Buteyko breathing system
The deeper the breath, the harder the person is. Than his breath is more superficial, so he is healthier and more enduring, - says a doctor from Novosibirsk Konstantin Buteyko , who developed a unique method of treating a number of common diseases with the help of surface breathing.
At the beginning of a simple test. Take 30 deep breaths in 30 seconds. You feel weakness, sudden sweating, dizziness. There is nothing surprising in this. You simply upset the work of the "breathing pendulum", violated the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body. As a result, you did not get enough oxygen, as we all used to think in such cases, but carbon dioxide. Venting the lungs, you, to the limit, saturating the blood with oxygen, simultaneously excessively removed carbon dioxide from the alveoli and lungs. As a consequence, the deterioration of the general condition.
It is this regularity about 30 years ago drew the attention of the doctor Konstantin Buteyko. Heading the laboratory of functional methods in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok, he proved in numerous experiments: DEEP BREATH is harmful, it causes excessive removal of carbon dioxide from the body, and this, in turn, leads to spasms of the bronchi and vessels of the brain, limbs, intestines, bile ducts,the vessels are narrowed, and therefore there is less oxygen to the cells. In cells, biochemical reactions change, metabolism is disrupted. Thus, chronic "overeating" of oxygen leads to oxygen deficiency. The paradox is, "says Buteyko," that when a gasping asthmatic person eats the air eagerly, it only aggravates his condition. I want to breathe even more, the lungs work like forge-bellows, my heart beats like a motor at full speed, and oxygen is more and more lacking. Just hold your breath, instant relief comes.
1 .A protective reaction works: without waiting for another breath, the body reacts to the delay by expanding the blood vessels in order to deliver as much blood as possible to the organs and provide them with a maximum of oxygen. "
Normal breathing, the scientist concludes, is not just a breath for the next portionoxygen, but also a reasonable pause on exhalation, which is necessary to save carbon dioxide, which we hurry to get rid of, considering it harmful.
K. Buteyko has experimentally proved that in the blood of healthy people carbon dioxide containsis much more than in patients with, say, bronchial asthma, colitis, a stomach ulcer or a heart attack, a stroke, so to save a person from an illness, one only needs to teach him how to save carbon dioxide in his body. Through the adjustment of breathing, it is possible to raise even chronically sick people to their feet, without the need for scarce medicines or expensive equipment. Before the beginning of treatment by Buteyko method, each patient passes through a so-called deep breathing test, which allows to judge on the basis of indirect indicators the content of carbon dioxide in the blood. The test is simple, and anyone can use it.
Hold the breath after a normal exhalation as far as you can, until an unpleasant sensation. If your pause before the next breath does not exceed 3-5 seconds, you are seriously ill.30 seconds is still deeply breathing person, which means, K. Buteyko believes, is not quite healthy. Absolutely healthy person can effortlessly not breathe for 60 seconds. Delay of 2-3 minutes or more is an indicator of the organism's super-endurance. Buteyko warns that holding breath is not a cure, but a means of self-control.
The essence of the treatment itself is a gradual decrease in the depth of breathing. As the delay is prolonged, blood and tissues are increasingly saturated with oxygen and carbon dioxide, acid-base balance is restored, metabolic processes are normalized, immune defense is strengthened, and the disease recedes.
It is not easy to be treated by Buteyko method. This is a great work for both the patient and the doctor. In addition to understanding the causes of their illness, the desire to recover, the patient needs considerable willpower and patience. The first days of treatment, patients literally sweat later, trying to overcome the desire to take a deep breath. Sometimes it is possible to adjust the breathing to the norm only with the help of special corsets.
It is interesting that the patients are not prescribed bed rest, although, from the point of view of traditional medicine, most patients who are in the clinic are physically handicapped. At the first appointment they are brought to the doctor, because they can not move themselves. But already on the second or third day after the beginning of treatment, patients make daily walks in the fresh air, even in the frost, when breathing is especially difficult, doing gymnastics, jogging. And in this there is nothing supernatural. Physical activity, active work of muscles activate the metabolism and ultimately, as well as surface breathing, help to accumulate carbon dioxide. Food is limited, preference is given to vegetable and non-fatty foods, alcohol and smoking are mandatory, which significantly deepen breathing. Sleep on your stomach on a tight bed, breathing through your nose. Buteyko's method is easily and naturally combined with all the generally recognized recommendations for health promotion, it takes into account all the risk factors called the World Health Organization.
