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Metodo Buteyko - Manual
Metodo Buteyko - Manual
This manual and the associated audio tape are general information
products only.
Any liability to the author, publisher or agents for any impact on the
purchaser or other reader of the use or non-use of this information is ex-
pressly disclaimed.
Warnings
Changing your breathing can result in certain responses from your body.
Chapter 10 has a summary of what symptoms could possibly arise as the result of a
breathing change. Liability for any such effect lies with the user.
Contents
FOREWARD 4
CHAPTER ONE 5
The Cause of Asthma
Evolution of the Atmosphere
Quick Review
Asthma Is Your Defense
CO2 is a Powerful Bronchodilator
How to Stop Coughing
Summary
CHAPTER TWO 16
How To Estimate Your Breathing Level
The Measurement Pause
Your Lungs Are Like the Carburetor On A Car
CHAPTER THREE 23
Your Nose Is For Breathing, Your Mouth Is For Eating
Dry Lungs
The Best Reason to Keep Your Mouth Closed
CHAPTER FOUR 27
Stopping Asthma The Simple Answer
The Drugs of Asthma
1. Relief Drugs
What Relief Drugs Are Actually Doing To You
Buteyko Strategy
2. Preventative Drugs
Strategy for Preventative Drugs
How To Use Buteyko To Stop An Asthma Attack
CHAPTER FIVE 39
Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
Definition of Shallow Breathing
Am I Doing It Properly?
The Everyday Training
Measure Your Progress
Record Your Progress
CONTENTS The Buteyko Method
CHAPTER 6 46
Exercise Induced Asthma
CHAPTER 7 49
The Secret of Night Asthma
CHAPTER 8 57
The Effect of Diet On Your Breathing Health
The Need For Supplements
CHAPTER 9 62
The Link Between Asthma/Allergy
Attacks and Trigger Factors
CHAPTER 10 65
Clearing Reactions Coming Back To Normal
CHAPTER 11
What is depth of breathing 67
Childrens Asthma
CHAPTER 12 89
Asthma In Infants
CHAPTER 13 98
Emphysema
APPENDIX 1
Summary of Results of the Buteyko Clinical Trial 109
APPENDIX 2 113
The Importance of Carbon Dioxide
in Buteykos Theory
APPENDIX 3 118
Steroid Deficit in Asthma
APPENDIX 4 122
How To Wipe Your Nose
and Control Sneezing
This manual is written for the person in the street, who for decades has
been patronized by the so-called medical experts. By the time you finish
reading this book, you will have a different understanding of asthma than
your specialist doctors. You will understand the simple cause of asthma,
and therefore will be looking for the drug-free relief that over 15,000 Aus-
tralians have found.
D
espite the vast array of reasons that people believe cause asthma,
there is only one. If this one cause is removed the list which
includes dust mites, dust mite droppings, dust, smoke, stress,
exercise, atmospheric changes, food, odours, and many more becomes
irrelevant.
Others will not develop any symptoms until later in life. People who
are otherwise in perfect health. The severity can vary from day to day, or
year to year.
Many people of all ages even appear to grow out of it, which is called
by the doctors a spontaneous remission. There has been no explanation
of how this can happen, until now. You are about to find out exactly how
people do grow out of asthma, even though these lucky ones do not know
how they did it themselves.
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
When we go far back into the past we find that the atmosphere has
changed greatly in the past millions of years. There used to be a very
different mix of gases in the air. The two gases we think about in terms of
breathing are oxygen [O2], and carbon dioxide [CO2].
The drop in CO2 has occurred because there has been an increasing
amount of plant life on earth. Remember that plants convert CO2 to O2, so
that the more plants there are, the more conversion of CO2 to O2 there is.
As the amount of plants on the earth doubled again and again, this
caused a slow but steady decrease in the percentage of CO2 in the air, and a
steady increase in the O2 percentage in the air. Remember that this story is
spread over hundreds of millions of years.
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
Atmospheric
Oxygen
Millions of years
During this very long interval with changes in the air occurring,
mankind had to develop a system which gave a constant internal chemical
balance. The human body cannot tolerate much change in its chemical
composition. The change in the air composition caused the body to evolve
a special organ to ensure the levels of these two gases stayed within a safe
range. This organ has allowed humans to thrive even as the atmosphere had
massive changes. This organ is obviously the lungs.
The logic of this role of the lungs is proven by the fact that despite the
level of CO2 in the air being almost zero, there is on average 6.5% CO2 in
the lungs. This means that one of the major roles of your lungs is to act as a
carbon dioxide trap. It is no longer a bellows with the goal to fill and
empty as fully as possible, but rather a gas mixing chamber.
A key point is there is almost no CO2 in the air that surrounds us, so
therefore the CO2 that is in your lungs has been trapped in! Whenever
your body burns energy, it uses up oxygen and produces carbon dioxide.
Your lungs are there to ensure that you do not lose too much carbon
dioxide. If you lose too much carbon dioxide from your body you will die.
So as you are sitting there quietly, you will be using up a little oxygen,
and producing a little carbon dioxide. If you were running around, lifting
things, doing heavy work, you would be using more energy and therefore
use more oxygen and produce more carbon dioxide. The single thing that
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
controls how much of that gas is let out, and how much is trapped in, is
your breathing rate and depth.
When you produce more CO2, your breathing will increase so that the
level in your body stays about the same. [This also allows more oxygen in.]
When you produce less CO2 [by burning less energy], your breathing will
be less, so that the level in your body stays about the same.
Quick Review
This is nice and simple, but where is the problem that causes asthma?
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
Here is the vital point. You can also alter the setting on your
breathostat, just as with a thermostat. You can change the settings which
maintain the levels of CO2 in your body. [We will learn how later.]
The ideal level for your breathostat maintains the CO2 level in your
lungs at about 6.5%. [Note that is a different level to the CO2 level in your
blood.] A chronic asthmatic will have pushed their breathostat down much
lower, perhaps has low as 3.0%. This means that their body is in crises, as
the effect of this decrease affects every part of the body, and any further
loss of CO2 increases the problem.
With a low CO2 setting, the amount of breathing that occurs is always
much greater than with a normal setting. Remember this is because it is the
breathing level that the breathostat uses to keep the CO2 level where it
thinks it should be. The amount of air breathed by an asthmatic can be as
high as ten times as much as a non-asthmatic, and this will still feel like not
enough.
As the amount of air breathed gets greater and greater, the CO2 level
gets lower and lower. If it gets too low, death will follow. Some people
have the genetic ability to mount a defense against the loss of too much
CO2. The bodies of these people can recognize that CO2 is getting
dangerously low, and take actions to trap more in.
Because it forces you to trap in more CO2 than your breathostat wants,
you will feel as if you are not breathing enough. This is why the usual
response to asthma is to try and get MORE air in. The problem is that the
more air you try to force in, the worse your defensive closure of the airpipes
is going to get.
During an asthma attack you are already breathing vastly more than you
need, but because your breathostat is maladjusted, it still feels like not
enough. This means that the natural response is to try and breathe even
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
more. This is exactly wrong, even though it feels right. Fighting to push
more air in and out will cause worsening of the condition, and will quickly
also result in a shortage of oxygen in the body as the pipes become more
and more closed. The shortage of oxygen will then over-ride the
breathostat, and will force the body to breathe even more deeply, making
the pipes close even further. This can result in respiratory arrest and death.
The only solution is to do whatever you must to survive the very severe
attack, and begin work to normalize your breathing as soon as you can to
avoid another one.
In a less severe attack, and where the asthmatic remains calm and
breathes less than they feel they want to, the attack will just subside. When
sufficient CO2 is trapped in for the person to be out danger, the swelling
will reduce and the airpipes open again.
What is Asthma?
The key point to remember is why your body is acting to restrict your
breathing? There is only one logical reason for your body to do this and
that is because the amount of air you were breathing was far more than
appropriate. This caused your CO2 levels to become life-threateningly low.
By reducing your breathing, you trap in more CO2 [that your body has
produced], and raise the level away from the danger zone.
In the past you may have been told that you had hyper-responsive
airways, but no one could tell you why you had this condition. Nor could it
be explained that if you had this condition, why did it sometimes go away,
and give you no symptoms.
Now you can easily explain it by looking at your breathing and CO2
levels.
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
If I then put it into air with sufficiently high CO2 it would open fully.
The smooth muscle in the airpipe walls would stop swelling and twisting.
[I used to get severe asthma, now I dont. If I was to change my breathing
and lose all my CO2 again, I would see the return of my breathing
restriction [asthma]. If I then altered my breathing to trap in sufficient
CO2 again, the asthma would disappear again.] In the absence of CO2,
smooth muscle goes into spasm.
Key Point:
The Level of Carbon Dioxide Determines
How Much Mucus Is Produced.
The additional secretion from the glands [or mucus factories] in the
wall of the airpipes, is switched on by the lowered levels of CO2. The
mucus blocks the pipe, this reduces the airflow, which means more CO2 is
trapped in. When enough CO2 is trapped in, the mucus factories are
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
switched off, and mucus production stops. [You may have noticed that as
your asthma attack subsides there is often a little relieving cough as the
mucus that blocked your pipes is no longer needed and is released.]
However, now that we know the only reason for the extra mucus is the
shortage of CO2 caused by breathing too much, we will recognize that the
breathing that comes with coughing will actually cause the mucus to get
worse, or at least to maintain the mucus production. i.e. the more we
cough, the more CO2 we lose, the more mucus we produce, the more we
cough, and so on. By trying to clear the mucus that is there, we will always
produce more than we clear. This is why many have had bronchitis for
many decades, despite the best drugs and physiotherapy available.
Resist the urge to cough, trap in more CO2 to reduce the mucus
production, and your body will have no further need of the mucus
and will clear it for you.
Every person I have ever seen with a bronchitis cough has been able to
stop it within one day by not coughing [just let it tickle] plus reducing their
breathing as shown later in this program. Every single one of them also had
the concern, that if they did not clear the mucus they would clog up and
die. All of the specialists and therapists had told them this [or at least
implied it].
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
What they were not told is that your body has a very efficient garbage
removal system. There are very large numbers of cells called macroph-
ages present in most part of your body, but particularly in your lungs. The
sole purpose of these cells is to devour any toxins, bacteria, or other
matter that should not be there. The only problem is that if you are
producing a massive amount of mucus because of your breathing, your
garbage system cannot keep up. When you reduce the mucus production, it
quickly catches up and most of the mucus will disappear without you
having to cough it up. [Of course, some will be released upwards.]
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
Coughing is often a very simple and effective way to get affection and
attention for children. The mechanism is unconscious, but all they have to
do is increase their breathing or run around madly with uncontrolled
breathing, and the coughing or wheezing will start.
You may have seen children who become upset, carry on for a while,
and then develop a really excellent asthmatic attack. This is real asthma,
not psychosomatic, it can be dangerous and is often fatal.
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CHAPTER 1 The Cause Of Asthma
♦ To help stop this potentially fatal loss of CO2, some of us have the
ability to automatically restrict our breathing by having our airpipes either
constrict or be filled with mucus. Both of these will reduce the amount of
air we breathe, and therefore trap in more CO2. Your asthma is not a
disease, it is a defence against losing too much CO2 from breathing too
deeply.
An extra bonus comes from the realization that your nose, throat and
sinus cavity are part of your airways. If you experience a blockage or
excess mucus production in these areas, think why. If it occurred to you
that the cause of blocked, runny, itchy noses or congested sinus is the same
as asthma, you would be correct.
The next section is learning a simple technique that will help you
estimate your own CO2 levels.
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
I
n this section we are going to learn a simple technique which will allow
you to measure your breathing health any time you like for free. Before
we start with that, a brief story about breathing.
His measurements showed that the closer the people got to death, the
deeper their breathing became. It got to the point where Buteyko could
predict with great accuracy the time of death, from days before simply
by measuring their breathing. It seemed odd to him at the time that the deep
breathing he was seeing on deathbeds was identical to that being promoted
at the time [and still today by some misguided experts] to develop GOOD
health.
His later research asked perfectly healthy subjects to breathe deeply for
a period of time. All of them became dizzy, nauseous, and developed
symptoms such as wheeziness and coughing, and eventually passed out.
