Relearning How To Breathe And Increasing CO2

Heidi

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I started doing Buteyko type breathing 2 weeks ago and have had exceptionally good results so far, but also some very unpleasant side effects. For the past 12 years I've done Transformational Breathwork. In essence I've been intentionally hyperventilating most of the time for a very long time! I literally had no idea that I was causing myself so much physical harm. It's been a shock to realize that something that I thought was so helpful and healing, is actually physically detrimental. This kind of breathing is very popular and there are so many similar styles (like Rebirthing, Holotropic Breathwork, etc.) But other than Buteyko websites, there's no one that is talking about the problems and the harm. Before I started Transformational breathing I had a paradoxical breathing pattern, which the breathwork corrected. Transformational breathing also helped me release a lot emotionally. I thought that it helped me with physical pain, but now I see that it has probably been the cause of much of my physical pain. All of my pain and inflammation symptoms get worse after I ovulate. I read that CO2 levels drop 25% post ovulation. It appears that chronic low CO2 levels might be the cause of most of my problems.

I was looking for a place where I could discuss these issues, and this forum was the only one that I could find. I would be grateful for any support or advice that anyone offers. I have read most everything posted here concerning CO2 and found a lot of helpful information.

My experience has been very similar to what Ray-Z described in this post. https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/meditation-and-carbon-dioxide.742/ When I successfully reduce my breathing, I breath the same as when I've been meditating for 40 minutes or so. This way of breathing feels like the body's most natural baseline state when free of anxiety/stress. I'd like to develop the ability to breathe this way most of the time.

So far I've gotten the best results from just trying to breathe less, and then relaxing into the mild feelings of air hunger, until my breathing shifts. It takes a lot of time and focus, but the relaxed feelings and ease once my breathing shifts feels great. I've also done a bit of short breath holding or very slow breathing, but haven't quite found a rhythm with doing that yet. I've just done a very little bit of trying to breath through my nose while exercising. It's going to take awhile for me to be able to exclusively nose breath while exercising. I've been a mouth breather all my life. This is a long term project.

I've tried a little bit of bag breathing. So far I've liked cupping my hands over my mouth and nose as the easiest way to increase CO2. I've been nervous about doing bag breathing/hand cupping too much. Also, I really want to change my overall breathing pattern and I don't think that the bag breathing does this. It seems like my breathing reverts back to what it was soon after I stop.

I've been taping my mouth at night and that has made a big difference, too. Mostly I wake up with my body relaxed instead of tense. Chronic tension while I sleep as been a long term problem for me. My sleep seems better with my mouth taped, but dreams have been more vivid. I still think that I'm hyperventilating during the night. I typically wake up hot and revved around 4:00 am. When I wake up my breathing is deep and noisy and it takes a lot of focus to quiet it down. I'm wondering if the night hyperventilation will correct itself as my daytime breathing pattern improves. Or do I need to do something more than just tape my mouth? I thought of wearing a loose dust mask while I sleep, but so far that felt uncomfortable. Plus I don't want to do too much too fast and inadvertently increase the unpleasant side effects.

Here's a list of the positive benefits that I've noticed these first two weeks:
I now feel warm most of the time in the frigid winter. (Typically I feel cold.)
No more unbearable pain in my fingers when I drive in cold weather.
My body stays much more relaxed while I sleep.
My jaw tension is gone or greatly reduced.
I'm more physically relaxed.
My bladder functions better. I pee less frequently. It seems like it might be less inflamed.
Less bloating and water retention.
I didn't have menstrual cramps during the times when I was able to reduce my breathing.
My period was the shortest and easiest ever (but maybe that was a coincidence?)
My eyesight feels as though it's a bit better (but I'm not sure if it actually is better).
I love the still, calm, grounded feeling of the reduced breathing.

Side effects/difficulties:
Early on I coughed a lot and didn't feel well for a few days.
Increased mucus.
Lots of headaches.
One exceptionally bad headache that started during the night. (My headaches don't usually start at night.) I felt really sick and queasy with this headache.
I have to talk a lot at work and so far have been unable to change my breathing while working.

I've read that it is very common to have side effects or cleansing reactions to Buteyko breathing. The headaches are particularly troubling. Are they just a temporary adjustment or am I inadvertently making something worse? This website talks about Buteyko style breathing being a complete cure for migraines, so that makes me optimistic. http://migraineze.com/

But I wonder how much CO2 is too much? Is there a reason for only doing the bag breathing 3 times a day? If one is gentle with it, could one do more? I've also wondered about doing the bag breathing to compensate when there's been a lot of hyperventilation. When I had the really bad headache I did movement and increased breathing through my nose to help with release. Then I did a brief nose and mouth cupping to rebalance CO2 levels. I went back and forth between these two things and it seemed to help a lot. My body is really use to breathing high levels of oxygen. So maybe breathing more and then correcting for reduced CO2 levels is a good transitional technique? It seems obvious to me now that all hyperventilating breathwork techniques should end with bag breathing. I am trying to completely stop the transformational breathwork, but maybe going cold turkey is too extreme? Would it be good for me to supplement with calcium/magnesium or something else? I don't want to do too much or change too many variables at once. But I'm also looking to make the transition easier and lessen the uncomfortable side effects. Hopefully I'll answer a lot of these questions as my experience unfolds.

I realize that this is an exceptionally long and detailed first post. Hopefully all these details will be helpful to someone else struggling to make these kinds of changes. Thanks again in advance for any help that anyone offers.
 
