest constriction or tightness
0 1 2 3 4
Chest pains that are not heart-related
0 1 2 3 4
Cold hands and feet
0 1 2 3 4
Colds, flu or chest infections
0 1 2 3 4
Constipation with intermittent diarrhea
0 1 2 3 4
Coughing
0 1 2 3 4
Dental or gum problems
0 1 2 3 4
Difficulty in taking a deep breath
0 1 2 3 4
Dry mouth
0 1 2 3 4
Erratic breathing with fluctuations of e.g. taking a deep breath every few minutes; breathing without pause; rapid breathing that is spaced with long pauses
0 1 2 3 4
Excessive mucus production
0 1 2 3 4
Fast or deep breathing
0 1 2 3 4
Feeling tense, apprehensive, anxious, panicky, or fearful without reason e.g. fear of stuffy rooms
0 1 2 3 4
Headaches
0 1 2 3 4
High blood pressure
0 1 2 3 4
Itching, dry skin, eczema or rashes
0 1 2 3 4
Lacking stamina, feeling chronically tired or physically exhausted
0 1 2 3 4
Licking dry lips
0 1 2 3 4
Lightheaded or feeling dizzy
0 1 2 3 4
Long-term blocked or running sinuses
0 1 2 3 4
Loss of libido
0 1 2 3 4
Mild depression
0 1 2 3 4
Muscle tightness or cramps
0 1 2 3 4
Pains in bones
0 1 2 3 4
Poor concentration, mental fatigue, confusion
0 1 2 3 4
Pounding, rapid or erratic heartbeat
0 1 2 3 4
Reduced sense of smell
0 1 2 3 4
Short of breath
0 1 2 3 4
Short temper, irritable
0 1 2 3 4
Sleeping badly e.g. insomnia, vivid dreams, nightmares, shuddering in sleep, snoring, waking frequently, grinding teeth or still feeling tired after a long sleep
0 1 2 3 4
Stiffness in fingers or arms
0 1 2 3 4
Sweaty palms/feet/armpits or feeling hot all over
0 1 2 3 4
Throat clearing
0 1 2 3 4
Tightness around mouth
0 1 2 3 4
Tingling or numbness in fingers or lips
0 1 2 3 4
Trembling or tic
0 1 2 3 4
Using the upper chest to breathe with
0 1 2 3 4
Visual disturbances e.g. flashes or shadows before the eye, blurred or tunnel vision or impaired night vision
0 1 2 3 4
The End
REFERENCES
Published here with permission of Carol Baglia
Buteyko - Correct Breathing Concepts, LLC
Carol Baglia, CBT, RRT
www.correctbreathing.com
[www.buteykobayside.com]
Mary Birch RN BA M.BioE Grad.Dip.Soc MRCNA MBIBH
Stark, Jennifer, Stark, Russell, The Carbon Dioxide Syndrome, 2002, New Zealand
Baroody, Theodore A, Alkalize or Die, 1991, Holographic Health Press
Recent posts have inquired about sleep, breathing and some exercises for controlled breathing. Last year, I posted (below) information on the Buteyko Method of breathing. It's highly effective because it allows the concentration of carbon dioxide to be at levels important to homeostasis.
All it takes is a timer that counts down and up; time and discipline. One doesn't learn this overnight. A half an hour practice twice a day is a good start toward correct breathing....which is always through a closed mouth.
Ive mentioned a few times previously the respiratory therapist I know who is only one of nine in the US certified to teach the Buteyko Method of Breathing. She recently sent me an invitation to attend an introductory talk and included this information.
Improper breathing is a common cause of ill health - Dr. Andrew Weil
Dr. Buteyko demonstrated that hyperventilating is the cause of allergic reactions, asthma, panic attacks & more than 150 other diseases...including sleep apnea.
"You should breathe through your mouth only as often as you eat with your nose!"
Author: Jackie (---.159.249.46.Dial1.Chicago1.Level3.net)
Date: 02-24-05 07:03
Peter, I'm bring forward I post I just did for Marshal.... it's back a few pages....
contains some interesting information sleep apnea and mouth breathing and the relationship to the vagus nerve, etc.