The accepted theory at that time was that it was caused by oxygen
saturation of the brain.
It was Buteykos research over the next decade, along with Bohr, that
has changed the accepted theory. If you now ask any good medical
student why these subjects responded in this way, they will say it is
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
Lets now learn the simple measurement technique and what it means.
By holding your breath you immediately begin to trap in all of the CO2
you produce. When you have trapped in more CO2 than your breathostat is
used to, it will make you have a desire to take a breath and release some
CO2.
The key is to measure how long it takes for you to feel you want to take
a breath. This is not a measurement of how long you can hold on for. If
you hold too long, the measurement will be inaccurate. You will know
when you have held too long because your breathing after you release your
nostrils, will be labored and you will gasp a bit. A simple way to check is
to watch yourself in a mirror. If you look stressed when you release you
have held too long.
The other important key to this technique is that you should always start
with your breathing in the same place. You should be comfortable, your
lungs not full or empty. A simple routine to get to this point is to take a
normal [dont overfill] breath in, then a gentle breath out.
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
To get an idea of the sensation of where the starting point is, sit straight
in your chair, breathe in gently and push your belly out, then relax your
belly. When you relax your belly there is a slight exhalation, almost like
a sigh. You can use this procedure to start your pause.
While you are holding your breath you must pinch your nostrils closed,
or the gases will diffuse, and the measurement will be affected.
The first few times you do this measurement, it is likely you will hold a
few seconds too long, as you will not be certain when to stop. With a few
practices you will become more sensitive to the sensation of a slight
shortage of air, which is what your breathostat makes you feel when you
have reached your normal CO2 level.
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
When you feel a slight discomfort and want a breath, you allow the in
breath, and the breathing is not disrupted. ie it is about the same size, with
no stress.
A B
If you hold on too long, you will need to gasp, and your breathing will
be greatly increased. If you find you have done this and your breathing is
increased, then control your breathing and do not allow it to waste your
CO2, or you may find yourself having asthma. The following diagram
represents the WRONG way:
A B C
Activity
You should stop reading now and do a measurement
pause if you have not already done so.
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
The length of the pause has been correlated with laboratory testing and is
consistent.
The following table gives the measurements. Remember 6.5% CO2 in your
lungs to close to the ideal.
Examples
If your measurement pause is 22 seconds, your CO2 will be just over 4.5%
If your measurement pause is 8 seconds, your CO2 will be less than 3.5%
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
[If your pause is that low then you are very unwell, and if you are not
suffering symptoms of asthma, then review the Appendix Other Effects
Of Chronic Low CO2.]
It is the same with your lungs. If you have the wrong mixture of
gases in your lungs, your body will have low power, use too much fuel, will
backfire, and will wear out much sooner. All you have to do is tune your
carburetor. That is what Buteyko is going to teach you to do. Your
respiratory centre or breathostat is the carburetor for your lungs.
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CHAPTER 2 Estimating Your Breathing Level
Activity
Do a practice measurement pause now, and
work out your CO2 level, and your breathing factor.
Key Point:
The measurement pause is only a technique to allow you to measure
your breathing. It is not the method to adjust your breathostat. It is for
determining your starting point and measuring and your improvement.
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CHAPTER 3 Using Your Nose & Mouth
T
here are several reasons why it is obvious that your nose is designed
to be breathed through. Firstly, your nose is like an air conditioner
for your lungs. Air that passes through your nose on the way to your
lungs is filtered by the nose. Your nose will massively reduce the amount
of dust, pollens, bacteria, virus, or anything else that is floating in the air.
Dry Lungs
It is probably this information about the lungs needing moistened air
that led to earlier theories of asthma based on the lungs drying out, and
the development of vaporizers which are designed to put moisture in the
air in your house or room to stop this drying out. These machines do
appear to have a small impact, but only if you breathe through your mouth.
If you breathe through your nose, you have an automatic humidifier built in,
and do not need them.
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CHAPTER 3 Using Your Nose & Mouth
The other reason that your nose is for breathing is that because the
nasal passages are far smaller than your mouth, you are forced to breathe
less. You have to work a lot harder to overbreathe with your mouth closed.
You can still do it, it is just a little harder. In addition, nasal breathing
allows the extra defense of the swelling of your nasal passages to reduce the
airflow. The only reason you nose blocks up is because the shortage of
CO2 causes the smooth vessels to swell, just the same as in asthma.
If you keep your mouth closed, your nose will help reduce your
airflow for you.
Note:
Your nose will not block completely
unless your mouth is open.
It may whistle and carry on, but remember the more it is blocked, the
more CO2 is trapped in, which will tell it to open again.
Then, make it get less blocked by breathing less deeply, or just hold
your breath for several seconds [pinch your nostrils closed] longer than is
comfortable and breathing as little as possible through your nose after you
breathe.
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CHAPTER 3 Using Your Nose & Mouth
In brief, all you have to do is trap in more CO2 than you release, just
as you will do to stop asthma.
To unblock your nose right now. You need some extra CO2, so after
a small out breath, pinch your nostrils closed and hold your breath. [Your
mouth is obviously closed at this time.] Hold until about 5 seconds after
you have developed the feeling that you want to take a breath [not need a
breath], release your nostrils and allow only a little breathing to occur
through your nose. Keep the CO2 in! It will be at least a tiny bit clearer. If
it is still very blocked, repeat the process several times with about 5 seconds
between each hold. Really restrict your breathing. Be like a statue and
dont move. [Keep your mouth closed!]
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CHAPTER 3 Using Your Nose & Mouth
You now have the ability to unblock your nose at any time
without drugs or surgery. If you follow why it blocks up, you can
reverse the process. The same procedure will also dry it up.
The final reason that you should breathe through your nose is most
important reason to many. I find that the most compelling reason for
teenagers and children is how you look when you wander around with your
mouth hanging open.
Try it yourself. Pretend you are really stupid. Is your mouth open or
closed? Now be cool [or whatever the current word is Rad? Kewl? ],
and close your mouth........or look dumb.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
Stopping Asthma
The Simple Answer
T
his section will give the instructions on the most effective way to
correct your breathing. It is quite a long chapter, and covers the
roles of relief and steroid medications first. It is important to
understand how the drugs work, and fit into a rational approach to stopping
your need for the defense of asthma.
The key point here is to recognize that the only way you can get
asthma is by first breathing too much, which causes you to lose too much
CO2, which in turn causes your body to defend itself by forcing you to
breath less.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
1. Relief drugs
The majority of this class are the bronchodilators. You will know
that bronchus means airpipe, and that dilate means to open up. So
in the simplest sense, these drugs work to open your airways. They are
chemicals which, when detected by special detector cells in your airpipe,
simply instruct the pipe to open. These drugs can be taken by inhalation,
which means spraying and breathing them into your airpipe, where they act
quickly and effectively.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
Speed and
Length of
Drug Name Effectiveness of
Action
Action
Salbutamol
Strong effect, works very Short-acting,
inhaled through puffer
quickly about 4 hours
or nebuliser
Due to the way that these chemicals are marketed in different parts of the
world, there are hundreds of different brand names for the same chemicals. Do
not be confused with the classification of drugs like Serevent [salmeterol]. If the
action is to hold the airpipes open, rather than to make them less likely to close [as
with steroids], then class them as a bronchodilator.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
You now recognize that the closing of your airpipes is basically your
bodys defense against the lowering CO2 levels caused by you breathing
more than is appropriate for the amount of physical work you are doing. It
is your defense against your releasing more CO2 than you produce.
So when you suck these chemicals into your airpipes, their powerful
effect over-rides your defense, and allows you to breathe as deeply as your
breathostat wants you to. It is a great feeling of relief when the airpipes are
pushed open again, and you are able to go back to breathing many times
more air than you need. Aaaahhhhhhhh.
If you use a drug with a long action, you can breathe as much as you
want all day. Almost no restriction at all. The only problem is that after a
while, it may be days, weeks or years, your defenses will start to get a bit
more serious about stopping the CO2 loss [which it knows is fatal].
A worried parent took him to the doctor, who did various measure-
ments, and said Asthma!. The shame of this was hidden, and the
teenager instructed on the use of a puffer [lets say relief-puffer]. At
the start, all it took was two puffs, every now and then, say twice a week,
and the wheeze disappeared like magic. Not too bad.
Later in the same year, the winter was quite nasty. He found he
needed to use the puffer more and more. His mother, having read about the
increased death rate associated with high use of puffers returned him to the
doctor. Ahh. said the doctor wisely, we will need to introduce a
preventative puffer, as this has been shown to reduce the death rate that
had apparently risen because of the increased use of the relief-type puffer.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
He had to take the preventative puffer every morning and night. Is this for
the rest of his life asked his mother? Very likely, but well see said the
doctor.
Despite the new puffer, he began to get more and more tight, more
and more often. The two puffs of relief puffer no longer worked well
enough, so they bought a machine that sprayed the chemical out of a mask
he wore on his face. This gave pretty good relief, but on some days he
needed it 3 or 4 times. He was a large teenager, so he received the full adult
dose, and made sure he used all of it. [Note: .1 puff of relief puffer is 1/
10,000th of a gram. A full nebule of relief puffer is 50/10,000th of a gram.
So one nebule is equal to 50 puffs, but a lot gets out of the sides so lets say
its equal to 25 puffs from the relief puffer.]
Mother is getting very worried now, has been back to the doctor, who
has doubled the dose of preventative puffer and referred them to a
pulmonologist. This doctor sees mostly asthma, and is considered the
best in the area. He immediately does more tests involving mostly huffing
and puffing, and puts our lad onto 50mg of oral steroids per day, for 6 days,
then on a reducing amount. This reduces the asthma, and two weeks later,
only puffers are needed. A few weeks later, it all starts again.
The family learn to live with it, and have some periods of good
health. Their pulmonologist sees them every month, and gets hold of new
drugs earlier for them to try. Which work for a while, but then seem to fail.
A trip to the emergency ward is made about twice a year.
Then, after 8 years, the family moves to a different area near the
beach. The lad takes up surfing, and within 1 week the asthma has stopped.
A call to their pulmonologist gets the reply that this happens quite often,
they seem to just grow out of it.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
for about 4 hours.] This means that you can return to the breathing that
caused your need for the defense in the first place. If your breathing has not
improved when the drug wears off, your defense will start again. You will
want more drugs, to improve your airflow again.
Over a period of time, this will cause you to need more and more of
the drug, as your body becomes more resistant to it. Where one puff per
day was enough before, you may start to need many more puffs, plus the
addition of other drugs. If this loop continues without an improvement
[decrease] in your breathing, your body will work harder and harder to stop
the CO2 loss, until the point where hospitalization is needed because your
airpipes no longer respond at all to your drugs.
Buteyko Strategy
The Buteyko strategy is to use your breathing to trap in more CO2 at
the first sign of asthma, and after a short time use your fast acting, short
acting drugs then only if needed. The activity here involves the use of an
exercise called shallow breathing, which is an easy way to trap in more
CO2. Shallow breathing is covered in the next chapter.
The Buteyko Method has found the best way to use relief drugs is to
use them only for the purpose they were first designed to relieve an
attack. If you are on a regime where you are taking bronchodilators as
routine rather than according to need, please see your doctor and discuss it.
If you are taking these drugs when you do not need them you are taking
more than you need, and you will never be able to be free of them.
We will later describe a strategy which has a 99% success rate for
asthma, which relies on using your relief drugs only when you need them,
and after you have tried to use your natural bronchodilator carbon
dioxide first.
If you are taking long acting drugs such as Serevent, remain on the
same dose until your need for supplementary short acting dilators is almost
nil. Ie you need no salbutamol for example. After this time ask your
doctor to reduce it slightly. If symptoms occur on the lowered dose, use
your breathing and short-acting drugs to relieve them. Do not reduce the
Serevent again until you are symptomless again. Then repeat the reduction.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
Use the same process for the newer drugs like Accolate. Allow little
symptoms to break through so you can use your breathing [plus short acting
bronchodilators, if needed ] to relieve them.