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Ideonaut

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I don't have any helpful advice, but thanks for sharing ! I'll try the mouth/nose cupping, taping the mouth at night, and maybe dust mask. Peat wrote that increased CO2 activates an enzyme in the lysosomes that allows for the removal of lipofuscin, and I'd sure like to get rid of some of that stuff!
 
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welcome. You are doing awesome. Can't have too much CO2 naturally produced, so keep it up! Don't breathe more, breathe LESS. You are doing great. Don't overthink the process. I find the Frolov type device, or the Breathslim, easier and more useful than bag breathing. Also the Elevation Training Mask for exercising and doing long breath holds (exhaling slowly and building up air hunger) if you can stand appearing like you are wearing a gas mask.

What is your control pause? Are you measuring it before and after each breathing session?

Yes, bag breathing is VERY helpful if you feel like you are hyperventilating. So is doing pauses. Exhale, and hold. Then inhale through your nose and exhale and hold...etc.
 
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Heidi

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brumpfschmlog - good luck to you!

ecstatichamster - thanks for the encouragement. It is needed as I still have a headache and am struggling. Have you written the details about your success with Buteyko breathing anywhere? What improved for you? Did you have side effects or did anything get worse? I've been thinking about getting a Frolov type device. Do you recommend a particular one? The elevation training masks seems too advanced for me right now. (But maybe down the road.) I'm at a dust mask level.

My control pause was a dismal 10-12 when I started. The other day when I was breathing well it was 22. I just checked it now and it was 17 but I just ate and feel like crap. I don't bother to check it very much. I haven't done it before and after a session at all. My best sessions are in bed when I'm still half asleep.

My biggest problem right now is not knowing if I'm increasing CO2 too much or too fast. Hyperventilating feels normal and good because I'm so use to it. So mostly I'm not aware that I'm hyperventilating. I've been trying to discern between the subtleties of breathing. What the signs are of different breathing states. I feel like a beginner or idiot concerning something that should be more obvious and apparent.

This is off topic but I saw your post on resistant starch. I've had great success with resistant starch and recommend it.

I love your user name and pic. My husband has a thing for hamsters.

Thanks so much for your help!
 

barefooter

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Welcome Heidi. It sounds like you've already come a long way to healing your problems in a short time, so congratulations. I'm sure you'll find lots of great info here.

It's been a shock to realize that something that I thought was so helpful and healing, is actually physically detrimental. This kind of breathing is very popular and there are so many similar styles (like Rebirthing, Holotropic Breathwork, etc.) But other than Buteyko websites, there's no one that is talking about the problems and the harm.

I'm not super familiar with holotropic breathwork, rebirthing, etc., but I used to hang out with some people that were into it, and I did notice they seem to hold pretty high regard in certain alternative circles. I agree that they seem like very dangerous practices, especially if done regularly. In my view, they are a type of therapy more akin to taking a hallucinogenic drug. It's just that you're tripping out by disrupting the brains oxygen supply, rather than through the means of a psychoactive pharmaceutical or plant. They are not a way of building the physical body up, but rather a way of tearing it down, so you can see past blocks and work through emotional trauma. And I suppose this could be healing for some, just as psychedelics can be, but regular sessions seem very detrimental to health due to lowered CO2.

There are a good deal of spiritual practices that essentially involve stressing the body to achieve an altered state of consciousness, at which point your supposedly connecting with some greater energy/power. I think people learned long long ago that things like fasting, breathing heavily, endurance activities, etc. caused changes in the way they perceived.
 
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Heidi

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Barefooter, I went to a therapist who incorporated breathwork in her practice. I was interested in fixing my messed up breathing, and in emotional and physical healing. I lived always with a very heavy underlying feeling of deep grief. When the grief finally left it was like an awakening experience. I lived in grief for so long that I assumed it was permanent. At first I liked the high from the transformational breathing. But most of my earlier sessions were mostly about pain and with only momentary relief. But when the grief went away, the bliss and high that I felt were disconnected, and not what I wanted spiritually. I kept doing the breathing but tried to stay connected and grounded in the moment. I wanted to be connected to my body and emotions, and remain empathetic to other people's suffering. So far the high from the Buteyko style breathing is connected to my body, emotions, and a pervasive sense of stillness. But I'm still not wanting high. I'm much more interested in a quality of connection. I'm also leery that the Buteyko breathing could lead me to an opposite extreme, but hopefully not.
 

brandonk

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I agree that it's hard to find a place to talk about Buteyko. Do you have a pulse oximeter? I've posted about it in another thread, and not to duplicate that post, but in short, the more CO2 you have in your blood, the lower your O2 saturation will register on the oximeter. They cost about $20 US and it's a very helpful feedback or even reward loop.

To answer your question, yes, you can have too much CO2 if your O2 falls below say 85% on the oximeter. But anything around 90-94% O2 is a kind of sweet spot. It's really hard not to hyperventilate when talking, so I wouldn't stress out about that, and just make up for it when you have quiet time.

A control pause of less than 20 means (in Buteyko's view) that you have other health issues, perhaps hidden ones. How is your digestion and intestinal health? I'm guessing you may have issues there, even if you haven't been diagnosed, since intestinal health and respiratory health are closely related by lactic acid (and serotonin). Basically, you have two ways of making up for an excess of lactic acid, one is by filtering it in the liver/kidney/intestine organ, and the other is by breathing out CO2 in the lungs, which allows for more lactic acid to remain in the blood. High serotonin in the gut also makes you hyperventilate, though the biology of that is not as well understood as the basic pH calculations of lactic and carbonic acid from CO2.

So I guess what I'm saying is, to breathe better, you may need to look to your digestive organ. The safest, easiest way to improve your digestive organ is to eat more saturated fat, such as coconut oil or its medium chain fractions, and reduce starch, PUFAs and tryptophan.
 