Just informational. Jackie
To Marshal & all Sleep Apnea, Mouth Breathing, GERD, etc.
Author: Jackie (---.159.250.50.Dial1.Chicago1.Level3.net)
Date: 02-19-05 10:00
Sorry this was so long in coming to you. There has been discussion in the past about sleep apnea being involved with AF. The mini-seminar on Correct Breathing I attended recently indicated a connection between overbreathing, mouth-breathing, sleep apnea and also GERD. Finally, I received input from the registered respiratory therapist, Carol Baglia, the speaker and Ive borrowed some reference material have online addresses and will run through a very basic conceptual detailing of the information she teaches in her courses to correct a myriad of problems brought on by hypercapnia (over-breathing or hyperventilation). The file I have is about six inches thick and thats just a minor portion of whats available. This is a huge topic and why she retrained to become certified in Buteyko and a registered respiratory therapy. Shes one of 9 certified in the US. She cured her asthma with correct breathing.
Shes provided me with brief descriptions which should be helpful and at the end, provided a self-test to determine your own hyperventilation status. You can go to her website for more details.
Her method is the Buteyko technique; Ive referenced some info on pH involvement from the Baroody book, Alkalize or Die, and from another, The Carbon Dioxide Syndrome. Ive given complete references at the end, but in the text of this message, Im just referencing by the source in ( ). Back in 2002, there was some dialog on the BB about the Buteyko method of breathing to help eliminate AF. Im bringing this up again because of the GERD/sleep apnea connection. I have the former posts saved and I can send them to you if youd like to review. References at the end.
You can review, online, the history of Dr. Buteyko and his studies into why hyperventilation brings on disease conditions and how he developed his technique to cure the symptoms. It was initially used for and still is the treatment of asthma symptoms. As the work became known, other conditions that develop because of hyperventilation were also found to be eliminated or controlled significantly.
Buteyko Correct Breathing Concepts is a drug-free breathing technique consisting of a series of safe, yet simple-to-learn breathing routines. Chronic hyperventilation or excessive breathing causes the loss of necessary carbon dioxide, setting off a chain of events and an imbalance in the body which leads respiratory and other symptoms.
1. The body requires carbon dioxide in order to free oxygen molecules from hemoglobin in the red blood cells. Without an adequate carbon dioxide level, our bodies cannot effectively make use of the oxygen we breathe. This is called the 'Bohr Effect' and is described in standard medical textbooks.
2. Professor Buteyko, a Russian medical doctor, discovered during his research that over-breathing (breathing too much air in and out) results in "blowing off" essential carbon dioxide.
3. The Buteyko Institute Method retrains people who over-breathe to reduce the volume of air they breathe in and out and therefore retain carbon dioxide. Buteyko exercises enable clients to achieve comfortable nose breathing with less air volume. As shown by independent clinical trials, this method is extremely effective, giving clients a better quality of life, a decrease in symptoms and a significant reduction in asthma medication. The method is now a mainstream therapy for asthma and other breathing conditions in Russia.
The systems affected by hyperventilation and related symptoms include:
Pulmonary shortness of breath, tightness in chest, over-sensitivity of airways, increased mucus production, long-termed block or running sinus, excessive sneezing coughing, yawning, or sighing.
Nervous Light-headedness, dizziness, unsteadiness, numbness, poor concentration, tingling and coldness, especially hands and fingers and often face. In severe cases, loss of memory or loss of consciousness.
Cardiac: Racing, pounding or skipped heart beats.