The other group of drugs which need to be mentioned are the oral
bronchodilators. The most common of these is theophylline, although it is
used less and less these days because it is weak, has awful side effects, and
the dosage needed is only just less than a toxic dose. Again it is usually an
add-on, when no other options are seen. This drug is best reduced slowly,
no more than 25% per day. As with Serevent it should be reduced only as
the condition improves. Follow your doctors advice. You should not
continue on this drug if you have no symptoms. It is a bronchodilator, and
should only be used for relief not prevention.
2. Preventative Drugs
A more accurate reality is that our bodies are full to the brim with
steroids, when we are completely healthy. They are a vital part of our
body chemistry. Steroids include most of the hormones in your body. They
include the majority of the active chemicals in your body. If you have the
right amount of steroids, you will be healthy. If you have either too little or
too much of any steroid you will have problems.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
As the CO2 levels get lower and lower with increasingly severe
asthma, the production of steroids gets lower and lower. The shortfall in
the amount needed for health gets larger and larger. This is seen as
increased asthma, despite the use of the inhaled steroids. There is simply
not enough.
In these cases, the use of oral steroids in far greater doses, makes up
for the shortfall in production. The main steroid that is in deficit is
cortisone. Usually your adrenal glands produce all you need. If you
supplement your production with man-made cortisone [or variants of it with
longer life in the body than human cortisone], the hypersensitivity of your
body decreases, and you are able to reduce your breathing level. This in
turn allows your blood chemistry to change, and your own adrenal cortisone
factories to increase production again.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
For example, assume you are a severe asthmatic, and upon seeing
your doctor it is decided that oral steroids are needed. Chances are that
your doctor will start you on quite a high dose, and then reduce over time.
Lets say you were the equivalent of 14 milligrams of cortisone short. You
are given a starting dose of 50 milligrams. This means that you are
overdosing by 36 milligrams. This will make you swell up, feel awful, and
if continued serious problems like osteoporosis may occur. [It even has the
ability to apparently cause schizophrenia.]
Lets review that. Your body normally produces heaps and heaps of
steroids. This is good and necessary. When your chemistry is altered by
continued overbreathing and the lowered CO2, there are changes in the
body fluids which affect your glands. Less steroid is produced than you
need, and your body becomes hypersensitive, and reducing your
breathing becomes almost impossible. You will continue to deteriorate until
the shortfall in your steroid level is made up. If you take more steroids than
you need, the extra amount will cause the side effects that have made
people believe in the past that steroids are bad for you.
The ideal would be to take only the exact amount of steroids you are
short of. It is very difficult to recover unless you have at least this amount.
The goal is to have this amount and no more. There is a suggested process
to this, but as it is not relevant to the majority of asthma sufferers it is
covered in Appendix 3 Steroid Supplementation.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
Step 4. Take one puff only of your short fast acting bronchodilator
[eg salbutamol] if you need it. [If you do not need it, dont take it. ]
Followed by 5 more minutes of moderate shallow breathing. The shallow
breathing will improve the effectiveness of the drug. (GO OVER PAGE)
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
Other rules:
♦ If the onset of your attack is so fast and severe that you usually go
straight to the nebuliser machine, use your discretion when doing your
breathing exercises. Ie try the steps above, but if you are out of control
simply try some breathing first, try the puffers, and then the machine.
♦ There will be a great day when you overcome the attack without any
drugs. To get to this day, you must follow the steps. You must try the
breathing first, then the drugs only if needed. If you take the drug
immediately you feel the attack starting, you will never learn to stop it with
your breathing.
♦ There are no points for not taking the drugs when you need them and
being miserable or taking unnecessary risks. Simply follow the steps. If
after the first two steps you are not greatly improved, go to the next step,
use the drug.
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CHAPTER 4 Stopping Asthma
♦ Do not take any unnecessary risks. If you know you are really in
trouble, do whatever is necessary to save your life, go the hospital or
whatever you do in an emergency. You can work your way clear of asthma
a little later, but only if you are alive. The hospital is a good place to
practice your shallow breathing if that is where you should be.
♦ Note that the instructions say to take one single puff, not two puffs of
your reliever medication. You may only need one puff, if you automatically
take two, you will never know. You can take the extra puff a few minutes
later if you do need it.
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CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
Shallow Breathing To
Tune Your Body
W
e are now at the position where we can discuss more exactly the
process that if followed will normalize your breathing. We have
seen in earlier chapters that our breathostat or respiratory centre
has somehow become set at the wrong level.
How did they become set at the wrong level? One major factor is the
false idea of the usefulness of deep breathing, which is often combined with
deep breathing exercises. A big long deep breath with a good stretch is
good to relax. If you do it repeatedly, it will turn your breathostat the
wrong way.
Other factors that increase the breathing include lack of physical work,
narcotics, and exposure to many chemical agents.
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CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
- Page 40 -
CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
There are several key points. The first is that we are reducing the depth
of breathing. When we do this the frequency or rate at which we breathe
increases by itself. This is correct, and the rate should not be interfered
with. That would be direct control of the breathing, which is far harder to
maintain, and usually leads to a huge shortage of air which is followed by
gasping. This is not the goal. So reduce the depth only.
The other key point is that our goal is to develop a training that can be
done anywhere, is comfortable so it will not be avoided, and can be
combined with other tasks. The way to this goal is to allow only a tiny
shortage of air to develop. It is all that you need. If it feels awful and
suffocating you have created a large shortage, and should relax and start
again. If you feel no shortage at all, become more and more still until you
do.
As part of this process, recognize that there is no rule that says you have
to be breathing all the time. If you find yourself breathing away with no
real need or desire to stop.
Am I Doing It Properly?
This is the most common and natural question. You are shallow
breathing if you feel a tiny shortage of air, and you are comfortable. A
shortage of air is a sensation that you would like to take an extra breath, but
to maintain the shortage do not. If you are suffocating, you have too great a
shortage remember unless it feels comfortable, you will not do it enough
and will get poor results.
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CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
You can actually feel the extra CO2 making you want to breathe more,
but dont.
Make it habit whenever you get into your car, reduce your breathing.
Open a magazine, reduce. Put the kettle on, reduce. After a time it is
automatic.
As you read through this manual, develop a tiny shortage of air. [Just
stop breathing and wait, when you feel the little shortage, allow your
breathing to continue but less deeply by keeping your chest and gut
muscles still and relaxed. Check at the end of each page that the shortage is
still there. If it has gone, simply re-create it. No problem.
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CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
As your breathostat gets used to higher and higher levels of CO2, this
will be reflected in your measurement pause. Your pause will also indicate
your asthma status. When your pause gets above 25 seconds, asthma does
not usually occur. This figure can be as low as 15 for some peoples asthma
to stop. [Mine stopped at 16]
You will notice that sometimes your pause will jump all over the place.
This is normal. It is the trend which is important in the early days. If you
get an unusually high or low pause, just record it and see what the next one
is.
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CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
Fill in the date and time, take your pulse, do a measurement pause
and write it in the M.pause1 column. Then shallow breathe for 10 minutes,
then take another measurement pause and write your score in the next box.
Shallow breathe for 10 more minutes, another pause, and so on. If you have
the time do 40 minutes [4 pauses], and finish with another pulse.
Formal practice means your record your scores, and follow the
pattern above. Informal practice is done anytime, anywhere, with no
recording. It is best combined with other activities that you do every day.
eg driving, watching TV, reading, doing the washing. Combine it with
everything!
This is the most important part in the long term. Once you are free
of symptoms your habit of reducing your breathing while doing other things
is all you will need.
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CHAPTER 5 Shallow Breathing To Tune Your Body
- Page 45 -
CHAPTER 6 Exercise Induced Asthma
A
large number of people only get symptoms of asthma during or
after physical exertion. They go up a flight of stairs, or go for a jog
and become breathless.
The key point from this manual is that there is only one way to get
asthma. And we know that that is to release more CO2 than we produce.
This causes some of our airpipes to close to prevent further loss, and to
relieve the shortage.
First Step
In all physical activities, the rules of breathing remain the same.
In many people the key time for exertion asthma is after the physical
exertion has stopped. At this time, the production of CO2 has almost
dropped to nothing, but the breathing is still going on as if the CO2 was still
being produced at a high level. This means that more CO2 will be released
than is being produced, and a defensive constriction will be needed soon.
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CHAPTER 6 Exercise Induced Asthma
The other time is a few minutes after starting the exercise. This is
usually because the person has increased their breathing in anticipation.
When you begin an exercise, take your time to get started. Do some
shallow breathing during your warm-up, and pay special attention to
keeping your breathing to only just what you need.
When you get to the top of the stairs, reduce your breathing for a while.
Go to moderate level shallow breathing. Suffocate for a little while. Trap
in some extra CO2. Do not puff.
If you get to point where you want to breathe through your mouth
STOP, reduce your breathing, and continue only after your breathing is
controlled.
It is simple to develop the situation where you never get puffed or out of
breath.
Your mouth must be closed, and you should develop a very tiny shortage
of air by shallow breathing. [This is very easy when you are walking]
If you start to feel you need to gasp through your mouth, you must stop
immediately, reduce and control your breathing, and only then continue.
Over a few sessions you will find that you can go further and further
without getting puffed. When you can proceed at that intensity for over 15
minutes, you can raise the intensity slightly, but follow the same rules.
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CHAPTER 6 Exercise Induced Asthma
Within a few weeks your endurance will have greatly increased, and you
will able to train easily with your mouth closed, and not get out of breath.
It will only work if you stop just before your lose control of your
breathing.
If you are a serious or professional athlete, you will know that races or
games are won or lost at training. Combine your new knowledge with your
training sessions. It will mean reducing the intensity at first so that you will
be able to exert with your mouth closed. It takes a very short time [a couple
of weeks] to reach the point where you can apply your full physical force
without having to open your mouth for extra air. You will then notice a vast
improvement in your endurance and recovery.
But during training you must stop and reduce your breathing immedi-
ately you start to feel the urge to gasp. During your match or contest do
everything you must to win. When you get the chance to recover, reduce
your breathing rather than do deep breathing. Suffocating a little tiny bit
will release more oxygen to your muscle cell and allow you to recover
faster.
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
The Secret of
Nocturnal Asthma
R
emember there is only one way you can get asthma. Asthma during
sleep is also as simple. When the human body becomes horizontal,
the resistance to deeper breathing is reduced. Ie it is a lot easier to
breathe more deeply when you are lying down. As soon as you become
unconscious, your breathing gets deeper and deeper, simply because of the
horizontal position.
The other common time for problems is between 3:30 and 5:00 am,
when the body is at its deepest point of sleep, which also causes the
breathing to be greater at this time. You may notice that people start to
snore, or they wake with full bladders, or, if children, they may wet the
bed at this time. These are all associated with low CO2 that is caused by
overbreathing.
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
More practical steps include not sleeping on your back. It is far easier to
breathe more deeply on your back, as there is less resistance. Lie down and
test it. If you rest on your side, it is physically more difficult to take a deep
breath. This is easily seen in people who snore. They often only do so
while on their back. Rolling them on their side usually stops or reduces the
noise.
So step one is to sleep on your side not your back. This will not make
your breathing good, only less bad.
Do not have meals or high protein snacks [like warm milk or hot
chocolate] or alcohol before going to bed.
Your Mouth
Possibly the greatest factor in nocturnal asthma is the fact that while
asleep you have no conscious control over whether or not you breathe
through your mouth or nose. Your mouth can just drop open.
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
Old Wisdom
I have heard of a fascinating true story about the American artist George
Catlin. After a number of years watching and drawing the native Americans
he drew the conclusion that the cause of maladies in the so-called civilized
men was that they allowed breathing through the mouth. In all of the
thousands of Indians he saw, they enjoyed almost perfect health and
premature death was rare.
He ascribed this to the fact that the Native children were never allowed
to sleep with their mouths open. The mother would watch the sleeping
child, and if the mouth opened, would press the lips together. The child
developed the habit to keep its mouth closed, awake or asleep. A very
simple and effective way to assist good breathing.
Develop the habit of keeping your mouth closed. If you can do this,
your experience of waking in the night struggling to breathe will stop.