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brumpfschmlog - good luck to you!

ecstatichamster - thanks for the encouragement. It is needed as I still have a headache and am struggling. Have you written the details about your success with Buteyko breathing anywhere? What improved for you? Did you have side effects or did anything get worse? I've been thinking about getting a Frolov type device. Do you recommend a particular one? The elevation training masks seems too advanced for me right now. (But maybe down the road.) I'm at a dust mask level.

My control pause was a dismal 10-12 when I started. The other day when I was breathing well it was 22. I just checked it now and it was 17 but I just ate and feel like crap. I don't bother to check it very much. I haven't done it before and after a session at all. My best sessions are in bed when I'm still half asleep.

My biggest problem right now is not knowing if I'm increasing CO2 too much or too fast. Hyperventilating feels normal and good because I'm so use to it. So mostly I'm not aware that I'm hyperventilating. I've been trying to discern between the subtleties of breathing. What the signs are of different breathing states. I feel like a beginner or idiot concerning something that should be more obvious and apparent.

This is off topic but I saw your post on resistant starch. I've had great success with resistant starch and recommend it.

I love your user name and pic. My husband has a thing for hamsters.

Thanks so much for your help!

Glad to help! And glad you like my username. Actually that's my real name. Just kidding!!

Good for you on your CP! Once people get to low 20s, many obvious health problems stop. So you are on the cusp.

Don't do it if you have a headache. If the headache is caused by breathing exercises, you are doing them too vigorously for your present CP.

No I haven't written details here. There are a few people on here who have a lot of Buteyko experience. My CP is around 45. I never could get it into the 50s and 60s but I think it's because of my metabolism. I'm working on that now.

It's best to learn to build air hunger when you are active or when you remember. I'm constantly doing pauses as I walk around or climb stairs. And when I am sitting I quiet my breathing.

I recommend the Frolov or Breathslim unit very strongly. Put it in a jar, put a towel on top, and the jar will amplify the effect. You will get huge benefit out of that at your CP level or very soon.

Keep a log, and note your CP throughout the day and when it falls. Is it when you wake up? Is it after eating? Then address those situations and you'll get your CP up all the time this way.

I think a lot of life and especially alternative healers and yoga (bikram for instance) teach hyPER ventilation as a GOOD thing and it's really ingrained. The only alternative healing that involves breathing that I think is right is either OLD fashioned Yoga (I"m not conversant in the various styles) that emphasized long SLOW breathing (it may be deep but it builds air hunger) and perhaps Qi Gong. But most of it is claptrap.

So focus on building a bit of air hunger as often as possible, and DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING. You reinvigorate and re-boot the body's programming to use the diaphragm and belly breathe. This massages and pumps the lymphatic fluid and gets everything moving. And it becomes automatic again to breathe from the belly which brings huge benefit in ending tissue hypoxia.
 

barefooter

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Basically, you have two ways of making up for an excess of lactic acid, one is by filtering it in the liver/kidney/intestine organ, and the other is by breathing out CO2 in the lungs, which allows for more lactic acid to remain in the blood.

Great timing, as I was just wondering what the mechanism, besides hyperventilation, was for dealing with excess lactic acid, as hyperventilation seems like a very sub-optimal means for the body to use. Could liver health be a partial explanation for why excess lactic acid causes some people to hyperventilate too much and have panic attacks?
 

tara

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Welcome Heidi!

I got here via learning about Buteyko too - mostly from reading Rakhimov at normalbreathing, and some of Patrick McKeown's work, and a few other bits. Peat's recognition of the importance of CO2 seemed to go well with that. I'm glad to have us discussing Buteyko and Peat's methods together. Sounds like you've made great progress. Ecstatic may be the most expert on Buteyko breathing around here.

Rakhimov says some people have to go more slowly and gently with raising CO2, so as not to trigger symptoms - amongst them people who get migraines and panic attacks. I have a tendency to do migraines. I have not made much inroads on this with either the little Buteyko practivce I've done, or the Peat-inspired tactics. I think I triggered a couple of migraines by using a device to reduce breathing early on - possibly I wasn't well-enough nourished to support it. I don't take it as a necessary permanent limit, just that if strong practice is triggereing migraines, maybe it would be better to increase more slowly.

He also has some other cautions. I can't remember the levels (I'm nowhere near), but probably still on the normalbreathing site. Eg for people with transplants or implants, there can be issues with the immune system waking up and trying to kick them out if CP gets too high. PUFAs have been used medically to suppress the immune system in some cases. Raising CO2 should do the opposite.

For me, other triggers include hunger. I've had a consistent campaign to avoid hunger/low blood sugar stress the last couple of years, and I think that makes a difference to my breathing too. As I understand it, adding in some ideas from reading Peat, if the sugar supply or glycogen storage are insufficient, then stress hormones get raised to sustain blood sugars, and adrenaline tends to trigger hyperventilation. My guess is that that can be one way to get that night time stressful wake up/pounding heart/hyperventilation and possibly headache or migraine. If basic metabolism improves, then demand for all the nutrients including carbs increase, and if we don't meet it, there's another stress response ready to happen. Some people find supplementing Mg helps against headaches and migraines.

At night, if I notice elevated breathing, I often pull the sheet up over my head a bit to reduce the air exchange. Seems to make a difference.

I also increased my intake of calcium and Mg, and it wouldn't surprise me if this contributed too. I think, but I don't have this quite clear yet, that a body that is short on alkaline mineral buffers sometimes has to hyperventilate to maintain a safe pH level. There are some threads here about this, but I haven't quite got my head around them yet, and they may contain some controversy.