Among other mandatory conditions of treatment - water hardening procedures, sauna and autogenic training, which allows to maintain psychological balance. And this is especially important. As it turned out, breathing is very responsive to our emotions. Excitement increases, deepens breathing. During stresses, excessive ventilation can lead to so violent spasms in the brain that the person loses consciousness. Most often, of course, in healthy people the reaction to hyperventilation is more moderate: heart palpitations, mild dizziness, weakness, slowing of reaction, weakening of attention.
Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko has created a unique method of treating a whole range of diseases, the main place among which is bronchial asthma and hypertension. The method is based on the assumption that carbon dioxide( CO2) plays a big role in the body, and the source of many diseases is deep breathing that displaces it from the body.
Today, the role of CO2 deficiency in the development of these diseases has been studied quite well, and the method of treatment, created on the basis of this knowledge, is a method of VGDD( volitional elimination of deep breathing) and dosed physical activity.
The basis of the Buteyko method are breathing exercises. They are simple breathing techniques aimed at stabilizing respiratory homeostasis.
Thanks to the exercises developed by Buteyko, it is possible to reduce the volume of medicinal treatment, reduce the duration of exacerbations and prevent them, and build a person's ability to control the attack of asthma at the initial stage of his development, ie, prevent or eliminate it. All this has a beneficial effect on a sick person - it helps to eliminate fear of illness and improve the quality of life.
As a result of breathing exercises, Buteyko significantly improves his health, decreases or eliminates the most vivid symptoms of bronchial asthma, stops coughing, restores nasal breathing, restores drainage function of the bronchi and separates sputum.
The basis of the action of respiratory exercises is a fairly simple mechanism that aims at eliminating pulmonary hyperventilation and the gradual stabilization of respiratory homeostasis. As a result of eliminating hyperventilation and replenishing the deficit of carbon dioxide, a therapeutic effect is achieved.
There are two main types of breathing exercises. The first type is an exercise, the purpose of which is to eliminate hyperventilation of the lungs with the help of various respiratory techniques. The second type is the exercises that eliminate hyperventilation with the help of various respiratory techniques in combination with a certain physical activity, which increases the activity of the total metabolism.
The basis of the first type of exercise is the mechanism of a gradual decrease in the "depth" of the inspiration. This increases the respiration rate per minute. The group of exercises of the second type allows eliminating the redundancy of the general ventilation of the lungs and increasing the metabolic rate, which in turn leads to the fact that the process of eliminating the deficit of carbon dioxide is faster. Since the deficit of carbon dioxide in the lungs is caused not only by pulmonary hyperventilation, but also by hypodynamia and a decrease in the activity of the total metabolism, the presence of physical activity accelerates the process of normalizing respiratory homeostasis.
But the application of this group of exercises has its limitations, primarily they are contraindicated for patients with severe bronchial asthma.
In the process of performing gymnastics it is necessary to monitor the level of carbon dioxide in the alveoli before and after the end of each session. You can do this by measuring the maximum pause. So, if your heart rate is 60 beats per minute, respiration rate is 8, then the carbon dioxide content in the alveoli is 6.5%, which corresponds to the norm for a healthy person. If your rates are higher than normal, then you have higher health indicators, if lower - your breathing can be described as deep, and your health deviates from the norm.
To perform exercises using the Buteyko method, it is necessary to take a comfortable sitting position, straighten your back( if it is difficult to keep it straight, you can lean on the back of the chair), pull up your neck slightly, freely put your hands on your knees so that they do not come in contact. You should be as relaxed and calm as possible. Before the beginning of the lesson, measure the respiration rate and the average pause time that you make after each expiration before the first sensation of lack of air appears( in Buteyko's method it is called the "control pause").
Respiratory gymnastics by Buteyko method begins with a gradual decrease in the depth of breathing. The task is to bring it to naught. With the unaccustomed to people first getting acquainted with the technique, there may be a slight lack of air. Reduce the depth of breathing should be within 5 minutes. After this, it is necessary to measure the control pause. Then again, go to reducing the depth of breathing and after 5 minutes again, measure the control pause. In this way, make 5 attempts. These exercises constitute a cycle of training. At the end of it, you should measure the pulse rate and the frequency of breathing. During the day, six cycles should be performed - at 0 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, 16 hours and 20 hours.
Based on the daily pause indicators, the arithmetic mean of the control pause is calculated. This figure is entered in the exercise booklet to subsequently track the dynamics of training progress. Evidence of the correctness of the training will be an increase in the parameters of the control pause. But even if the dynamics are slow or stand still, this is normal. Sometimes, to mark progress, it takes a long week of training. Six-time classes can be reduced to 2 per day, when the parameters of the control pause will approach the norm of 60 seconds. When the technique is fully mastered( and this will take at least a year), 1 lesson per day will be enough.