Ideally, you could have someone watch you, ensuring your stay on your
side, keeping mouth closed, and rousing you slightly whenever your
breathing becomes exceedingly deep. [Remember the tendency to breathe
extra deeply occurs during in very deep sleep.] This, plus the breathing
training during the day will make a fast impact. For a few nights you may
be waken by your observer just as you begin to develop asthma, but this
will be fixed by your procedure for attacks.
It is simply to either have a dental plate made which keeps your mouth
closed, or even more simply to tape your mouth closed when you are
asleep. I will not endorse either of these actions, but will rather present to
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
you the easiest and safest way to do it. There is no danger of suffocation
providing you have your hands free, and are capable of removing the tape
yourself. This is enhanced by folding the ends of the tape to form tabs
so it is very easy to remove.
Most asthmatics have some degree of sleep apnea. It is not the defense
itself that causes the problem seen in sufferers, it is that the sleep is very
disturbed and of poor quality. Asthmatics often believe the general
tiredness they feel is normal, and are stunned when they feel so refreshed
after their first night with reduced apnea. If you do not feel refreshed in the
morning, it is likely you have some degree of apnea and will benefit from
intervention. The same applies to snoring.
The tape to use is called paper tape or surgical tape. It is the tape
used when you donate blood or get an injection, and a piece of gauze is
taped over the puncture site. One brand-name here in Australia is
Micropore made by 3M. This tape is designed to come off easily when
pulled off slowly, and dissolves in water.
The best size tape is one inch or 2.5 centimetres wide. Tear off a piece
about 3 inches or 7.5 cms long, and fold a small part of each end on itself to
form a tab. This is so that you can feel assured that if you were panicked
and had to get the tape off, you could find the edge of it. In reality once the
tape has been on for a short time you forget it is there. It is important to
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
ensure that your mouth is closed before you apply the tape horizontally
from cheek to cheek in direction. It is important because you can still
breathe [and snore loudly] through the tape if your mouth is only a little
open.
Note:
A. It is most usual to pull the tape off on the first few nights between
2.30 and 5am, when your breathing is at its deepest. It is imperative that
when you wake after this, which you will, that you recognize the tape is off
and reapply another piece. Have a spare torn, folded and ready, stuck to a
convenient place at your bedside.
You must be really disciplined the first few nights. Really avoid the
temptation to not reapply the tape because there is only a couple of hours
of sleep left. It is at this time that much damage can be done to your
system, and if you leave the tape off at this time you will snore and have
apnea.
Within a few days you will sleep right through the night, and wake more
rested. After a few months you may wish to experiment in sleeping without
the tape, but you will notice the difference in your rest levels very quickly if
you do. I have been using tape for a couple of years now, and continue to
use it because I wake feeling far more refreshed than if I do not. Even
though this sounds like a very strange thing to do, and your partner or
family may initially laugh a little at how silly it looks at first, it is possibly
the best thing you can do for your health. You may also find that people
who giggled will also want to give it a try when they see the change in you,
which is often very dramatic.
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
If you feel the idea of using tape makes you too uncomfortable, that is
fair enough. If it because you simply cannot manage to breathe through
your nose even when awake then get a copy of my audio tape How to
Shallow Breathe which will simply and easily coach you on how to
unblock or clear your nose, and be able to breathe easily.
Unless you can learn to keep your mouth closed, you will never have
any relief from sleep apnea.
If you can keep your mouth closed comfortably while awake, but refuse
the radical idea of the tape, there is an alternative. Use the following
steps:
2. You will need someone to watch you while you sleep for a few
nights. If you have a partner, then ask them to sacrifice their own sleep for
a few nights. Their task is simply to watch you sleep, and when your
breathing starts to get very deep, they disturb you. This causes your sleep
to be less deep, and also means your breathing will be less deep. Remem-
ber it is the hyperventilation when you are asleep which is the cause of the
problem, not the swelling of your throat [obstructive sleep apnea] or the
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
3. During the day you will need to be extra aware of your breathing,
and shallow breathing should be practiced. Gentle exercise [with mouth
closed!] is advised. You should not get puffed.
4. For the first couple of days, eat very little. Definitely no alcohol. No
food for at least 2 hours before bed time.
5. Have no more than 7 hours of sleep time, whether you are asleep or
not. A nap in the afternoon of not more than 20 minutes is OK, but this
should not be done after a large lunch. The nap should not be in a bed, but
rather somewhere less comfortable. At a table with your head on your arms
will give you a rest but not greatly increase your breathing.
ADDITIONAL REMARKS
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CHAPTER 7 Nocturnal Asthma
If you have been using a CPAP, we have found that the best approach is
to go cold turkey for a few nights. Resolve yourself to the fact that you
may have a few nights of little sleep, and keep the tape on. There is
research to show that resting quietly gives almost the same effect as being
asleep, unless you are stressed out about not being asleep. So if you cannot
get to sleep, stay awake calmly and relax. It is worth the sacrifice. Even if
you feel you had no actual sleep, chances are that you will still have more
energy, and be more awake than you had with the CPAP. The next night
will be easier.
The other key success factor in resolving sleep apnea [and heavy
snoring] is your breathing while you are awake. At all times you must
remember that you should take only as much air as you need! If you
wander around like a bellows all day, you will find it harder to not
overbreathe while you are asleep.
End of Extract
- Page 56 -
CHAPTER 8 The Effect Of Diet
T
he key point to remember here is that everything you eat will make
you breathe more deeply. Some foods will make you breathe more
than other foods. Plus there is some individual variation in how
much people respond do different foods.
With this issue please realize that you will need to eat something to
stay alive. As all foods increase your breathing depth [because of the
digestive process], your breathing is going to be affected, there is no
avoiding it. The strategy is simply when your breathing is poor, and you
are having symptoms, eat as little as possible and eat the foods that have
least effect on your breathing.
The foods which tend to increase breathing the most are animal
proteins, animal fats and refined sugars. This includes chicken, beef and
other meats, and milk products. Plant proteins and fats are less harmful.
Nuts, beans, berries and other fruits can have strong impact on some
individuals breathing.
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CHAPTER 8 The Effect Of Diet
The less you eat, the faster your breathing will improve.
The amount of actual nutrient we get out of the food we eat depends
on the quality of the food. We can only try to eat the best food we can.
Despite the very best intentions we can still run short of vital nutrients,
simply because they are not present in food that is available.
- Page 58 -
CHAPTER 8 The Effect Of Diet
Osteoporosis
- Page 59 -
CHAPTER 8 The Effect Of Diet
Antioxidants
A good answer is to eat only the best food you can get. Free of
poisons, and a fresh as you can get. You will also need to supplement with
minerals and vitamins, particularly when under stress or unwell. You do
not need high doses of minerals, just a regular supply. It is usually simplest
to find a tablet which has a combination of minerals, particularly Calcium,
Magnesium and Zinc. [Zinc is important for proper sexual function in
men.] Minerals should be taken with food.
- Page 60 -
CHAPTER 8 The Effect Of Diet
- Page 61 -
CHAPTER 9 The Trigger Factors
T
he apparent flare-up of symptoms that occurs after exposure to some
compounds has led in the past for these compounds to be blamed
for the symptoms of asthma or other conditions.
When exposed to the droppings [or the critter itself], many people
develop an allergic response, being usually asthma or hayfever. However
many people do not have any measurable response at all, despite having
been similarly exposed for all of their lives.
The same applies to all other allergens. A list that includes the
dust mite and its faeces, dust itself and the smell of dust, smoke of any kind,
any strong odour or perfume, or in fact any chemical with a distinctive
coating on the molecule. However, as well as these chemical allergens,
there are other things that can also act as a nasty sounding trigger factor.
This inexhaustible list includes: hot air, cold air, dry air, wet air, any
change in air temperature, pressure or humidity, stress, lack of stress,
exertion [any physical activity], and any other activity or thing. [I have
seen serious, expensive research projects with goals to find a link between
the incidence of asthma and the use of gas or electric stoves! And they
drew a conclusion and called for more funding!]
- Page 62 -
CHAPTER 9 The Trigger Factors
The point is that trigger factors can have nothing in common other
than provoking a response. Eg dust mite droppings and stress have nothing
else in common, both are trigger factors. It is a phrase made up by
pseudoscience which was searching for the answers, but when no answer
could be found, the science simply created a category and called it the
answer.
This particular science also cannot explain how the same people vary
in their response to the same allergen at different times. [People grow out
of asthma, hay fever and migraine. They then have no symptoms when
exposed to the exact same environment as last year or last month. The
allergens are still there, but no asthma or other response.]
What about the fact that when people who are sensitized to one
particular allergen take effective steps to eliminate it, they very frequently
develop a sensitivity to a new one, and the symptoms return. Only now
they are sensitive to two things. You can do this until you are sensitive to
everything in the world.
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CHAPTER 9 The Trigger Factors
The question comes back What proof do you need? Simply ask
any of the 10,000 or so Australians who have made themselves have less
asthma and hay fever by changing their breathing. Ask any of the
previously severe asthmatic subjects of the Clinical Trial at the Mater
Hospital in Brisbane to tell you how they have little or asthma at all now
with no other change in their environment. Are the dust mites still there?
Yes. The pollution? Yes. The stress of daily life? Yes.
Yes do you have any studies like that? Sorry, we have only one
powerful, unchallengable little study that proves conclusively that it works,
and about 10,000 Australians and 400,000 Russians who all have a personal
success story to tell you.
The key point to this discussion is that the trigger factors are
irrelevant once the breathing is normalized. If you are breathing at a
physiologically normal level, dust mite droppings for example will not give
you asthma. You will still get a nice little red spot with an allergy skin test.
[or an antibody reaction in a blood test] but you will not get asthma. If
there was a blood test for stress if that was your trigger before, the stress
would still be there, but you will not get the asthma.
If you really need a theory, then maybe the answer is that your body
does indeed need a trigger to start the asthma or other symptom, and it
simply sensitizes to what ever is common in the environment. Dust mites
for example are perfect, because they are so common your body can start an
asthmatic defense almost any time it wants. When there is no need for the
defense, the trigger has no effect at all. If you dont like this theory, create
one of your own, it cannot be any more flawed than the allergen fiction.
- Page 64 -
CHAPTER 10 Clearing Reactions
Clearing Reactions
Coming Back To Normal
O
verbreathing causes chemical changes in the body. This interferes
with the internal processes in the cells. It causes oxygen starvation
because of the Bohr effect. It forces the release of vital substances
such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium from the body to compensate
for shifts in pH. It causes the immune system to be pushed out of balance,
and may result in auto-immune responses . It also causes the accumulation
of proteins in the body that would not be there if the pH as not distorted.
The symptoms you may feel could include headaches, nausea, slight
fever, achiness, malaise or low energy, pains or aches in muscles and joints
where earlier symptoms may have been experienced, excess sweating,
itching, diarrhoea, coloured urine, disruption of the menstrual cycle, pus or
excess mucus from the nasal cavity and airpipes.
In cases where a large amount of drugs have been taken in the past,
residues of these drugs may pass through the skin.
- Page 65 -
CHAPTER 10 Clearing Reactions
The other problems are mentioned just to warn you that if something
more interesting does occur, not to panic. For example, the release of large
amounts of mucus, sometimes blood coloured, is not abnormal. In cases of
emphysema and other lower airways disease some really revolting looking
stuff can be released.
- Page 66 -
CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
I
will cover this briefly as it is the cause of some conflict in people who
have already learned abdominal breathing. When I refer to how
deeply you breathe, I am not referring to where in your body you
breathe. I am not referring to your lower belly moving when you breathe,
or your upper chest. I am referring to the length of time each breath
takes.
The reality is that what part of your body moves when you breathe is
a result of the position of your spine rather than anything else. For
example, sit in a slumped position and breathe normally, noticing what part
of the area below your neck moves.
Usually, you will see your upper chest and rib-cage doing most of
the work. Now, sit up straight and fold your arms behind your back [the
reverse of folding your arms in front!], breathe normally without forcing
your breathing. Usually, you will see that more movement is lower down
in your belly so to speak.
Notice now that if you stay in this postition and take very small,
short breaths [mouse breathing which you will learn shortly], it will still
be your belly area that moves not your chest! So you will be abdomi-
nal breathing shallowly.