To me it looks as though Buteyko paid a lot of attention to reducing CO2 losses, and some to producing more CO2 through exercise, while Peat pays most attention to restoring base metabolism (based on thyroid, not stress hormones), which increases the production of CO2. Both of them seem to recognise the value of not giving the digestive system too hard a time, and with getting adequate mineral.

I don't spend a lot of time talking most days, but when I do, I can get excited and probably hyperventilate trying to talk too fast. I practiced a few times slowing it down and breathing in only through my nose between sentences while reading bedtime stories to my kids. Also, I now often remember to do short breath holds after coughing, sneezing, yawning, etc, and during conversations when listening to someone else. I think it may have made a little difference to my breathing during conversation, as well as to reducing duration of coughs and colds.

I think nose breathing during exercise can be really effective. I'm not managing to get as much of my preferred exercise as I'd like, but when I do, I now limit my pace to what I can sustain with my mouth closed for 20+ minutes, and that results in feeling some oxygen hunger. And also sometimes practice breath holds while walking (from McKeown) or slowed down breathing patterns when I'm not going uphill.

As far as I know there is no reason not to do bag-breathing frequently, as long as you don't push it into the too uncomfortable range. I think I read that if you can maintain a higher CO2 level for a period, you can increase the set point so it stays higher for a while after. The number varies from person to person, but in the order of 20 mins, IIRC.

CO2 level dropping post ovulation could be related to increased estrogen:progesterone ratio. Estrogen tends to reduce the release o thyroid hormones, which would reduce CO2 production, and synergise with other stress hormones and PUFAs to mess with respiration - further limiting CO2 production. Some of us use progesterone (eg progest-e, progestene) to help against excess estrogen. That may have helped my breathing too.

I don't think I've made much of an improvement in my usual CP (yet), but I think I've ironed out a lot of the more severe dips, and consider it an overall improvement.
 

tara

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Great timing, as I was just wondering what the mechanism, besides hyperventilation, was for dealing with excess lactic acid, as hyperventilation seems like a very sub-optimal means for the body to use. Could liver health be a partial explanation for why excess lactic acid causes some people to hyperventilate too much and have panic attacks?
I think it's a defensive action to maintain basic pH homeostasis. Both lactic acid and CO2 make the system more acid. Lots of biochemical reactions need the body to be in it's normal pH range to function optimally. Ideally, it can use allkaline mineral buffers. But if they are body's alkaline buffers are inadequate, it has to do something, and chronic hyperventilation may be the next best thing it has control over. I'm not sure in this part, but I think the body can also use alkaline mineral buffers to help maintain pH, if they are available plentiful.

Also, in a real fight or flight situation, adrenaline increases breathing when you probably need it, and improves blood flow to muscles while reducing flow to digestion etc. Short term, while being chased by something, this may be very helpful. We just don't want to be in chronic stress states - we're built to spend time resting and repairing in between short high-stress bursts, and to produce lots of CO while fighting or fleeing.
 
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Heidi

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I woke up this morning feeling so much better (although my thyroid was revved for a few hours during the night.) I logged onto this thread and am overwhelmed by how much help I received. It's so nice to be overwhelmed by help and support. Thank you all so much. I've been taking in so much new information in the past 2 weeks. It's a lot to absorb at once.

I agree that it's hard to find a place to talk about Buteyko. Do you have a pulse oximeter? I've posted about it in another thread, and not to duplicate that post, but in short, the more CO2 you have in your blood, the lower your O2 saturation will register on the oximeter. They cost about $20 US and it's a very helpful feedback or even reward loop.

To answer your question, yes, you can have too much CO2 if your O2 falls below say 85% on the oximeter. But anything around 90-94% O2 is a kind of sweet spot. It's really hard not to hyperventilate when talking, so I wouldn't stress out about that, and just make up for it when you have quiet time.

A control pause of less than 20 means (in Buteyko's view) that you have other health issues, perhaps hidden ones. How is your digestion and intestinal health? I'm guessing you may have issues there, even if you haven't been diagnosed, since intestinal health and respiratory health are closely related by lactic acid (and serotonin). Basically, you have two ways of making up for an excess of lactic acid, one is by filtering it in the liver/kidney/intestine organ, and the other is by breathing out CO2 in the lungs, which allows for more lactic acid to remain in the blood. High serotonin in the gut also makes you hyperventilate, though the biology of that is not as well understood as the basic pH calculations of lactic and carbonic acid from CO2.

So I guess what I'm saying is, to breathe better, you may need to look to your digestive organ. The safest, easiest way to improve your digestive organ is to eat more saturated fat, such as coconut oil or its medium chain fractions, and reduce starch, PUFAs and tryptophan.
brandok, thanks for the recommendation on the oximeter. I will get one soon.

You are right about the intestinal problems. I have had huge digestive issues with parasites that I didn't know about and lived with for 25 years. I changed my diet, felt horrible, 6 weeks later started passing parasites. Researched things to kill the ascaris worm that I had. Spent 2 years passing handfuls of parasites everyday. My overall health and digestion has been much better since then, but I'd like to get it even better once I improve my breathing. But I'm reluctant to make changes that will feed any parasites that I still have.

I also was diagnosed with Hashimoto's when I was young. But my thyroid has always been on the hyper end of normal. Sometimes it goes above normal into the hyperthyroid range. It is hard to function well when that happens. I'm hoping that the breathing will have a calming effect on my thyroid. Too much coconut oil and vitamin D will rev my thyroid. I can only take very small amounts.

