Are we breathing too much? CO2 good for you? Buteyko method

[gene k]

I watched the Joe Rogan podcast with Wim Hof, that got me interested in breathing techniques and why hyperventilating makes you pass out, how to improve stamina, etc. Anyways came across some stuff I thought was worth sharing.


The benefits of building up carbon di-oxide by breathing less with pranayama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCLDHEtL4F8

Breath, Kumbhaka, bandhas. Interview with Simon Borg-Olivier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL2ajbKsDRA

Simon Borg-Olivier on the Ancient Secrets of the Breath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYr6xr8Xa-Q

Hemoglobin and Bohr effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJscP4e23xc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_bkjbtzdAw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwdT15oc3IE

Buteyko method documentary BBC 1998
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdev3OJrhVA

Chronic Hidden Hyperventilation - The 21st Century Epidemic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF0Kv36r4mk

Effect of Chronic Hyperventilation Syndrome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDFAikNQTa4

What is the Buteyko Breathing Method by Patrick McKeown, Buteyko Clinic International
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlITtZZ3vWU

Breathe-More a myth?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhusT_X2e48

Hyperventilation: Breathing Effects on Brain Oxygen and Health
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qap3tOvt-1w

Nitric Oxide produced in the paranasal sinuses?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJTl0VTROBc

How to use naturally produced nitric oxide to unblock nose, and why breathe out of your nose?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgmKIwUqhkg

Better Breathing: Get all the details on a simple way to correct your breathing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBybEnkC4iM

On Retraining Breathing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8odv1O6oQU

Talks a bit about Professor Buteyko
https://youtu.be/3r-Bkqz8TAk?t=2251

Nice overall explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Mbpt33Icw

Yoga Kriyas and Fitness, Hyperventilation to become alkaline, Hypoventilation to become acidic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVYdeZJek3c

[Ben Eddy]

Thanks for sharing, this subject interests me too. Have you watched all of these? What's the TLDR of what you are personally pulling from them to apply to your own breathing?

I follow Wim Hof too and he seems to be prescribing more oxygen while others subscribe to the idea of less is good. It seems though Wim is for short periods of hyper breathing, I don't know where he stands on long term breathing practices.

[gene k]

I'll try to list a few points that stuck with me from watching these videos and from doing some reading online. It's pretty complicated and I'm not even remotely close to being an expert, I'm still learning this stuff myself so take what I say with a good pinch of salt.

Like the Wim Hof method, the Buteyko method isn't really accepted by mainstream medicine, and there are claims, pathology, mechanisms, etc that are in dispute or not properly understood. Still, I find it interesting, and when you watch things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdev3OJrhVA it makes you wonder what's going on.

Some points that stuck with me from Buteyko method perspective:

-CO2 is not just a useless waste gas, It's essential for homeostasis and the body keeps it in blood within a specific range.
(ph level, vasodilation, airway dilation, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygenation efficiency (Bohr effect) etc.)
-Breathing is triggered mainly by high CO2 levels not low oxygen levels (unless COPD with a hypoxic drive low oxygen triggered)
-Most people are chronically over breathing, both consciously and unconsciously.
-Over time the part of our brain responsible for regulating breathing (medulla oblongata) becomes overly sensitive to CO2 levels.
-The reasons we over breathe and develop this CO2 sensitizing varies, could be because of anxiety, physical conditions, over breathing during exercising or weight lifting, philosophical, etc.
-Because of CO2 sensitivity our autonomous breathing is deeper and more rapid leaving us with lower than ideal blood CO2 levels
-Lower CO2 effects some internal functions so they are not as efficient.
-Long term low CO2 levels could potentially lead to negative health problems or exaggerate existing ones.
-By using breathing techniques we can retrain the brain to tolerate higher CO2 levels again.
-If we train to tolerate more CO2 this will cause our autonomous breathing to become subtle and slower, lower heart rate, improve circulation by dilating blood vessels, so lowering blood pressure, and improve brain and tissue oxygenation do to the Bohr effect.
-We can test our CO2 sensitivity by breath-out pause test, average is around 20 seconds, can train to 50-60 seconds.
-Nitric oxide is produced in the paranasal sinuses, this helps disinfect and condition air, also has a dilating effect, and if breathing is subtle and slower it will be present in higher concentrations.
-Ancient Yoga teachers advocated breathing less and through the nose.