Psychological: Degrees of anxiety, tension and apprehension
General: mouth dryness, abdominal bloating, belching and flatulence, easily tired, poor sleep patters, weakness and chronic exhaustion.(Buteyko/Baglia)
We tend to breath too much. Good breathing creates more than just a transitory sense of well-being. It has vast implications on health. When you are breathing optimally, body chemistry is kept in balance by each breath. Every breath you take has the capacity to either balance acid/alkaline levels keeping cellular pH at its optimal level, or begin the process of disrupting the fine-tuning of your homeostatic balance. Take five or six breaths incorrectly and your pH starts to become unbalanced. If not corrected, this disruption of ph has the potential to affect every chemical reaction in your body and the efficiency of your metabolism. Breathing incorrectly for three minutes is enough to decrease the amount of oxygen to the brain and heart by 30%. If your breathing is incorrect for years, you pre-dispose yourself to a range of chronic illnesses from heart disease to asthma, to chronic fatigue. (Courtney) [and sleep apnea and GERD]
OVERBREATHING SYMPTOMS:
Headaches, nasal polyps, insomnia, allergies, snoring, palpitations, excess mucus, weight gain, constipation, general aches and pains, bronchitis, cough, fatigue. (Buteyko)
One of the most important reasons we must maintain correct levels of carbon dioxide has to do with the way it controls pH. The lungs and the kidneys are the two main organs controlling pH. They work together to maintain proper functioning of the bicarbonate buffering system in the body. If we lose too much carbon dioxide from over breathing, the kidneys are forced to compensate. Renal compensation, if it leads to too much loss of bicarbonate, may ultimately lead to a depletion of the bodys capacity to stabilize pH at its ideal level. (Courtney)
People who hyperventilate will be familiar with these indicators of poor sleep Repeatedly waking up during the night, waking up tired instead of refreshed, vivid dreams or nightmares, night sweats, extra mucus in the morning, talking or waking during sleep. (Stark/Buteyko)
CHRONIC MOUTH BREATHING CAN CONTRIBUTE TO:
Headache, forward head posture leading to neck muscle pain, stiffness, fatigue and/or cervical joint damage, dry mouth and throat, chronic tonsil swelling, enlarged adenoids and polyps, noisy breathing/ noisy eating, snoring, sleep apnea, increased mucus production, bloating, flatulence, belching, dental problems, bad breath, gum disease. (Buteyko)
OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA AND BREATHING RETRAINING.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disorder where repeated upper airway obstruction during sleep leads to a decrease in blood oxygen saturation and disrupted sleep.
Current treatment options include oral appliances, surgery and/or the use of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP machine. However, breathing retraining with the Buteyko Method is a safe, effective and convenient approach to OSA that could help eliminate the need for surgery or CPAP. (Birch)
Snoring night after night often develops into sleep apnea. (Stark/Buteyko p 123)
PROFILE OF OSA
In OSA, the muscles of the soft palate relax during sleep, leading to oro-pharyngeal and uvular collapse, causing obstruction of the airway and drop in oxygen saturation. OSA is characterized by the periodic cessation (apnea) or deduction (hypoapnea) of airflow during sleep.
Apnea is defined as the total cessation of airflow of the nose and mouth, lasting at least 10 seconds, associated with a decrease in oxygen saturation of 4% or more. Hypoapnea is generally taken to mean a greater than 50% reduction in airflow lasting 10 seconds or more associated with a 4% or greater fall in oxygen saturation. However the difference between the two is of little clinical importance since both events have similar pathophysiology.
There is no clear consensus in medical literature as to why OSA occurs, although it is thought to be associated with aging, obesity or airway anatomy. Both children and adults, can suffer from OSA and many people who do are of normal weight.
PHYSIOLOGY OF OSA
When a person hyperventilates, they exhale excessive amounts of carbon dioxide (Co2). Lowered CO2 levels in the body are critical in many conditions.
The optimal level of CO2 in the air sacs is around 6.5%. If the CO2 level falls below this due to hyperventilation, there is a gradual alkaline reaction in the lungs.
When alveolar CO2 is lowered, this gradual alkaline reaction in the lungs is carried through to the blood and total blood CO2 will also decrease.
Oxygen (O2) is carried by means of a hemoglobin (Hb) molecule. When CO2 is low due to over breathing, O2 is bound tighter than normal to the HB molecule due to a chemical bond. For the bond to loosen, CO2 levels need to increase and the blood pH needs to become less alkaline.
As blood pH decreases, the Hb/O2 bond decreases in strength, hence more O2 is more readily released from hemoglobin and it can then oxygenate the body and maintain homeostasis.
This phenomenon, called the Bhor effect, the Verigo-Bohr effect, or oxygen-hemoglobin disassociation curve, is described in standard physiology text books.