I reduced PUFA intake quite awhile ago. But I still consume PUFAs in whole seeds, vegetables, fish. I greatly reduced starch but have gradually added some back in. Tryptophan I haven't reduced at all and other than turkey I would have to look up what other foods are high in it.

I am really dedicated to making positive health changes and I stick to any change that I make that works. But it is very complicated and a bit of a juggling act trying to figure out the right changes.

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate your knowledge with all this. It is way beyond mine.
 

onioneyedox

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I just thought this the other day while meditating. The hyperventilation, or what I mean with that, the inability to stop breathing when lungs are emptied in relaxed, natural way. The reason for that is not actual air hunger, but low energy of the diaphragm, maybe a bit similarly as you get twitch around an eye or maybe restless legs. The muscle don't have energy to relax. And constant motion of breathing makes it harder to replenish the energy. After a good meal or good sleep you often have relaxed breathing, for example. Also like calming a twitch of an eye by relaxing and bringing attention (sort of mental energy/focus), like body scan, you can relax diaphragm rather effectively in meditation. Just have energy in body (as in well eaten), relax everything, body and mind, so that just breathing and heart are working and when diaphragm is momentarily in rest just bring focus to it (not really any thoughts just attention) and the muscles sort of gets energy and relaxes. Even heart stops for a moment you notice.

Well at least this seems to calm my breathing faster, when meditating, for whatever the reason. Just thought I share, best wishes to you, Heidi, and welcome.
 
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Heidi

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Glad to help! And glad you like my username. Actually that's my real name. Just kidding!!

Good for you on your CP! Once people get to low 20s, many obvious health problems stop. So you are on the cusp.

Don't do it if you have a headache. If the headache is caused by breathing exercises, you are doing them too vigorously for your present CP.

No I haven't written details here. There are a few people on here who have a lot of Buteyko experience. My CP is around 45. I never could get it into the 50s and 60s but I think it's because of my metabolism. I'm working on that now.

It's best to learn to build air hunger when you are active or when you remember. I'm constantly doing pauses as I walk around or climb stairs. And when I am sitting I quiet my breathing.

I recommend the Frolov or Breathslim unit very strongly. Put it in a jar, put a towel on top, and the jar will amplify the effect. You will get huge benefit out of that at your CP level or very soon.

Keep a log, and note your CP throughout the day and when it falls. Is it when you wake up? Is it after eating? Then address those situations and you'll get your CP up all the time this way.

I think a lot of life and especially alternative healers and yoga (bikram for instance) teach hyPER ventilation as a GOOD thing and it's really ingrained. The only alternative healing that involves breathing that I think is right is either OLD fashioned Yoga (I"m not conversant in the various styles) that emphasized long SLOW breathing (it may be deep but it builds air hunger) and perhaps Qi Gong. But most of it is claptrap.

So focus on building a bit of air hunger as often as possible, and DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING. You reinvigorate and re-boot the body's programming to use the diaphragm and belly breathe. This massages and pumps the lymphatic fluid and gets everything moving. And it becomes automatic again to breathe from the belly which brings huge benefit in ending tissue hypoxia.

Thanks again ecstatic hamster. My breathing isn't good while I sleep. (But it's better than what it use to be due to taping my mouth) I build air hunger before I sleep and when I wake up during the night.

I am trying to stay aware of my breathing as much as I can throughout the day.

I think that my diaphragmatic breathing is good. Transformational breathing did help me out in that way.

Your advice is very helpful but I think slightly ahead of where I'm at. I will order a frolov or breathslim unit. I will check my CP more in the future after I reach an equilibrium with what I am currently doing.
 
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Heidi

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Tara, your post was filled with tons of good reminders and suggestions. I will reread it to take it all in.
Welcome Heidi!

I got here via learning about Buteyko too - mostly from reading Rakhimov at normalbreathing, and some of Patrick McKeown's work, and a few other bits. Peat's recognition of the importance of CO2 seemed to go well with that. I'm glad to have us discussing Buteyko and Peat's methods together. Sounds like you've made great progress. Ecstatic may be the most expert on Buteyko breathing around here.

Rakhimov says some people have to go more slowly and gently with raising CO2, so as not to trigger symptoms - amongst them people who get migraines and panic attacks. I have a tendency to do migraines. I have not made much inroads on this with either the little Buteyko practivce I've done, or the Peat-inspired tactics. I think I triggered a couple of migraines by using a device to reduce breathing early on - possibly I wasn't well-enough nourished to support it. I don't take it as a necessary permanent limit, just that if strong practice is triggereing migraines, maybe it would be better to increase more slowly.

He also has some other cautions. I can't remember the levels (I'm nowhere near), but probably still on the normalbreathing site. Eg for people with transplants or implants, there can be issues with the immune system waking up and trying to kick them out if CP gets too high. PUFAs have been used medically to suppress the immune system in some cases. Raising CO2 should do the opposite.

For me, other triggers include hunger. I've had a consistent campaign to avoid hunger/low blood sugar stress the last couple of years, and I think that makes a difference to my breathing too. As I understand it, adding in some ideas from reading Peat, if the sugar supply or glycogen storage are insufficient, then stress hormones get raised to sustain blood sugars, and adrenaline tends to trigger hyperventilation. My guess is that that can be one way to get that night time stressful wake up/pounding heart/hyperventilation and possibly headache or migraine. If basic metabolism improves, then demand for all the nutrients including carbs increase, and if we don't meet it, there's another stress response ready to happen. Some people find supplementing Mg helps against headaches and migraines.

At night, if I notice elevated breathing, I often pull the sheet up over my head a bit to reduce the air exchange. Seems to make a difference.