So do not worry about which part of your body moves when you
breath the movement is the result of something rather than what you
should try to do.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
Straightening your spine and relaxing your chest will cause your
breathing to be in your belly. It will also cause you to breathe less
deeply! ie. each breath will be shorter! This is a surprise for most
people.
Lets now begin to work with your children. Please read through the
entire chapter carefully before starting with your children.
The Procedure
Read all of the following information carefully, then follow the
directions that follow.
This is used as both a measurement and as part of the training. It is used for
measurement in children because they lack the sensitivity to accurately
complete a Measurement Pause.[Which is discussed in the comprehensive
Manual.]
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
This allows the mouth to be clearly seen, and it can be noticed if any
air sneaks in through the mouth.
3. With the nose pinched and mouth closed, the child now marches
forward, and continues until he cannot hold his nose any longer and must
breathe. As the child takes the steps, count them! You will be asked to
record the number of steps taken, as this will be the measurement part of the
breathing training.
4. When the child cannot go any further, he must stop and stand
still. This is the most important part of the training, and you must pay close
attention. Upon stopping, the child will have trapped in a lot of extra
carbon dioxide much more than he is used to.
This will cause the child to have the desire to breathe very deeply to
expel all the carbon dioxide. This must be prevented. The goal of this
exercise is to cause extra carbon dioxide to be trapped in, and then retained.
If the breathing at this time is not closely monitored, then it has the
capability to reduce the CO2 level below the starting point and actually
cause an asthma attack. For children, the key to this vital step is the
analogy with the mouse and the elephant. [see later]
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
Steps are best done in series of about 4 to 5. That is, repeat the
process 4 to 5 times. At the start of training this should be done 3 times per
day.
If the pulse is constantly above 120 [for more than a day], you can be
sure that something is about to happen. The pulse will generally rise before
other symptoms such as asthma or an infection appear.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
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Sit down and relax for a moment. Now gently close your eyes and
pretend there is a really big elephant standing right in front of you. It is a
very friendly elephant, and will not hurt you.
Keep your eyes closed and put your finger up high under his trunk so that
you can feel the breathing. [Parent place the childs index finger of the
right hand up parallel to the ground in front of them to feel the breath.
Blow on the finger or wave air onto the finger.]
Wow its huge it almost blows you over. You can even smell what
the elephant had for lunch!
Now that is called elephant breathing. It is big, and noisy and you
can feel it on your finger.
Keep your eyes closed for a little bit longer, and we will look at the
next animal. The elephant has gone away....
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
Today we have learned about the big loud elephant breathing that
almost blows you over, and about the tiny little mouse that is tiny and quiet
and makes no feeling on your finger.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
breathing like a mouse. If you ever feel a bit worried or annoyed or if you
start to get asthma then this is how you should breath to stop it. Breathe
just like a little .....[try to get child to say mouse] mouse. Not like a big
....... [try to get child to say elephant] elephant.
Your nose may block up, and make your lungs get wheezy, and you
may feel stuff in your lungs and want to cough.
If your child begins to cough then you must teach them how to
cough through their nose. Have a little practice with them. When they feel
a tickle in their throat instead of coughing with their mouth, they should
firstly try to just ignore it, but if they have to then cough via nose. This is
more like an AH-HRRM or throat clearing before a speech.
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At the same time reinforce again the mouse breathing. If you do not
allow yourself to cough, then the urge to cough will simply go away. If you
do allow the coughing cycle to start it will get worse and worse as the
deep breathing causes more and more CO2 to be lost which will cause
the production of more and more mucus.
On occasions with smaller children, they may say to you that they
cannot stop the cough. Here you must be firm if you want them to become
free of the cycle. They are simply not allowed to cough. [Yell if you must,
but it usually better to do more closed mouth coughing practice.] Obvi-
ously also explain that they can cough if they are choking on something.
If you notice a post nasal drip, which is fluid running down the back
of your throat, then the procedure is the same. Mouse breathing first, and if
that does not stop it, then do steps until it has stopped.
Same applies to itchy nose and eyes. If you see your child doing the
allergic salute, pushing on their nose because it is itchy, explain again that
they have been breathing like a big ......elephant! Itchy eyes might be gently
rinsed [eyes closed!] with cool clean water, followed by mouse breathing.
It is very useful to use your finger for feedback on the depth of your
breathing. The more gentle and passive, the better. When you ask your
child to check their their breathing [even teenagers] ensure they use their
finger under their noses. The other feedback is any noise created by
breathing. If you or they can hear a wheeze try and make it silent.
Nose Breathing
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1. Nose filters out things that would cause severe damage to our
lungs, including bacteria, pollens, dust, mites, other organic material,
fungus, etc. If these were to go via our mouth and reach our lungs we
would have greater chance of disease. If you really want to get sick, find
someone with the flu, and take big deep breaths through your mouth in front
of them. Just breathing through your nose will reduce your chance of
infections.
3. You will breathe less through your nose. There are two small
holes versus one big gob. The balance of gases in your body is upset if you
breathe more than is appropriate. 4. This the reason that most children
older than 6 years will use to keep their mouth closed. If you were to ask
your children to be actors, and play the part of someone who was really
dumb, stupid and uncool[?], would their mouths be open or closed? The
answer is that it you want to look dumb, then let your jaw hang. [A slack-
jawed yokel?] How do you look with your mouth hanging open?
DUMB!
Rule
Always breathe through your nose. There is only one reason that it
will block up and that is because you are breathing like an elephant. You
are not an elephant, and your body will try and make you breathe less it
will make your nose block up, and make your lungs get wheezy, and will
make you cough.
The System
The goal is to alter your childs breathing pattern by having them
breathe only through the nose, by having them do specific exercises called
steps, and by making them understand the relationship between the depth of
breathing and conditions like asthma and blocked/itchy/runny nose.
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The short-term goal is to get them free of symptoms. The next goal
is to be free of medication, which of course you will need to discuss with
your physician particularly in respect to preventative medication.
Day One
The main aim on day one is to allow your child to breathe only
through the nose. When you first breathe only through your nose when you
have been used to breathing through your mouth it feels a bit suffocat-
ing! This is because you have become used to lower than healthy levels of
CO2, and when you close your mouth an increased [healthier] amount of
CO2 is trapped in.
This makes you feel the desire to take a deep breath, until you get
used to it. After that time it feels strange if you breathe through your
mouth. You adapt to the higher level very quickly but only if you stick
at it.
If you can keep your childs mouth closed [unless they are talking or
eating] for just one day, then the next day it will be much easier for them to
keep zipped.
Do all of the hand actions, of feeling the breaths, and holding the
mouse. It is better if you have a dry run by yourself first so you know how
you would hold a mouse or put a finger under an elephants nose.
Explain about why they should breathe through their noses only.
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Steps Instructions:
Take a normal breath in through your nose, then let a little tiny
breath out through your nose, pinch your nose from above, and march
across the room. When you cannot go any further, stop!
When you stop, you must breathe only through your ..........NOSE,
just like a little .......MOUSE. It will feel a bit funny but that is OK, just
stay really still with your finger under your nose and you will soon feel
better.
Make sure that you keep your mouth zipped shut, or some air will try
to sneak in! If any air does sneak in, you have to stop, and just breathe like
a ..... mouse through your .......nose.
It is a good idea to arrange the setting so that you can see if their are
any sneaked mouth breaths especially with smaller children who will do it
to try and please you, or to compete with a sibling. If there is breath
blame the air that sneaked in, rather than the child to causing it to happen.
Reinforce with them and yourself that the most important part is the
breathing like a mouse when they stop, and for several minures afterward.
When the child stops, stand next to him, making sure the finger is under the
nose. Say that they will feel a bit strange, but that is OK. It is normal for
children to raise their shoulders upward and to tense their body when they
stop. Ask them to lower their shoulders [downwards] and to relax. Then
remind them to mouse breathe.
On the first attempt, some children can only go for a few steps, while
others may do up to 30 or more.
It does not matter too much on the first day, and there is no need to
push them for more steps this can be increased gently over the next few
days. There is no rush.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
For many children, asthma does not recur after the first session, as
they simply breathe like a mouse as soon as they feel the start of the
symptoms. For many just ensuring that the mouth is closed will stop the
asthma.
Your child will develop better control and attacks will be less severe
as breathing improves [as measured by the number of steps.] The attacks
will be avoided rather than having to be dealt with. Usually when your
child has built up to 100 steps there will be no asthma. For the majority of
children the number is much smaller.
The goal of training to get to the point where 100 [or more if the
child has athletic ambition] steps are easy, as this means that asthma does
not occur. If it does occur [number of steps will have dropped], then begin
again, building steps back up to 100, and the asthma will go again.
So, on day one mouth closed, no coughing, and do some sets of steps
[3 or 4] perhaps twice in the day, including once before bedtime. Use the
system to ensure that nasal breathing is possible [ie use steps to unblock
nose if needed.]
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
Remember the simple lesson of the mouse and the elephant. The
only way to cause asthma is by breathing like a big ......elephant. One of
the easiest ways to breath like an elephant is to sleep on your back. In this
position there is no resistance to huge deep breaths. Turning on your side
makes it physically more difficult to breathe so deeply your body pushes
down on your lungs more.
The other problem with being asleep is that your mouth will usually
open this allows us to breathe even more deeply. On top of this our
breathing gets deeper as our sleep gets deeper. When we are in our deepest
sleep, our breathing is at its deepest very deep indeed if we are on lying
on our backs with our mouths open! Too deep.
The answer to this is to keep your mouth closed when you are
asleep. The Manual contains a full section on this, but in brief, use surgical
tape to keep your childs mouth closed. Do this only on children over 5
years. It has been used on younger children, and the reason I suggest this
age is to ensure that the child has the ability to pull the tape off himself if
needed.
Before you write this idea off as absurd and dangerous listen to the
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
instructions. The goal is to have just enough sticking power on the tape to
for it to stay on, and keep the lips together.
It does not need much power to keep your lips together. Ensure your
mouth is closed, as you can breathe through this tape, and gently place in
lengthways along your lips. I suggest you do this on yourself first to show
your child that you are also doing it. [It will greatly improve your sleep
quality if you actually wear it in bed.]
Have a practice during the day with the tape so there is less if any
drama at bedtime. Check on the child around 3.30 am to check he has not
pulled it off. Re-apply it if necessary.
If it is off and you do not re-apply it, then your child will have no
protection during the deepest sleep/breathing period, and will start the next
day dealing with the results of huge elephant breathing. This may be
asthma, bedwetting or just plain tiredness. As with the breathing drills, this
is as important as brushing your teeth!
The most common concern with this is that your nose will block up
will your mouth is taped closed and you will suffocate. Fortunately, the
effect of CO2 on your nose makes this impossible. The more blocked your
nose becomes, the more CO2 you will trap in. The extra CO2 will cause
your nose to unblock. So your nose will not block completely unless you
open your mouth. It may whistle a bit, but cannot close up completely.
You may have noticed that there is a lot covered on Day One. This
is true. The following days are just a matter of reinforcement.
On day two the child should find less difficulty in keeping his mouth
closed. They will have become used to the higher levels of CO2 caused by
their mouth being closed.
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Steps sessions should now be done three times per day, with 4 to 5
sets of steps each session. ie. this means that each session should consist of
4 - 5 sets of steps, the number of which is recorded on a form or eventually
in a notebook. It is valuable to also record the level of asthma and
medication next to the steps records on a daily basis. This clearly shows
the decrease in symptoms and relief medication needed as the number of
steps increases.
On this day it is useful to introduce the idea to the child that there is
significant benefit in breathing like a mouse after ANY physical activity.
This will stop any exercise induced asthma that may exist, as well and
decreasing the recovery time for sports or activity. ie. if you breathe like a
mouse after running around, you will be ready to run around again sooner
than if you breathe like an elephant.
Another example is the child with the ability to throw a tantrum until
they begin to cough, then starts the asthma cycle. Parents learn to recognize
this cycle and may become conditioned to simply give in as it better than
a couple of weeks of having a very sick child possibly in hospital with
asthma.
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It is good for you also to do this drill. Same rules mouth closed,
and breathe like a mouse when you stop. Puffing is not allowed!