(Birch) Go here to view the complete article
Obstructive Sleep Apnoea and breathing retraining
Source: Australian Nursing Journal (Thursday, September 23, 2004)
Link: [www.anf.org.au]
GERD
Bicarbonates formed from dissolved carbon dioxide act as buffers within the body and help to neutralize acids and maintain the bodys optimally alkaline state, which is very important for digestion. A balanced pH level in the blood is maintained through respiration. It is particularly affected by carbon dioxide levels. Hyperventilation causes us to breathe out more carbon dioxide than we should and is responsible for a corresponding shift in the bloods pH. Oxygen is alkaline and carbon dioxide is acidic. The essential balance between these two is needed for the digestive system to work properly. A low level of carbon dioxide in the lungs leads to respiratory alkalosis.
After a single meal, hydrochloric acid is secreted by the stomach walls for food digestion. Since most H+ (hydrogen ions) are borrowed from the blood, this acidification of the stomach is accompanied by the alkalization of the blood. There is a narrow pH range in which the body can survive and if it is already in respiratory alkalosis from over-breathing then sufficient H+ can not be pulled into the stomach. Adequate hydrochloric acid is not made to properly digest the stomach contents. This can result in the partially digested food reflux back into the esophagus. Carbon dioxide is also a muscle relaxant. Cramps or spasm of the digestive tract can be caused by insufficient levels of carbon dioxide. Low carbon dioxide is directly responsible for an irregular peristalsis and an abnormal tone of the GI tract.
The amplitude of these processes is proportional to the caloric value and type of the meal. Increased ventilation and decreased carbon dioxide are going to take place due to necessity of food digestion. Fruits and vegetables produce the least impact on ventilation and often have their own enzymes making their digestion easy. (Buteyko/Baglia)
The online article by PC for the Conference room - Entitled, Magnesium & Potassium in LAF, covers GERD physiology go here to read www.afibbers.org/conference/PCMagnesium.pdf
URINARY AND DIGESTIVE STYSTEMS
There is a lot of smooth muscle in the digestive tract as well as mast cells that release histamine. Kidneys also play a vital role in maintaining the ionic balance, so it is little wonder that people with carbon dioxide syndrome notice problems with these parts of their body.
A frequent complaint is increased need to urinate. They wake up two or three times a night or cannot sit through a meeting. This frequent urge can be for a number of reasons.
- When the fight or fight response is triggered, blood pressure rises quickly. To regulate this, an enormous amount of urine is produced and rapidly needs to be voided.
-Hidden hyperventilation cause smooth muscle in the bladder wall to spasm with extra discomfort.
-When hidden hyperventilation has become the norm, the kidneys are required to dump bicarbonate regularly to balance the pH. This means an increasing need to urinate.
The fear of needing a bathroom during meetings or other times contributes to the problem by creating more stress.
People with dysfunctional breathing also often have digestive problems like producing too much gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, ulcers and nausea. Hyperventilation shuts down digestion and hypocapnia stimulates mast cells in the gut to release more histamine, contributing to inflammation and spasm of smooth muscle. Instead of food being pulsed smoothly through the body, its passage slows or speeds up as the smooth muscle wrapped around he digestive tract contracts and relaxes with surging carbon dioxide pressure. (Buteyko/Stark)
Alkaline Needs of Glands and Organs (Baroody p. 23)
Glands and organs function properly in exact proportion to the amount of alkaline and acid levels in the system.
The Heart is one of the most alkaline dependent organ is in the body. It is partly innervated by the vagus nerve which functions best in an alkaline environment. The heart pumps about 520 quarts of blood an hour and about 13,000 quarts a day. If blood is not toxin free, it puts a tremendous strain on the heart. Correct heart beat is altered by acid wastes These wastes rob the blood of proper oxygenation and degeneration of the heart follows. An alkaline system creates an ideal heart function.
The Lungs have the primary mission of keeping us alkaline by the exchange of gases in our breathing and the elimination of formed acid waste products in the blood stream. An unclean or even slightly acid bloodstream augurs great trouble.
The Stomach. Most of this book (Alkalize or Die) relates to stomach malfunction in relation to alkaline and acid. The Hiatal Hernia Syndrome, which is discussed in Chapter 4, The Incredible Vagus Nerve, can very quickly reduce hydrochloric acid by pinching the vagus nerve. Without proper hydrochloric acid breakdown of food, the foods become too acidic. This creates a multitude of problems see checklist of symptoms which indicate presence of the HHS. (covered in a separate BB post)
Carol also provided me with course information on carbon dioxide which helps explain the Buteyko method and why it works.