I also increased my intake of calcium and Mg, and it wouldn't surprise me if this contributed too. I think, but I don't have this quite clear yet, that a body that is short on alkaline mineral buffers sometimes has to hyperventilate to maintain a safe pH level. There are some threads here about this, but I haven't quite got my head around them yet, and they may contain some controversy.

To me it looks as though Buteyko paid a lot of attention to reducing CO2 losses, and some to producing more CO2 through exercise, while Peat pays most attention to restoring base metabolism (based on thyroid, not stress hormones), which increases the production of CO2. Both of them seem to recognise the value of not giving the digestive system too hard a time, and with getting adequate mineral.

I don't spend a lot of time talking most days, but when I do, I can get excited and probably hyperventilate trying to talk too fast. I practiced a few times slowing it down and breathing in only through my nose between sentences while reading bedtime stories to my kids. Also, I now often remember to do short breath holds after coughing, sneezing, yawning, etc, and during conversations when listening to someone else. I think it may have made a little difference to my breathing during conversation, as well as to reducing duration of coughs and colds.

I think nose breathing during exercise can be really effective. I'm not managing to get as much of my preferred exercise as I'd like, but when I do, I now limit my pace to what I can sustain with my mouth closed for 20+ minutes, and that results in feeling some oxygen hunger. And also sometimes practice breath holds while walking (from McKeown) or slowed down breathing patterns when I'm not going uphill.

As far as I know there is no reason not to do bag-breathing frequently, as long as you don't push it into the too uncomfortable range. I think I read that if you can maintain a higher CO2 level for a period, you can increase the set point so it stays higher for a while after. The number varies from person to person, but in the order of 20 mins, IIRC.

CO2 level dropping post ovulation could be related to increased estrogen:progesterone ratio. Estrogen tends to reduce the release o thyroid hormones, which would reduce CO2 production, and synergise with other stress hormones and PUFAs to mess with respiration - further limiting CO2 production. Some of us use progesterone (eg progest-e, progestene) to help against excess estrogen. That may have helped my breathing too.

I don't think I've made much of an improvement in my usual CP (yet), but I think I've ironed out a lot of the more severe dips, and consider it an overall improvement.

I will try the magnesium.
Also, the sheet over my head.
Was it a frolov type device that you used that triggered the migraines?
I feel like I should first make progress without a device and then add that in later.
The slowing down and breathing in through your nose when talking/reading to kids will be good to try.
I think that I eat a lot and mostly avoid low blood sugar issues. But have been wondering about taking something like gelatin before bed.
I'm hoping that the breathing will make a big difference in perimenopausal hormonal issues. So far it seems to be. I'd like to understand all those relationships more. You seem to have a good grasp on that.
Thank you again.
 
OP
H

Heidi

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Jan 23, 2016
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205
I just thought this the other day while meditating. The hyperventilation, or what I mean with that, the inability to stop breathing when lungs are emptied in relaxed, natural way. The reason for that is not actual air hunger, but low energy of the diaphragm, maybe a bit similarly as you get twitch around an eye or maybe restless legs. The muscle don't have energy to relax. And constant motion of breathing makes it harder to replenish the energy. After a good meal or good sleep you often have relaxed breathing, for example. Also like calming a twitch of an eye by relaxing and bringing attention (sort of mental energy/focus), like body scan, you can relax diaphragm rather effectively in meditation. Just have energy in body (as in well eaten), relax everything, body and mind, so that just breathing and hearth are working and when diaphragm is momentarily in rest just bring focus to it (not really any thoughts just attention) and the muscles sort of gets energy and relaxes. Even hearth stops for a moment you notice.

Well at least this seems to calm my breathing faster, when meditating, for whatever the reason. Just thought I share, best wishes to you, Heidi, and welcome.
onioneyedox, thanks for your post and your welcome. I agree that attention and relaxing are very helpful and sometimes all that is needed. Sometimes less is more. (I didn't understand what you said about "hearth" though.)
 

onioneyedox

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Nov 18, 2012
Messages
108
Heh, hearth. I meant heart, sorry. :bookworm: had to actually check dictionary. I fix that on original post.

e. and I just meant it "relaxes" for a moment. (not science)
 

Prawns

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Jan 24, 2016
Messages
9
I found out about Buteyko and Ray Peat about this time last year. I've been lurking this forum for a year but I finally registered because I want to talk to other people about CO2. Please forgive me while I disgorge everything I've been storing up for a year. I hope it provides something useful without derailing your thread too much...

I find it curious that Ray Peat doesn't have much to say about breathing less or meditation as a means of improving CO2 retention (or tolerance), whilst Buteyko followers have little to say about a high-carb (especially sugar) diet as a means of improving CO2 production. It seems that one has everything to gain from combining reduced breathing with Peat's nutritional and environmental recommendations to increase metabolism. It's very exciting to find others who have realised the benefits of both, here on this forum.

Like tara, I've read most of Rakhimov's site and gleaned some interesting tips. But Rakhimov seems to hold the CP as the ideal measure of health, and so does everything he can to reduce breathing. For example, a Buteyko follower might say: "Cold exposure reduces breathing. Therefore it must be healthy." A Peatarian would say "Cold reduces metabolism, so CO2 production decreases, and breathing (controlled by the buildup of CO2) decreases, but this doesn't mean improved health." Recently, Rakhimov has been promoting a ketogenic diet, but similarly, a Peatarian would disagree that reduced breathing from lower CO2 production is beneficial. So to heidi, and anyone else new to Peat and Buteyko, familiarity with Peat's work can help you pick and choose the beneficial advice from Buteyko followers whilst leaving the obviously metabolism-slowing advice alone.