You can substitute other activities which are quite intense, but
remember to start gently and build slowly. Examples are hopping on one
foot, or two feet like a kangaroo, relay running with a ball if you have
several children, bouncing on a trampoline.
Observe closely to ensure that the drill is not too intense or too long.
It should not be so long or intense as to cause your child [or you] to get out
of breath. As breathing improves the length and intensity can be greatly
increased to the point where it will be difficult to become out of breath.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
puffed or winded.
I have watched the commited parents of a 2.5 year old girl walk
along-side of her during steps, one parent on each side hold a hand, and one
parent holding her nose gently. They walked until her mouth dropped open,
then stopped and played statues [be totally still] or did mouse breathing.
Within 6 months the child was completely free of asthma and it did
not recur. She is now 6, and can do steps easily, and is a great little athlete.
The key is to remember that it is not the actual steps that is the
training, but the reducing of the breathing to keep a tiny little more CO2 in
the lungs than you are used to. So a brief exertion, followed by reduced
breathing and results can be great.
In babies the answer lies mostly in keeping the mouth closed, and in
diet. The American Indians had the tradition of a mother sitting beside a
sleeping baby and if the mouth opened then the mother would simply push
and hold them closed. This is a good habit for modern parents.
The other key is to give the baby a dummy. This will keep the
mouth closed to some degree, and can be used effectively to stop coughing.
Give it to your baby if asthma or croup or bronchitis or whatever is
present.
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When you put your child down to sleep [for their main sleep] do not
give them a large feed just before. In particular do not give a child milk
before bed. The combination of the increase in breathing from the high
protein and high fat, with the increase in breathing from being in a prone
position, will have a talented asthmatic child coughing in no time flat.
There has been much debate about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
here in Australia. The recommendation has gone from not putting a baby
down on their back, to putting a baby down and their back, and now
returned to not putting baby on its back. The problem is that the sample
size of babies lost to this syndrome is very small, so it is difficult for
researchers to to suggest much at all.
From the breathing point of view, putting the child on side or front is
better than on its back. The other recommendation from the SIDS people is
to avoid over-heating your child with too many blankets or clothes.
Steps are both the measurement and intensity guide for training in
children. When your child can do 75 steps with good control of breathing
afterwards, his breathing is much better than when he can only do 10 steps.
The equivalent is the Measurement pause in adults when it is only a few
seconds you have asthma, migraine, breathlessness, hormonal imbalance
etc. When it is 45 or 50 seconds you do not.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
example if all symptoms disappeared when the steps were around 45 steps,
then if he or she can do 90 steps then you have a safety zone [of 45
steps].
A young man [10 years old called Nathan] in Townsville was able to
go from being able to do only 7 or 8 steps to over 300 steps in a six-month
period. He was extremely severe with asthma and other conditions, and in
now an excellent [champion] swimmer.
Should your child get a cold or infection, the number of steps they
can do will drop. If your child simply remembers the mouse breathing and
non-coughing rules, there is not usually a problem, and when they feel
better start steps training at the beginning again.
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CHAPTER 11 The Buteyko Method For Children
around 60 steps as usual but only 35 steps, then do more sets of steps. So
instead of 3 sets of 60, do 5 sets of 35 remembering that the training
effect is in the reduced breathing when the steps are complete.
Review
Training for children consists of:
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Day/Date Time Start Steps Steps Steps Steps End Medication/Condition Diary
Pulse Pulse Record All Symptons and Medication
CHAPTER 12 The Buteyko Method For Infants
Asthma In Infants
Y
ou will have seen from your reading that applying the Buteyko
Method is an active process. The person who is learning the
method takes control of their breathing and by reduction of the use
of their deep breathing muscles reduces the depth of their breathing until a
desire for a deeper breath is felt. This indicates that a higher level of CO2
is being trapped in, so in a short time avoiding the conditions associated
with CO2 deficiency.
This is the first step for all people learning to apply the method. It is
active in the sense that you control the separation of your lips, but the way
that this alters your breathing is passive. You simply close your mouth and
the increase in CO2 levels happens to you. [Providing that you do not
become stressed and increase your breathing depth, still with your mouth
closed. This may be a factor if you suffer from panic attacks.] In most
cases people who have been used to breathing through the mouth will feel a
little suffocated or feel the desire for a deep breath within a minute or two
of having their mouth closed.
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CHAPTER 12 The Buteyko Method For Infants
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CHAPTER 12 The Buteyko Method For Infants
If you follow a powerful sneezer home and observe how his [more
pronounced in the male] toddler sneezes guess what you will find. The
child will have learned without being officially told that appropriate way to
deal with a nose tickle is loud, violent and irrigating method that dad does,
or whichever person the baby has learned from.
So what is the message? Follow the simple rules that the Buteyko
systems teaches you. Keep your mouth closed, your posture reasonably
straight, and read the Appendix to see how you should blow your nose and
sneeze.
You will have heard of the impact of dairy food on people in general.
You may have heard that dairy food is mucus-forming. This implies that
the food itself causes the formation of mucus, but you now know that the
food simply causes a change in the depth of breathing which then causes the
production of mucus. [The increased depth of breathing causes you to lose
a little more CO2, which causes your mucus factories to increase
production!]
Your child is an individual, but has similar genes to you. Look at the
sensitivities of both parents and grandparents when looking at your child's
diet. Find all of the clues you can about how your entire family handles
their food. Quiz your parents ask what you were fed, and if you had any
problems. It is amazing what people remember about their own babies!
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Realize that a huge meal of anything can make your [and your
baby's] breathing much worse. [This is apart from any effect of any
individual food.] If your meal is too big your breathing will suffer! Try
it. Measure your breathing using the Measurement Pause, then stuff
yourself until you are past full.
Unless you are breast-feeding your child [which limits the total
amount of food he gets], then it is worthwhile reducing the size of each
bottle. A childs stomach is quite small and too much of any food will
soon overfill it. Like you, your child can take a little time to realize it is full
and naturally keeps sucking away at the bottle until it is overfull. Just
like breast feeding the best for babies and toddlers is small meals often.
The other challenge here is to not confuse hunger with thirst. Not
every bottle has to be milk or formula. We all need water. When you give
your baby [or yourself] water it should be filtered. If you do not have a
high quality filter, then at least boil the water, and let it sit. This not only
ensures it is free of nasty bugs but as importantly gets rid of the chlorine.
And it will taste much better than tap water.
Apart from experimenting with the size of each meal/snack you give
your child, you must also look at the timing of each meal. Think about
what happens to adult asthmatics if you have a large meal, followed then by
having a good sleep.
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Now observe your breathing again. Note to see how long each
breath takes, how easy or hard it is to breathe, whether your breathing is
nice and regular or erratic. Do this for a minute or two.
Let's apply this to your baby. Large meals increase their breathing
depth. Sleeping [worse on back] increases breathing depth. You want your
child to cough give a large meal then put them down for their big sleep!
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This is traditionally done because the big meal makes them drowsy,
[the huge dose of insulin released does it], and therefore easier to put to
sleep. If your child is getting asthma then you have to forego this
shortcut.
Give the larger meal well before bedtime, and then a smaller snack
before bed. If you are using milk or formula, then use a small bottle at
bedtime or give water or [unsweetened] juice at that time.
In effect this usually means breaking the larger before bed feeding
into two smaller feedings. Just like when breastfeeding. This same rule
also applies to adults have either a very small meal before going to bed
or nothing at all.
What food is best for your baby? Breast milk is best. Sometimes
this is not possible or always available so mostly you will use or supple-
ment with milk [cows] or some kind of formula. If you are having
problems or at least your baby is with coughing or wheezing, then
you need to experiment. Many children are lactose intolerant which
means that cows milk will not allow them to thrive, and will adversely
affect their breathing.
SUMMARY
The most important thing to remember is that once your baby is old
enough you can teach them active steps to take to clear up their asthma.
Your main tasks are to ensure that they are kept alive until then, and to keep
their comfort level as high as possible. This may seem a brutal thought
but the fact is that you cannot retrain their breathing habits unless they are
alive. So you must remain calm in the face of symptoms, yet be ready to
seek emergency help and all the power of modern medicine to ensure their
survival. Take no risks.
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CHAPTER 12 The Buteyko Method For Infants
This baby was also known to copy his older sister [2.5 years]
every time she coughed he joined in. Excellent!] Both parents breathed
mostly through their mouths, and so did both children. Within one hour of
both parents being told of the importance of nasal breathing both
children also breathed through more often through their noses.
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CHAPTER 12 The Buteyko Method For Infants
If you have the use of an older sibling, then you can use them as
models for teaching infants and toddlers how to do the exercises in the
childrens instruction chapter. A two year old will mimic the things done by
a 5 year old. These exercises have a massive impact even if not done
exactly right by a toddler. If you can get it pretty close [as the child is
not yet able to do it precisely], you will still get decreased symptoms.
Obviously is also a good idea to avoid trigger factors like dust, dust
mites, and pollens if you can. Regulary turning mattresses and washing
mattress covers with a touch of bleach helps, as does ensuring that pillows
are clean and fresh smelling. A weekly dose of sunshine on pillows helps
with this. If you able then having non-carpeted floors is good.
Care should be taken to keep the family cat dander free. This can be
done by a weekly bath. Dander is a very potent trigger, and even if it does
not affect breathing enough to cause asthma, it will still cause itchy eyes. If
your cat does not allow a weekly bath, say goodbye to it.
Nasal blockage: If your baby has a blocked nose and cannot breathe
through it at all then there are some gentle steps you can take to help.
Firstly, determine if it is completely blocked or only partially blocked. If it
is only partially blocked then it is easier to deal with. Your goal will be to
have the child trap in more CO2 you will do this by increasing their
production of CO2, but then keeping the mouth closed to keep some of the
extra CO2 in.
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If you do not use a dummy, then simply push their lips together. You
will find that their nose is more clear. Repeat this process if needed, so that
the nose becomes sufficiently open to breathe through. Do not be
concerned if both nostrils do not become 100% clear. The first goal is
comfortable nasal breathing.
Bed/Cots: Your baby's bed should be quite firm, and best position
for sleep is on the tummy or on the sides
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
Emphysema
I
n the past emphysema has been seen as a death sentence. Your doctor
or specialist may have explained to you that this condition is
progressive, and will eventually stop you from breathing at all. You
may have been told that new drugs are becoming available all the time, and
new research is happening.
If you are youngish, then you may have been told there is a chance
for a lung transplant later. Some doctors will simply say to make the most
of the rest of your life while you still can.
While this is pretty good advice to follow anyway, there are some
really interesting other things to know about. There is a theory that
smoking causes emphysema. There are literally thousands of people who
have emphysema, but have never smoked ever. They have never been
exposed to even passive in any dose; they have the same condition as a
two-packs-a-day-for-thirty-years smoker.
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
Smoking
Smoking is a double whammy for emphysema. The deep breathing
associated with smoking causes the loss of more CO2, which induces your
mucus factories [special glands that produce mucus or phlegm] to
increase their output. Added to this is the effect of bringing foreign
particles into your lungs. This also causes an increase in mucus production
[to clean up the bits of tar and debris]. The effect is a huge increase in
mucus and it is no wonder that alveoli [and bronchi] clog up.
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
If you must continue to smoke, then at least bear in mind the lessons
contained in this book. You will be able to reduce the symptoms of
emphysema if you follow this breathing model because you will be
stopping one of the factors that produce the symptoms. The other will still
exist, and you will continue to do damage until you stop.
Antytrypsin Deficiency
The curse of the genetic ability to produce less antitrypsin than
you need can also be reduced in effect. I now have two clear cases where
people with severe symptoms and this genetic deficiency have had major
reductions in emphysema symptoms after using the Buteyko System. One
lady in England used only this Instructional Manual. The first I learned of
it was when a British Doctor who was now working in Australia contacted
me to ask how it could have happened. This GP said that it was hard to
believe, but she could not argue with the results. So if you have been
tested, and shown to have this particular gene do not give up hope!
The reason for hope is that for a major portion of your life you
produced enought antitrypsin to live normally. At some point something
changed which resulted in you beginning to experience the symptoms of
emphysema. I am saying that one thing that changed is the depth of your
breathing. It changed in exactly the same way that the breathing of
someone who gets asthma late in life also changed.