My take away: I've always seemed to have horrible cardio, there is a good chance I've been hyperventilating during physical exercise. I'm going to try and improve my breath-out pause time (Raise CO2 tolerance), which was around 18 seconds. The idea being if I can tolerate higher CO2 levels I'll feel less need to breathe out CO2 so my breathing will be easier to control and less likely to get away from me. Also I'm going to focus on proper breathing (nasal whenever possible, relaxed from diaphragm, controlled, avoid hyperventilation. -on and off the mats) and in time see if my breathing and cardio improve.

Pretty good quick over all explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Mbpt33Icw

Short video explaining respiratory gas transport and Bohr effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrvrs6RXxwY

[Ringo Lagrange]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing :-)

[Ben Eddy]

Yea, I remember looking into the buteyko method before and information around breathing less, it just was never clear to me how to improve the "control pause time". It seems the exercises were always poorly explained / not universally agreed upon. There's a lot of info on why it's beneficial to reduce over-breathing, not much on how.

I have actually focused on controlled breathing through my nose and breathing in as little as I could from pretty young. Probably freshman year highschool and specifically during wrestling practice. The reason I did this was because I noticed during hard practices that I reached the "gassed out" point soon after switching from nose breathing to mouth breathing. The longer I could last breathing through my nose, the more time it would take for me to gas.

I continue to do that to this day, but with a few changes. I believe I actually trained myself to breathe too little during exercise. When I first got into BJJ, anytime I trained hard without having trained within the past two weeks or more I would have an uncontrollable urge to vomit after practice. This happened basically every single time I practiced hard after not having practiced for two or more weeks. I never had this problem during wrestling. Eventually I experimented with breathing in more oxygen during practice on one of these days and it worked. I could do breath of fire type breathing specifically when I felt the urge to vomit and it would relieve it. Basically I believe that I was taking in too little air during exercise. I now still breathe through my nose for as long as I can (with jits this is forever since you can find points within the roll to slow it down unlike wrestling), but I go through short stints of hyper breathing when I'm starting to feel gassed or I've really exerted myself. Basically it's like 3-4 quick deep breathes through my nose. Like a quick set of breath of fire. This seems to really work well for me. I can feel an immediate effect on my gas tank after the 3-4 breathes, it allows me to continue breathing through my nose without switching to my mouth and it gets rid of the foggy head/turned stomache feeling that urges me to vomit on hard days where I hadn't trained for awhile previously.

Because of my above experience, I think there is a difference between best breathing practices during rest and best breathing practices during exercise. Look at Wim Hof. He prescribes the opposite route, overbreathing. But he is prescribing this to prepare your body for stressful or taxing events. You also have kundalini practices. Have you ever been to a kundalini yoga class? That is some intense overbreathing and they seem to think that's what's good for you as well. So there does seem to be a difference between the two. What that difference actually is and why each are good, I don't know.

I wish there was more solid practical information on breathing. Just checked my CP time and it's 20-25 seconds. So even though I've focused on controlled nose breathing for a long time now, especially during exercise (which is one of their promoted methods for increasing CP time), I still have a poor CP rating. Is that actually a bad CP time? Is it actually going to have a negative influence on my health? Why is there such a big difference between what Buteyko pushes and what kundalini/wim hof push? I wish I knew.

I'll try to list a few points that stuck with me from watching these videos and from doing some reading online. It's pretty complicated and I'm not even remotely close to being an expert, I'm still learning this stuff myself so take what I say with a good pinch of salt.

Like the Wim Hof method, the Buteyko method isn't really accepted by mainstream medicine, and there are claims, pathology, mechanisms, etc that are in dispute or not properly understood. Still, I find it interesting, and when you watch things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdev3OJrhVA it makes you wonder what's going on.

Some points that stuck with me from Buteyko method perspective:

-CO2 is not just a useless waste gas, It's essential for homeostasis and the body keeps it in blood within a specific range.
(ph level, vasodilation, airway dilation, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygenation efficiency (Bohr effect) etc.)
-Breathing is triggered mainly by high CO2 levels not low oxygen levels (unless COPD with a hypoxic drive low oxygen triggered)
-Most people are chronically over breathing, both consciously and unconsciously.
-Over time the part of our brain responsible for regulating breathing (medulla oblongata) becomes overly sensitive to CO2 levels.
-Because of CO2 sensitivity our autonomous breathing is deeper and more rapid leaving us with lower than ideal blood CO2 levels
-Lower CO2 effects some internal functions so they are not as efficient.
-Long term low CO2 levels could potentially lead to negative health problems or exaggerate existing ones.
-By using breathing techniques we can retrain the brain to tolerate higher CO2 levels again.
-If we train to tolerate more CO2 this will cause our autonomous breathing to become subtle and slower, lower heart rate, improve circulation by dilating blood vessels, so lowering blood pressure, and improve brain and tissue oxygenation do to the Bohr effect.
-We can test our CO2 sensitivity by breath-out pause test, average is around 20 seconds, can train to 50-60 seconds.
-Nitric oxide is produced in the paranasal sinuses, this helps disinfect and condition air, also has a dilating effect, and if breathing is subtle and slower it will be present in higher concentrations.
-Ancient Yoga teachers advocated breathing less and through the nose.

My take away: I've always seemed to have horrible cardio, there is a good chance I've been hyperventilating during physical exercise. I'm going to try and improve my breath-out pause time (Raise CO2 tolerance), which was around 18 seconds. The idea being if I can tolerate higher CO2 levels I'll feel less need to breathe out CO2 so my breathing will be easier to control and less likely to get away from me. Also I'm going to focus on proper breathing (nasal whenever possible, relaxed from diaphragm, controlled, avoid hyperventilation. -on and off the mats) and in time see if my breathing and cardio improve.

Pretty good quick over all explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Mbpt33Icw

Short video explaining respiratory gas transport and Bohr effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrvrs6RXxwY

[vlad ko]

very interesting topic... thank you for sharing.

[gene k]

Awesome Ben, Thanks! I agree, there most likely is a difference between best breathing practice during rest and exercise. I think you probably hit the nail on the head. Breathing through the nose as long or as often as you can seems to be the most effective way, since it delivers oxygen more efficiently (10-20% better than mouth because of 50% more resistance). And it will keep your CO2 levels at more optimal ranges in balance with O2 maintaining the Bohr effect, so it's just more efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NCXfhLrapo
http://adamcap.com/2013/11/29/nose-k...sity-exercise/

I can see how during exertion over time, we might go to far the other way, and start to hold on to too much CO2 (becoming too acidic). So periodically hyperventilating (like how you explain) would raise the ph back into the optimal range, and if there is low oxygen, quickly increase o2 saturation.

I think, like you said, the Wim Hof method is kind of a preparatory exercise and also a well being, meditation exercise with emphasis on mind body connection. My understanding is that the Wim Hof method is three parts, controlled hyperventilation, followed by a breath out hold, and exposure to cold with the intent of developing a better mind body connection.

He describes his method as a kind of stream lined short cut to get you right into the parasympathetic nervous system to naturally improve strength, health and happiness. This would normally take longer or be more difficult to achieve for some people because of the the mind not being able to stop thinking. Reasons for the excessive thinking could be because of things like excessive worrying or some traumatic experience. This thinking keeps their sympathetic nervous system active, which is the fight or flight response. I think this is one of the ideas for the hyperventilating, to intentionally reducing blood flow and oxygenation to the cortex. Wim Hof explains here along with Rhonda Patrick explaining the other health benefits:

28:06-37:52
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=389c...outu.be&t=1686

Joe Rogan, Rhonda Patrick talk benefits of cold therapy
https://youtu.be/FApCVOXoweU?t=1125

Benefits meditation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvIYLCkOWnI

I'm not entirely sure how to increase the control pause time either. I think there are many different methods you can use and they are all ways of making you hold on to more CO2 than you would normally. This could be breathing with smaller than normal breaths, nostril blocking and restricting, breath holds with controlled breathing or exercise etc. Whichever methods you use, keep track of the progress of your breath hold times, this is to make sure you're not training your CP time to be worse.

Here are some vids I've seen.

Buteyko Breathing Measurements
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsCsdehoq7s

Buteyko Breathing Method: Control Pause
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MliBMkU5yg

Buteyko Breathing Method: Positive Maximum Pause
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_HAXKYg3I0

How to do Buteyko Breathing Exercises
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2UDtUQcn8g

Buteyko Breathing Method: Guided Breathing Exercises
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seKJ9GOlTlo

Buteyko 4 Minute Breathing Exercise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbRyhQrdFME

Buteyko Breathing Exercise - Walking with Breath Holds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi3Z8eBrDq4

Buteyko Breathing Exercise - Steps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gbvkqRSd9Q