I did proper Buteyko exercises for a month or two, but I didn't continue after that. The exercise (of a number of breath holds combined with periods of reduced breathing) is effective at increasing your tolerance and retention of CO2, but it's extremely unpleasant because you are suffocating yourself. Willpower goes out the window when you hold your breath for a long time. A Peatarian eating a high-carb diet will probably suffer less than the average person when it comes to breath holds, because CO2 builds up faster. Waiting for a whole 60 seconds during a breath hold must seem like a lifetime. It's tortuous enough as it is holding my breath for 30 or 40 seconds. For the record, my CP after a month of breath training exercises was 25 (and it still is), and it was 17 a few months before, eating much fewer carbs. The CP can be useful to track CO2 tolerance progress as long as your diet remains consistent.

Since stopping Buteyko exercises, I've experimented with various lifestyle and environmental factors to reduce breathing. I still have a lot of unanswered questions, but I'll tell you some of my observations:

Sleep
* Taping my mouth before sleeping: I know I used to mouth-breathe at night because I would drool on my pillow or the bed. I never have that problem any more. I plan to continue this indefinitely to prevent mouth-breathing, and I see no reason not to. I use this tape and one 9.1m roll lasts me about 3 months. I tape vertically from under the nose to under the chin, folding the bottom end a few millimetres to make it easy to remove in the morning. (I'd recommend not telling other people you do this. The day you are truly healthy, calm, and full of energy, people will listen, but until then, you're not likely to persuade them, you'll just make them worry about you dying in your sleep. This applies to everything else about Peating and Buteyko as well.)
* Finding a sleep posture that facilitates slow, diaphragmatic breathing: Like Rakhimov, I find that sleeping on the left side or prone is better. My heart feels more strained when I lie on my right side, and when I sleep on my back, my throat is sore in the morning. I also find that sleeping with my arms up around the head (rather than closer to the torso) reduces breathing by pulling the ribcage up. If sleeping on the left side, a pillow between the knees seems to help.
* Inclining the bed: I find that a 5 degree inclined bed, with my head higher than my heart, makes me warmer and reduces breathing more than a flat bed, probably because of the influence of gravity on circulation. See http://inclinedbedtherapy.com. I also wonder if raising the legs and the head above the organs would be even better, to allow waste material to drain from the legs and the head into the kidneys.
* Keeping warm: Buteyko advocates a cooler sleeping environment but I sleep better when my body is less stressed from it being too cold or too hot. It's a difficult balance. Sometimes I over-dress and wake up covered in sweat.
* Getting fresh air: I like sleeping with the window open because my room is fairly dusty and is carpeted. When I sleep with the window open, my nose is clear when I wake up, but when I sleep with the window shut, my nostrils are covered with dried mucus when I wake up. My nasal passages are fairly clear, as they have to be if my mouth is taped shut, but from the mucus, I can tell I've been breathing in a lot of dust and goodness knows what else overnight. The problem with leaving the window open (even a crack) in the winter is that it makes the room very cold, which makes it more difficult to balance the factor above, keeping warm.
* Sleep-sitting: This is only really beneficial if your torso is near 90 degrees upright. Laying back 45 degrees in a lounger can lead to just as much breathing as laying down flat on your back. I've managed this very-upright sit-sleeping a few times, and it does reduce breathing and the length of sleep, but it's too uncomfortable for me in an upright recliner. If I had a soft armchair with a straight back, and neck and head support, it might be worthwhile.
* Hard surface vs soft surface: I haven't experimented with this much. The skeletal benefits to sleeping on a hard surface are probably real, but it's not worth it if you're breathing in dust (my room is carpeted, but it's a thin carpet, and so still much harder than my bed). I prefer an inclined soft surface to a flat hard surface. Pitching a tent on a slight incline outdoors is probably good, with sufficient insulation, but not excessive padding.
* EMF exposure: I've tried altering variables like my proximity to walls (wiring) or a Wifi router which is in my bedroom, and placing a grounding mat under my feet in bed, and I'm still none the wiser. Without equipment to measure EMF or your body's electrical potential near wiring or when grounded, it's all guesswork.
* Baking soda: Half a teaspoon in a glass of water before bed seems to reduce my sleep requirement by about half an hour. I've only done this a few times, and I wouldn't try more than one teaspoon at a time.

Conclusion: I think the ideal would be to sleep outdoors in a tent or possibly a hammock. Just as we can't all eat a perfect diet, it's not possible for many people to sleep outdoors year-round, but I encourage you to experiment with some of these factors and see if it doesn't impact your energy levels and clear-headedness the next day.

Exercise
* Cycling/weight-lifting: I've tried to avoid mouth-breathing at all times since discovering Buteyko, including when I exercise. Not even once. Exercising with strictly nose-breathing doesn't make my muscles tired (I assume from a lack of lactic acid buildup), it naturally prevents me from exercising too hard, and it makes me very warm very quickly. The only disadvantage, and it is a fairly big one, is that if the air is cold, or even just cool, strictly nose-breathing whilst cycling outdoors makes my nose run. It seems to be less of a problem in warm weather. I'm not sure how to interpret this. Maybe the high CO2 exhalations are clearing existing mucus in the nasal passages (and trying to removing it through the nose) to allow more air to enter (which defeats itself by filling the nose with mucus), or maybe the body is producing more mucus to prevent the harsh cold air entering.
* Walking: A few years ago I developed the habit of contracting my abs as I walked, so that my stomach stuck out less, and to develop ab muscles quicker. Unfortunately this is incompatible with diaphragmatic breathing, and so now I try and relax my torso and take slow, relaxed diaphragmatic breaths when walking. I walk quickly, but try to be mindful of my breathing and any muscle tensing.