Carbon Dioxide
If you ask most people why we breathe, theyll say to bring in oxygen. Its commonly believed that only oxygen is required for our health, and that carbon dioxide is just a waste gas. The truth is carbon dioxide is just as important for our health as oxygen. We dont exhale to get rid of carbon dioxide. We exhale to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in our bodies. There is an optimal level of carbon dioxide that our bodies try to achieve. Too much or too little can be a problem. Breathing too fast or deep eliminates excessive carbon dioxide, and this has some serious consequences for our health.
Heres a simple way to prove this fact. If you were to breathe as fast as you can for the next 60 seconds, then you will find yourself getting dizzy, your fingers and lips will start to tingle and you might feel like you are going to pass out. Now, why does this happen? Shouldnt you have felt invigorated? Didnt all that breathing increase your oxygen supply? Why do you feel worse? Heres what actually occurred. The rapid breathing brought in lots of oxygen, but made you lose too much carbon dioxide, and it was this loss of carbon dioxide that made you feel ill.
One of the many things, that carbon dioxide does, is help oxygen get released into the cells. Without enough carbon dioxide, we actually become oxygen deficient as well. When you take a breath of air, oxygen enters your lungs, where its attracted to the hemoglobin in your red blood cells. This oxygen rich blood is then pumped by your heart to the rest of the body. But did you ever wonder how the oxygen gets out of the blood and into the tissue? If oxygen is so attracted to the red blood cells in the first place, why would it ever let go? The answer is carbon dioxide. Blood cant just drop the oxygen off; it EXCHANGES the oxygen for carbon dioxide.
Now what if there isnt enough carbon dioxide to do the oxygen exchange? When this happens, the oxygen is forced to stay in the blood. It never releases into the tissues. The more you breathe, the more breathless you feel. You end up with healthy red blood, full of oxygen that never gets released into the tissues. Its useless. So, a carbon dioxide deficiency gives you an oxygen deficiency. The faster you breathe, the less oxygen you get! Carbon dioxide is required for the availability of oxygen.
How can carbon dioxide affect our immune system? Every day were exposed to viruses and bacteria. With the advent of jet travel, an infection in a Hong Kong market, can be in a New York coffee shop in 24 hours. Our first line of defense is our white blood cells. When a white blood cell finds a foreign invader in the body, its job is to attack the infection, and then to make antibodies to let other white blood cells know about the infection so they can get involved too. Scientific research has shown that carbon dioxide not only helps these white blood cells move faster and attack well, it also helps these white blood cells make more antibodies. In other words, carbon dioxide makes your immune system stronger and faster, and better able to recognize these infections.
Another key role carbon dioxide plays in the body is the regulation of proteins. Carbon dioxide helps keep all the proteins of the body in balance. Almost every protein in the body has something called an amine group attached to it. These amine groups are very sticky.
These sticky proteins are supposed to be attached to carbon dioxide. When they are, theyre protected. But what happens if there isnt enough carbon dioxide available to attach to them? In the absence of carbon dioxide, these sticky proteins attach to the sugar in our bloodstream. Now sugar attached to a protein is worse than useless, it is toxic. Not only are these proteins no longer functional, they are waste products that have to be removed from the body. This is a problem because proteins are essential components.
Although there are thousands and thousands of different proteins in the body, each with their own special job to do, lets just look at 5 groups of them: The structural proteins, hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes and antibodies.
Structural proteins are the proteins that we use to grow and to repair ourselves. Take skin for instance. Without enough carbon dioxide to keep the structural proteins available, the skin wont be able to repair itself properly. Instead of making healthy new skin when the old skin wears out, the skin will get filled with toxic protein-sugar complexes. You can see this happen as you get older. Age spots, also known as liver spots are examples of these toxic accumulations.
Of course, age spots dont just show up in the skin, they accumulate throughout the body in places like the heart, the brain and other internal organs. If you can see them in your skin, you can be sure that they are on the inside of your body as well.