You will now be noticing that there is not a lot of difference between
asthma and emphysema. The cause as stated above is the same, the
symptoms are similar in effect, and even the medications used are the same.
The major difference is that emphysema causes more lung damage.
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
You may have been told that you only have a certain percentage of
your lungs still working as the mucus blockages in the alveoli have
damaged the alveoli so that they are no good for exchanging gases.
Before I go further into the practical way to determine whether you have
asthma or emphysema I want to give you some good news.
So regardless of how much good lung you have been told you have
left be positive! Your goal will be tune your breathing so you can take
best advantage of what you have, plus try to prevent any further damage.
Another point is that lung tissue that appears to quite destroyed on X-ray
will still be able to do the job to some degree so the percentages that are
calculated from x-rays are always more pessimistic.
As a general rule, the more your symptoms are caused by asthma, the
better. This is because there is generally less damage to lung tissue in
pure asthmatics, and much more in pure emphysemics. [Note that if
you have severe asthma for long enough you will also have some emphy-
sema and lung (alveoli) damage.]
The easy way to tell how much emphysema or asthma you have is
examine how well you respond to your relief medication. For example,
when you take your Ventolin [salbutamol] or other fast acting bronchodila-
tor, how long does it take to work? If it works within a few minutes that
means you have a good component of asthma because this medication
works mostly on the airpipes. It does not mean you have no emphysema
only that you have some asthma. If it does not work for 10 minutes or so,
then you have more emphysema, and less if any asthma. If it does not work
at all, which is common, and makes no difference at all, then you probably
have straight-out emphysema.
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The training effect kicks in and soon major improvements are seen.
[It is a little like the first time you go for a swim or a walk and the first day
you can only go a small way before you wear out, but if you train properly
then each time you can go further and further. This applies to people of all
ages and if you want to get older faster then rest a lot! Once you can
control your breathing then you can start to train again get stronger
and enjoy life more.
You cannot do this until your breathing system works again if you
try to train when you cannot breathe you are taking a huge risk your
heart may give up. So the most important less for those with emphysema
[and in asthma] is to never exert to the point where you can no longer
control your breathing. You must stop the exertion just before this point,
reduce your breathing depth [almost suffocate yourself] until you have
recovered, and only then continue your exertion.
Once you can get to the point where you stand without becoming
breathless, then stand and walk ten paces, stop and recover. It is the
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
recovery which is the most important part. You must do the opposite of
what you really want to do which is to put your hands on your knees and
suck in the big ones. It will feel as if you are not getting enough air and
I am telling you to suffocate even more!! I will go over some of the
chemistry to do with oxygen and CO2 below but the simple fact is that
you have nothing to lose by trying it. No one else is telling you that you
can reverse your condition.
If your condition right now is that you are gasping [even before you
have done anything] then just sitting or lying there is sufficient exertion
to begin with. Your first step is to be not needing to gasp; the only way
you can do this is again doing the opposite of what it feels right to do. That
is, you have to suffocate yourself a little, even though what you really want
to do is breathe deeply like a horse.
Remember that the reason you are gasping is because your body is
trying to stop you breathing like an elephant instead of a human.
Much confusion arises with these two gases when you first try to
figure out what is going on. This book is telling you that it is carbon
dioxide [CO2] which is the controller of your breathing, but you know from
your own experience that oxygen is also needed.
When your breathing is normal, and you are not suffocating, it is the
- Page 103 -
CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
level of CO2 which controls your breathing. However, when the level of
oxygen in your blood drops too low, then this takes over the control of how
deeply you breathe. Now some interesting points rise to make things more
confusing.
So if the level of CO2 in your lungs is wrong, then it can affect every
single reaction in your body. [To confuse things a little further the
increased level of CO2 in your blood will alter pH as well but in a
different direction to the change caused by a lack of CO2 in your lungs. In
a way they balance almost themselves out.]
Now the CO2 level in your blood is different to the level in your
lungs. If you have emphysema and have been to hospital you will know
that as well as measuring your blood oxygen, they also measure your blood
CO2 and when you difficulty breathing it is usually very high!
This is because the CO2 that your body produces [a little when you
are still, and more when you use up more energy] cannot pass through the
alveoli to get into your lungs [and therefore out into the air], and so keeps
going around and around in your bloodstream. When your lungs are
working normally the CO2 can get out of the blood by crossing the alveoli
into the lungs, but when the mucus has blocked the alveoli it cannot.
So this means that you can have too high a level of CO2 in your
blood, but too low a level in your lungs. The fact that it is too low in your
lungs means that the mucus still keeps being formed in your alveoli, and
keeps it blocked.
Now follow closely here because this explains why you feel so
suffocated. When the alveoli is blocked, it means that the oxygen in your
lungs cannot get into your blood. Remember that to stay alive your body
uses up oxygen, and turns it into CO2 which gives it energy.
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
So your body uses the oxygen in your blood and turns it into CO2
but if your alveoli is blocked off by mucus then the CO2 cannot get out
of the blood, and more oxygen cannot get INTO the blood. You have plenty
of oxygen in your lungs and no matter how much you breathe you
cannot get it past the blocked alveoli into the blood where the level is
getting lower and lower.
So even though you are getting lower and lower levels of oxygen in
the blood, the more deeply you breathe to try and get more in the more
you block off the passages. So you are stuck in a loop!
The only way to break out of the loop is fight against your automatic
reflex to breathe more deeply when your oxygen levels are low. This means
that even though the low levels of oxygen are making you feel suffocated
you must do the opposite of what feels right and suffocate yourself even
more than you already feel! This sounds scary doesn't it?
When enough oxygen has got into your blood, the oxygen control of
your breathing [which makes you want to breathe deeper and deeper] will
stop, and CO2 will start controlling it again. But you will not change your
strategy your answer is ALWAYS to breathe less deeply than you want
to.
- Page 105 -
CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
Over a period of time if you keep trapping in more CO2 than your are used
to you will get used to higher and higher levels [in your lungs!]. The
more you are used to, the less mucus you will produce in your alveoli
and the less your emphysema symptoms will be.
Your goal is to remember that you want more CO2 in your lungs, and
the way to do that is to breathe so gently that you cannot hear your
breathing or feel it if your place your index finger under your nose.
You can do it and it is only slightly worse than what you are
going through already, and if you do it then you can look forward to
improving rather than getting steadily worse. You can do it from this book
but it is a lot easier if you can get to a class or find an instructor who will
guide and support you.
About Oxygen
The level of oxygen in your blood when you are able to breathe
normally is very high. You cannot significantly increase the level of oxygen
in your blood by breathing more! Your blood is usually 99% saturated
with oxygen you cannot squeeze more in by deep breathing.
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
If the mix of gases is wrong, then the motor will have low power,
poor economy and will wear out faster. [Not to mention spluttering and
backfiring!] The way to tune your carburettor is to breathe less deeply than
you want, this automatically improves your performance.
The same rules apply as for asthma. See your doctor before altering
any medication!
Use your breathing to try to get relief first, then use your relief
medication if you need it. If the relief medication you are using makes no
difference to your symptom level then ask your doctor why you are taking
it. See another doctor if they insist on taking it when no difference is felt.
In cases where no drugs give any relief at all, there is a way of using
oral steroids to get a little relief. Obviously you need to talk to your doctor
before changing any drugs, and particularly with this approach. At times
when your your breathing is really bad, and you feel yourself getting more
and more exhausted, then taking 5 milligrams of Prednisone, chewed, with
warm water may give you a little rest. It is chewed as this helps speed
absorption, as does the warm water. Even with this, the drug it will take at
least 2 hours to have an effect. So take it then sit very quietly doing your
breathing as well as you can.
When you have a history of very severe emphysema then you need
to view your breathing training on a yearly basis. You will have times when
you have bad days and good days. If you keep to the strategy then over
time your bad days will not be as bad or as frequent, and your good days
will get better. In the short term with severe cases you will be looking for
an improvement in recovery time, and an improved endurance.
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CHAPTER 13 Emphysema
- Page 108 -
APPENDIX 1 Buteyko Clinical Trial Summary
Summary of Results
of the Buteyko Clinical Trial
Introduction
The Trial was held at the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane, and was
funded primarily by the Australian Association of Asthma Foundations.
Methodology
Subjects were instructed not to alter inhaled steroid dose during the
initial six weeks, after which a clinical review would take place. After that
review, subjects using short acting B-agonists at one dose or less than one
- Page 109 -
APPENDIX 1 Buteyko Clinical Trial Summary
dose per day were instructed to reduce their inhaled steroids according the
protocol.
Respiratory testing FEV, Minute Volume, and End Tidal CO2 were
conducted after run-in, at 6 weeks, and at 12 weeks. Diary card data was
gathered at this time and Quality of Life Questionnaires were administered
at these times plus at 8 months. Also at 8 months a further medication-use
questionnaire was given.
Results
Results at 6 Weeks
- Page 110 -
APPENDIX 1 Buteyko Clinical Trial Summary
Summary at 6 Weeks
After 6 weeks Buteyko subjects used 90.2% less beta-agonist [relief
medication], felt substantially better in terms of breathlessness, mood,
social activity and concerns about the future, had less symptoms, and as a
group used less inhaled steroid.
Results At 3 Months
Beta-agonist Use
Buteyko group had maintained decreased average use by 90%
Placebo group had increased average use by 9%
Follow-up At 8 Months
At 8 months the decrease in beta-agonist use in the Buteyko Group had been
maintained.
- Page 111 -
APPENDIX 1 Buteyko Clinical Trial Summary
Discussion
Addendum
The control group of the above Clinical Trial was offered the
opportunity to receive instruction in Buteyko Breathing after blinding was
removed from the groups.
- Page 112 -
APPENDIX 2 Importance of Carbon Dioxide
The Importance
of Carbon Dioxide
T
he purpose of this appendix is to draw the attention of both expert
and non-expert the significance of CO2 in our bodies. I will
explain in over-simplified terms, and will try to cover only enough to
convey the importance while lessening the confusion where possible.
The energy from this basic reaction is the source of all energy from
the breakdown of carbohydrates [carbon-hydrogens]. The CO2 produced
here is the main source of CO2 for the body. Remember there is almost
none in the atmosphere now.
The burning of sugars is the main energy source for your muscles.
So therefore for the muscle cells to function they must have both the sugar
and the oxygen. The sugar is made available from the blood, where it has
been placed by various organs in the body. The oxygen [O2], comes from
the atmosphere. It is drawn into the lungs, is pulled across the membranes
of the lungs into the arterial blood. There is a special type of blood cell
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APPENDIX 2 Importance of Carbon Dioxide
called the Red Blood Cell [or RBC] which is like a ferry for gases inside
the body.
On this RBC ferry, their are special seats for oxygen. These are
called hemoglobin, and there is a limited number of seats, so they are
often almost completely filled with oxygen as the blood leaves the lungs.
[97% saturated with oxygen.]
The RBC ferry travels through the body on the arterial freeway
which becomes narrower and narrower until there is only one lane for
RBCs. This single lane puts the RBC very close to the cells, which may
be for example muscle cells.
At this time, because there are more oxygens on the ferry than
around the cells, many oxygens gets off the ferry. If there are heaps of
CO2s in the area, it changes the chemistry of the bus, and many more
Oxygens get off. These oxygens are then available for use by the cells.
[that is, they can be reacted with sugar inside the cells to make more energy
and CO2.]
At this time lots of CO2s get onto the RBC ferry. There are special
seats on the ferry for CO2 as well. A very small amount [7%] will just
stand in the aisles [as CO2 dissolved in water] A slightly larger group
[23%] will take some old oxygen seats [hemoglobin]. The biggest group
[70%] is turned into bicarbonate by a special enzyme on the bus. [It is
this reaction that makes more oxygens get off the ferry. There more CO2
there is to turn in bicarbonate, the more oxygen gets off.]
After having gone through the single lanes of the arterial highway,
the RBC ferry now is on the Vein highway. At this time there is usually
still a lot of oxygens on the ferry, with about 75% saturation. So most of
the oxygens get a round trip.