Other observations
* Sitting: I breathe more with the diaphragm, breathe less overall, and get warmer when I sit with a straight spine and my legs crossed. At my computer I sit in a quarter lotus pose, with my bottom on a cushion, my legs crossed in front of the cushion with my left foot resting on my right calf, and my spine straight. You might not find seated posture matters, but in a cold house, it makes a noticeable improvement in keeping me warm. I don't think ancient meditators settled upon the lotus pose at random. It facilitates the most relaxed diaphragmatic breathing and the least breathing volume, with the least chance of falling asleep.
* Meditating: I agree with everything that Ray-Z said in his post on meditation. This is complete speculation, but I think that half of the benefits from meditation are from high CO2, and half are from concentration/attention training. Like the lotus pose, I wonder to what degree consciously or unconsciously ancient meditators sought out mountains to build their temples. Did they realise it was easier to reach meditative states at high altitude, or was it simply in search of solitude that they lived on mountains?
* Magnesium: Whether through the magnesium present in orange juice, magnesium oil, or sea salt foot baths, magnesium always makes me warmer.
* Side-effects: I started Peating around the same time as I started paying attention to breathing, so I can't say whether one side effect is from Peating or Buteyko, but since both achieve the same effect of increasing metabolism, I'm not sure there's any need to distinguish the two. I went through periods of major mucus production, hacking up phlegm, and nasal congestion. My bowel movements are 9/10 times easy to pass and without soiling on toilet paper, which I credit to a low fibre intake (except a daily carrot) and improved metabolism. I also get foamy and cloudy urine, which I believe are the products of liver detoxification of PUFA, estrogen, or phosphate. Foaminess and cloudiness increases when I get more red light, bodily movement, protein, coffee, or magnesium than usual. Because of all this detoxification, and mild hypothyroidism, I believe I'm low in magnesium, and I feel benefits in bodily warmth and mental clarity whenever I get more magnesium. These are the same major benefits I notice after meditation, breath holding Buteyko exercises, and cycling with only nose-breathing. I am lucky to have never had any trouble getting to sleep and I very rarely have headaches.
 

barefooter

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Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
218
I just thought this the other day while meditating. The hyperventilation, or what I mean with that, the inability to stop breathing when lungs are emptied in relaxed, natural way. The reason for that is not actual air hunger, but low energy of the diaphragm, maybe a bit similarly as you get twitch around an eye or maybe restless legs. The muscle don't have energy to relax. And constant motion of breathing makes it harder to replenish the energy. After a good meal or good sleep you often have relaxed breathing, for example. Also like calming a twitch of an eye by relaxing and bringing attention (sort of mental energy/focus), like body scan, you can relax diaphragm rather effectively in meditation. Just have energy in body (as in well eaten), relax everything, body and mind, so that just breathing and heart are working and when diaphragm is momentarily in rest just bring focus to it (not really any thoughts just attention) and the muscles sort of gets energy and relaxes. Even heart stops for a moment you notice.

Well at least this seems to calm my breathing faster, when meditating, for whatever the reason. Just thought I share, best wishes to you, Heidi, and welcome.

I've been wondering about this, because when I first tried measuring my CP, I had what felt like almost instant stress and air hunger after just a couple seconds. Based on the CP chart, this would mean I'm near death, but my health isn't that bad! As I've tried this more and more, I did start to notice that what's happening feels like a spasm, or twitch as you call it, of my diaphragm, which I'm associating with air hunger, because the most comfortable thing to do is inhale and expand my diaphragm. I was a full chest and mouth breather up until just a few years ago, so it seems maybe my diaphragm hasn't developed the strength yet and I need to spend more time training it.

Any ideas on how to whip a diaphragm into shape after a lifetime of not being used properly?
 

brandonk

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Joined
Oct 9, 2015
Messages
145
retain large quantities of CO2 in their blood
both achieve the same effect of increasing metabolism, I'm not sure there's any need to distinguish the two.
I agree that both advocate a higher tolerance for carbonic acid in the blood. But when talking about basal metabolic rate (BMR), I think of the two as going in opposite directions, with Buteyko advocating a slower basal metabolic rate (ice baths, ketosis and fasting), while Ray Peat advocates a higher basal metabolic rate (200 grams of fruit sugar, fast only when stranded on a desert island expecting rescue, and avoid the stress of ketosis or ice baths).

Regardless of whoever might be right about basal metabolic rate, for now I'm experimenting with Ray Peat's ideas and adding more fruit sugar (mostly fructose) to my diet and avoiding stress. I've tried ice baths and ketosis and personally it wasn't for me.

But I agree that for both the more important goal is that a higher tolerance for carbonic acid in the blood (and a higher alveolar CO2) is critical for good health. this is much easier than it seems, if you just pinch your nostrils and read your O2 saturation on a pulse oximeter. The Buteyko techniques were brilliant but are not really necessary now that there are cheap pulse oximeters.

Once you can keep your O2 saturation comfortably below 94% on the pulse oximeter, a lot of the other health and breathing symptoms will take care of themselves, because it's really the higher CO2 in the blood that is the key.

In the simplest example I can think of, both Amazon parrots and sea turtles live a very long time, well over a hundred years, but parrots eat constantly amd have a very rapid metabolism that generates large quantities of CO2 in their blood, while sea turtles eat much less and have a very slow metabolism but retain large quantities of CO2 in their blood by holding their breath underwater for two hours!

[Edit] Although sea turtles have a very high body temperature and metabolic rate for a reptile:
https://books.google.com/books?id=A...is the metabolic rate of a sea turtle&f=false
 
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