The next group of proteins are the hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers that help the body communicate with itself. Take insulin for example. Insulin is a hormone made in the pancreas that tells the cells of the body to open up and let glucose in so they can make energy. Now what happens if the insulin protein gets a sugar molecule stuck to it instead of carbon dioxide? When this happens, the insulin cant work properly. Without insulin, the cells cant get the fuel they need, so the pancreas makes more insulin and the liver releases more sugar into the bloodstream.
This additional insulin only gets more stuck with the additional sugar just released, all the while the cells are starving and losing energy. If this goes on long enough, there is a clinical name for it, diabetes.
There are thousands of hormones in the body that help keep things organized. Diabetes is what happens when just one hormone doesnt work properly. Can you imagine what happens when all of the hormones start to gradually fail? Of course some people try to fight the aging process by taking additional hormones, but this doesnt solve the problem. Without the carbon dioxide to protect them, these additional hormones just get stuck to sugar losing their effectiveness and making more toxins.
Taking a look at the third group, the neurotransmitters, are the chemicals that the brain uses to think and to feel. Dopamine gives us drive and ambition, seratonin gives us happiness and peace of mind, melatonin helps us sleep and keeps our brain healthy. These are just a few examples. When these neurotransmitters attach to sugar instead of carbon dioxide, they not only keep us from being as smart and as happy as we can be, they also end up forming deposits in the brain itself. Having adequate levels of carbon dioxide allows us to make better use of our neurotransmitters and keeps our brains healthier longer.
Enzymes are another group of proteins in the body. There are thousands of different enzymes in the body with more being discovered every day. Just consider the ones youre probably most familiar with, the digestive enzymes. Without enough CARBON DIOXIDE to protect these digestive enzymes, the ability to digest food gets weaker and weaker until we only absorb a fraction of the nutrition that we actually eat. We want more and more food, but absorb less and less of it. Without proper digestion, we can have neither the energy nor the raw materials to function properly.
By protecting your enzymes with carbon dioxide, digestion is well maintained.
The last group of proteins mentioned are the antibodies. Antibodies are special proteins that our immune system uses to identify infections. When white bloods cell find an infection, they destroy it. Still the immune system knows that while it may have killed this one bug, there are more of the same kind of bug elsewhere in the body, so it makes special proteins called antibodies to let the other white blood cells know what to look for. Now, rather than having to wait to bump into an infection at random, the white blood cells have a head start. If you have enough carbon dioxide to keep your antibodies protected, then your immune system can often destroy an infection without you even knowing its there. If on the other hand, your antibodies get stuck to sugar instead of carbon dioxide, the antibodies wont be able to do their job as well. An infection, that might have taken hours to clear up, now can take days or weeks.
Carbon dioxide is involved with more than just the protection of proteins. It is also involved with their removal as well. When a protein reaches the end of its useful life, it turns into ammonia. When theres enough carbon dioxide available, it combines with the ammonia to form urea, which is harmlessly removed from the body. Should the carbon dioxide be in short supply, ammonia builds up. Some of the symptoms of ammonia toxicity include tremors, fatigue and aversion to high protein foods. If the ammonia levels get high enough, it can damage brain cells. We make ammonia every day. Only carbon dioxide stands between us and this chemicals damaging effects.
Some other ways that carbon dioxide helps us besides protecting and detoxifying proteins is that carbon dioxide is also one of the main ways that the body relaxes. Its natures tranquilizer. When theres enough carbon dioxide in the body, muscles relax. On the other hand, when theres not enough carbon dioxide in the body, muscles contract.
Now there are 2 separate muscle systems in the body, the voluntary and the involuntary muscles. The voluntary muscles are the ones that we have control over, like those found in our arms and legs. We use them to walk, to talk and to move about. The involuntary muscles we have no direct control over. These muscles are found in our internal organs. When voluntary muscles get overly contracted, its obvious, they hurt. When the involuntary muscles get overly contracted however, all kinds of symptoms can occur that you would never associate with muscle cramps.
What happens when the involuntary muscles of the body get overly contracted?
Starting at the top:
When the muscles that line the arteries of our brain cramp, blood flow to the brain diminishes. This can result in symptoms ranging from headaches and poor memory, to fatigue, poor eyesight, poor hearing, depression and even stroke.
Moving down; when the muscles in the throat cramp, you can have difficulty with speech, swallowing food, snoring and sleep apnea. Continuing on, when the muscles in the lungs cramp you get asthma and breathing problems.
Now the heart is an involuntary muscle too, so when the heart muscle cramps, it causes angina, and if the cramp is bad enough, it can cause a heart attack.
Moving on, the length of the digestive tract is lined with involuntary muscle tissue. If the stomach cramps, you can get gastric reflux, if the gall bladder cramps, you can get gallstones, and if the colon cramps you can get constipation or spastic colon. Muscles also line the bladder, so a cramp here causes incontinence.
When the muscles of the uterus cramp, you get menstrual cramps and if the muscles that control a mans reproductive organs cramp, you get impotence.
Many of the conditions that we medicate ourselves for are really nothing more complicated than muscle cramps.
In addition to relaxing our muscles, carbon dioxide also helps us relax our minds as well. Our minds are constantly active; wondering, thinking, remembering. Even when were asleep, our brains are active in our dreams.
But have you ever tried not to think of anything. Its almost impossible to do for more than a second or two. Its our capacity for thought that makes us human, but too much thinking can drive us crazy. Have you ever tried to go to sleep, but you just couldnt stop thinking about one thing or another? Thats one example of what happens when the brain cant turn off.
The problem starts when we run low on carbon dioxide. You see its carbon dioxide that lets the cells in our brains turn off when theyre not needed. When carbon dioxide begins to run low, these brain cells cant turn themselves off. They stay on, whether we want them to or not. This causes two problems. First, brain cells arent designed for non- stop use. They need to rest and recuperate. When they stay on too long from lack of carbon dioxide, they wear out more quickly. This causes our brains to age faster than they would normally.
Secondly, hyperactive brain activity can cause physical and psychological problems, such as difficulty concentrating, chronic fear and anxiety, muscle twitches and insomnia.
The secret to a more peaceful and relaxed mind isnt hidden away in some distant mountain sanctuary, its in the way you breathe.
If youre like most people who ignore their breathing by leaving it on auto pilot, you probably breathe about 18 times a minute. The optimal breathing rate is closer to 8 times a minute. Most humans breathe twice as quickly as they should. But if breathing slower is better for us, why do we breathe faster in the first place? The answer is stress. Every time we get stressed, we breathe faster. Thats just the way our bodies are made.
Now if our lives were mostly calm and peaceful, a few stresses could come and go without causing much harm. In todays world, stress is continuous with such things as: traffic jams, bills, arguments, pollution, food additives, medications, illnesses/injury, emotions, world affairs, caffeine, etc. All this contributes to keeping our breathing rate high, and over time our brains reset themselves to this faster breathing rate. Now, even without the stress, our breathing rate is elevated.
So, finally ask the question. How do we slow our breathing rate down and increase our carbon dioxide levels? The secret is simple to reset your bodys natural breathing rate.
Buteyko breathing techniques, taught by respiratory therapist, Carol Baglia, with Correct Breathing Concepts is the answer. www.correctbreathing.com
Whereas stress causes you to breathe faster and faster, carbon dioxide calms you down and lets you breathe slower. In addition to the long term benefits of lowering your breathing rate and raising your carbon dioxide levels, you also get certain immediate effects, such as more relaxed the muscles and a calmer mind so the effect is quite pleasant.
In summary, carbon dioxide is required for the delivery of oxygen into our bodies, the efficiency of our immune system and the synthesis, regulation and detoxification of protein such as hormones, neurotransmitters enzymes and antibodies. Carbon dioxide is one of the main ways that the body relaxes its muscles, brain and nervous systems.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Carbon dioxide is also one of the bodys most powerful anti-oxidants. Its the main way that our body maintains its important acid-alkaline balance, it helps stimulate fat loss and muscle gain, it decreases allergies and reduces inflammation.
To find out if you have the appropriate levels of C02 in your body contact carol@correctbreathing.com Telephone: 440-357-5834 or 216-952-7048
TAKE THE HYPERVENTILATION TEST
Take the following test and mark each symptom that currently appears in your life. Try to do this test honestly and without inhibition because you will use it as a reference in the future to monitor your progress.
Rate your symptoms on a scale of 0 - 4 for the following symptoms, where 0 is never, 1 is rare, 2 is sometimes, 3 is often and 4 is very often. This is not the kind of test where you add up your score, but simply note which symptoms you have and how much they impact on your life.
Airways are extra-sensitive
0 1 2 3 4
Allergies, rhinitis, hay fever
0 1 2 3 4
Bloated abdomen, flatulence or belching
0 1 2 3 4
Blocked nose
0 1 2 3 4
Breathing through mouth
0 1 2 3 4
Chest constriction or tightness
0 1 2 3 4
Chest pains that are not heart-related
0 1 2 3 4
Cold hands and feet
0 1 2 3 4
Colds, flu or chest infections
0 1 2 3 4
Constipation with intermittent diarrhea
0 1 2 3 4
Coughing
0 1 2 3 4
Dental or gum problems
0 1 2 3 4
Difficulty in taking a deep breath
0 1 2 3 4
Dry mouth
0 1 2 3 4
Erratic breathing with fluctuations of e.g. taking a deep breath every few minutes; breathing without pause; rapid breathing that is spaced with long pauses
0 1 2 3 4
Excessive mucus production
0 1 2 3 4
Fast or deep breathing
0 1 2 3 4
Feeling tense, apprehensive, anxious, panicky, or fearful without reason e.g. fear of stuffy rooms
0 1 2 3 4
Headaches
0 1 2 3 4
High blood pressure
0 1 2 3 4
Itching, dry skin, eczema or rashes
0 1 2 3 4
Lacking stamina, feeling chronically tired or physically exhausted
0 1 2 3 4
Licking dry lips
0 1 2 3 4
Lightheaded or feeling dizzy
0 1 2 3 4
Long-term blocked or running sinuses
0 1 2 3 4
Loss of libido
0 1 2 3 4
Mild depression
0 1 2 3 4
Muscle tightness or cramps
0 1 2 3 4
Pains in bones
0 1 2 3 4
Poor concentration, mental fatigue, confusion
0 1 2 3 4
Pounding, rapid or erratic heartbeat
0 1 2 3 4
Reduced sense of smell
0 1 2 3 4
Short of breath
0 1 2 3 4
Short temper, irritable
0 1 2 3 4
Sleeping badly e.g. insomnia, vivid dreams, nightmares, shuddering in sleep, snoring, waking frequently, grinding teeth or still feeling tired after a long sleep
0 1 2 3 4
Stiffness in fingers or arms
0 1 2 3 4
Sweaty palms/feet/armpits or feeling hot all over
0 1 2 3 4
Throat clearing
0 1 2 3 4
Tightness around mouth
0 1 2 3 4
Tingling or numbness in fingers or lips
0 1 2 3 4
Trembling or tic
0 1 2 3 4
Using the upper chest to breathe with
0 1 2 3 4
Visual disturbances e.g. flashes or shadows before the eye, blurred or tunnel vision or impaired night vision
0 1 2 3 4
The End
REFERENCES
Published here with permission of Carol Baglia
Buteyko - Correct Breathing Concepts, LLC
Carol Baglia, CBT, RRT
www.correctbreathing.com
[www.buteykobayside.com]
Mary Birch RN BA M.BioE Grad.Dip.Soc MRCNA MBIBH
Stark, Jennifer, Stark, Russell, The Carbon Dioxide Syndrome, 2002, New Zealand
Baroody, Theodore A, Alkalize or Die, 1991, Holographic Health Press
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Carol
Re: Sleep Apnea - Breathing Exercises February 11, 2006 07:52AM |
Jackie, WOW what a wealth of info. Thankful to learn about the CO2. Have tried the bag breathing for CO2 and it has helped with sleeping. I'm not that disciplined to do the exercises. I re-breathe 2-3 times a day and before going to bed. One thing I have noticed is the reduction in leg edema. I'll still have some slight ridges from my socks but not to the extent I had. Last Af was 02-04 hitting every 17 days. Very mild last time. So I will keep up the re-breathing for the CO2.
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