The vein highway takes the RBC ferry back towards the lungs.
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APPENDIX 2 Importance of Carbon Dioxide
When the RBC ferries and bicarbonates along side them reach the
lungs, the sheer pressure from the masses of oxygens just inside the alveolar
sacs pushes in and takes over all of the hemoglobin seats. The reaction
involved in taking these seats releases a chemical which causes the
bicarbonate to be turned into carbonic acid. This can be turned back into
CO2 and water. This CO2 and the water that is formed are released into
the alveolar spaces [where the oxygens have just come from.]
This is a little complex, but the ratio of carbonate and carbonic acid
is very important, because these chemicals act as a buffer for the body.
[This is just a way to keep all of the charges, plusses and minuses balanced.
Your body cannot handle big changes in the charges.] The ratio of
bicarbonate to carbonic acid present determines the pH of the extracellular
fluid, which surrounds all of the cells in your body.
The pressure of the CO2 in the lungs, which keeps the carbonic acid
levels set, is dependent on the rate at which CO2 passing out of the blood in
the lungs is diluted with atmospheric air. So the level depends on the depth
and frequency of breathing.
When the pH [the balance of charges] in the fluid around our cells
because of a decrease in bicarbonate [it got onto the RBC ferry], the
breathostat tells the breathing to increase which lowers the CO2 dissolved
in the lungs, which allows the carbonic acid to drop, which brings the ratio
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APPENDIX 2 Importance of Carbon Dioxide
of bicarbonate and carbonic acid [and thus the pH] back to normal.
Buteykos Theory
Due to deep respiration an excessive amount of CO2 is removed
from the body, resulting in a change in chemical balance which is only
partially neutralized by compensatory mechanisms. Over a period of time
the loss of CO2 becomes increasingly disruptive to the functioning of the
body. All physical and chemical processes are affected.
The loss of CO2, because of release from the lungs at a rate faster
than its creation in the tissues leads to an increase in pH. Generally a state
of oxygen deficiency also occurs due to reduction of the Bohr effect.[Less
oxygen is taken from the RBC ferry.]
- Page 116 -
APPENDIX 2 Importance of Carbon Dioxide
The other category are the diseases which occur as a result of the
changed pH and compensatory mechanisms. These include disruption of
formation of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins; Disruption of the energy
production efficiency [decreased ATP formation]; and a disruption in the
efficiency of the processes of formation of CO2.
- Page 117 -
APPENDIX 3 Steroid Deficit In Asthma
T
his section is only for those who are currently requiring oral steroids
to remain stable, or those who have a need to take oral steroids
periodically to control severe attacks.
One the one hand is the desire to avoid side effects, and on the other
hand there often an urgency to get rapid control of the asthma to avoid
potential death.
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APPENDIX 3 Steroid Deficit In Asthma
If the asthmatic is in crisis, and has potential for death, obviously the
emergency physician will use his/her judgement to keep them alive. It is
better to over-supplement in this case.
- Page 119 -
APPENDIX 3 Steroid Deficit In Asthma
If the resting pulse dose not decrease, the steroids should continue to
be added each 2 hours until it does, regardless of the total dose reached.
The combination of the pulse and the condition of the patient will indicate
when the shortfall has been filled. When the shortfall is huge [say 150mg],
then even the introduction of 100 mg will produce little relief, and also no
side effects. Remember the side effects occur when the total amount of
steroid in the body exceeds the needs of the body. The doses up to that
point are not the issue. If a person is 150mg short, that is how much they
need. There is no overdose until 151mg is reached, and it almost the same
as taking 11mg when you need 10mg. [only far more scary.]
In small children and infants, the dose can be titrated with 1mg tabs
or syrup.
- Page 120 -
APPENDIX 3 Steroid Deficit In Asthma
- Page 121 -
APPENDIX 4 Sneezing & Blowing Your Nose
T
he most important thing to remember is that the mucus in your nose
is the result of your mucus factories producing too much mucus.
These factories will do this because the amount of mucus they
produce depends on the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) present. The less
CO2, the more mucus produced.
So, what you need to do is two things. Firstly, you want to get the
mucus that is in your nose to stop being there. You want to do this because
it is irritating to the lining of your nose, and makes you do an annoying
sniffle, or it may in fact be blocking your nostrils to some degree.
The second thing you want to do is to not lose any more CO2 from
your body, which will cause your mucus factories to make even more
mucus than you have now. In fact, you really want to trap a little more CO2
in to reduce your current production of mucus.
Your strategy must be to remove the mucus from your nose while
losing as little CO2 as possible. This is done by removing ONLY the
mucus from your nose the mucus that is in your nostrils. Do not go
mining for mucus and try and suck it off the back of your skull! Your
strategy is to remove only that which is loose and runny. You will do this
with as gentle a blow as possible.
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APPENDIX 4 Sneezing & Blowing Your Nose
Step 2. Using the fingers of your left hand, use the handkerchief to
block your left nostril, and blow gently ONCE ONLY. This will clear your
right nostril.
Step 3. Then block your right nostril with the handkerchief, and
blow gently ONCE ONLY. This will clear your left nostril. Fold your
handkerchief and put it away.
From this point, if your nose is blocked then you will be able to
unblock it with reduced depth breathing as described in this book. You will
not be able to unblock it further by blowing harder and harder.
Rules
1. There should be almost no sound. There should definitely be no
trumpeting like an elephant. A person a few feet away should hear
nothing. If there is noise, it means that you are blowing harder than your
need to, and you are losing more CO2 so causing the production of more
mucus than you clear. The more you blow, the more mucus you will create,
or the more blocked your nose will become
2. After you have finished, then you need to breathe like a mouse
for a minute or two, to trap in some extra CO2, which will decrease the
swelling of the lining of your nostrils.
At all times in your body, your mucus factories are producing mucus.
A small amount is appropriate. This is used to mop up particles that
should not be there, including virus particles, bacteria, dust, etc. As well as
producing mucus, your body has a normal system of cleaning up the mucus.
- Page 123 -
APPENDIX 4 Sneezing & Blowing Your Nose
Once the extra mucus is there, then harder you try to get rid of it by
blowing or coughing, the more mucus you will produce, the histamines you
will release, and the irritated the area will become making it more and
more sensitive to trigger factors like dust or pollens or smells.
The same rules apply whether the mucus is in your nose or in your
lungs. When it is in your lungs, you must control the cough reflex
ensuring that you cough only gently, and when the mucus is in your throat.
All coughing should be closed-mouth coughing unless you are choking
on something.
When it is in your nose, your must not waste your CO2 by blowing
like an elephant. If it is running down the back of your throat, then you can
stop it by doing the same procedures as you would use to unblock your nose
or stop an asthma attack.
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APPENDIX 4 Sneezing & Blowing Your Nose
it out. Each time you do this you lose more CO2, which in turn makes your
nose more sensitive, and then another trigger another sneeze is produced.
The more you sneeze, the more likely it is that you will sneeze again!
The best approach is to avoid the first sneeze, or failing that the
second sneeze. If you hardly ever sneeze, or sneeze only when something
like a fly blows up your nose, then this approach is not relevant. However,
if the tiniest little smell or atom of pollen or dust affects you, then you can
benefit from this.
The main rule is that you should not try to smother or contain a full
blown sneeze. If the sneeze gets to the point where you cannot stop it, let it
out, and try to prevent the next one. If you try to contain a sneeze you have
the potential to damage your hearing.
Your actions consist of recognizing that your have been breathing too
deeply, and you have lost too much CO2, so you must trap some more in
quickly. The simplest way to do this is to stop breathing. You can hold
your breath, just as you do in a Measurement Pause, or you can do what
they used to do in the movies!
If you are a fan of cowboy movies you will be able to picture a scene
where our hero and his partner are being pursued by a bunch of nasty
bandits. At a very tense point where our heros are hiding close to the bad
guys, the not-so-bright partner of our hero will begin to pre-sneeze. He will
go ah ah ah, but before the loud choo arrives our hero will place
his forefinger under his partners nose, his breathing will reduce, and the
sneeze will be avoided [saving them from detection by the bandits and
certain death!] You do not need the banditos to stop your sneezes.
You need only the realization that greatly reducing the depth of your
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APPENDIX 4 Sneezing & Blowing Your Nose
breathing will trap in more CO2, and will relieve the itch which start is
the sneeze.
Everyone knows that the simple act of putting your finger under your
nose can stop a sneeze it has surely been known at least as long as
movies have been around. Now you know how and why it works, and you
can make it work better for yourself. The same applies for most itches that
occur in the triangle that can be drawn from the centre of your upper lip to
your right temple to your left temple. This includes itchy eyes and itchy
noses. If you find yourself touching your face to scratch your nose, or
rub your eyes check your breathing. See if you can make the itch go
away just by breathing like a mouse. It is very likely that it will just
disappear.
You can reduce the impact of things like pollens and dust mites [and
droppings] if your reduce your breathing depth as soon as you sense these
triggers. For example, if smelling smoke has made your nose itch and eyes
scratchy in the past, then you can reduce this if your reduce your breathing
depth. [Obviously better to avoid them if you can, but at least now you can
cope when you have to.] Another example might be vacuuming or mowing
lawns this stirs up lots of dust and muck you can reduce the effect if
you suffocate a little while you are exposed. [Mouth closed of course!]
At the first sign of the warning itch in your nose that a sneeze may
be building stop your breathing, trap in some extra CO2, and try to make
the itch reduce. If you are too late to stop the first sneeze, try to stop the
next one. Do this by doing a Measurement Pause straight after the first
sneeze, and then breathing only just enough to stay alive. [Pretend there is
a really bad smell!!]
- Page 126 -
APPENDIX 5 Authors Notes & Details
F
rom the moment I could read and understand, I have been fascinated by
science. It seemed to me that science would eventually solve all of the
problems of the world. The problems of the world included by own personal
battle with illness in the form of asthma, allergy, and hay fever. I have been study-
ing these science problems first-hand since I was about 10 years old. There is
plenty of time to analyze when you lie in the darkness before dawn struggling for a
good breath.
For the first thirty years of my life I battled with asthma, as did most of my
family. Science would give us the answer soon. A new drug, an operation, or
perhaps even gene therapy would stop our disease. I studied biochemistry and
physiology at University to find all the clues. I then worked for multinational
pharmaceutical company to learn more about the drugs and the research.
There also had to be a link because some people did not develop the
problem until they were much older this implied that something other than
genetics was involved. Something we did caused the asthma gene to switch on
or off. I did not know what it was. I experimented with diet, which seemed to
help. I experimented with exercise, which seemed to help a little. Meditation and
martial arts also helped a little.
A little over 6 years ago, I found out about a Russian Professor called
Buteyko. His supporters claimed amazing relief from asthma and many other
diseases they even offered a guarantee. From the training I had received in
Science the impulse was to believe it was a fraud, which would soon disappear.
However, I was looking for a common link so I asked for and was given the
Biochemical Analysis of Buteyko Theory.
Hidden among the deep biochemistry was a very simple story. Every
person with asthma breathed a certain way, if their breathing was changed, their
symptoms would change. The breathing could make asthma symptoms appear or
reduce.
- Page 127 -
APPENDIX 5 Authors Notes & Details
A great many people are able to get relief very easily. Learn a simple story,
follow the simple instructions from the story, and practice a little. Buteyko is a
simple story on how to grow out of asthma and other diseases.
Some people need a little more help to change, and are aided by lessons
from an Instructor. An Instructor can guide you on how to get the breathing
exercise right, and also advise on how drugs are best used. [In conjunction with
your doctor.]
In the past six years I have instructed over 2000 people with breathing
related illnesses. The average decrease in need for relief medication for asthma is
91.4% within ten days. Steroids are reduced very slowly with 85% of students
free of all asthma drugs within 6 months.
Success is also gained in hay fever and migraine. Although most work is
still with asthma.
There is no one who will not benefit from learning the simple rules of
breathing. This story is different to that you have been told by your doctors, your
parents, your football coach and your friends. I ask that you study it, try it, and
only then believe it. All of the facts of medicine and science are only stories
which man has made up to try and explain what we observe. Just because a story
is old, it does not always mean it is the best story.
It is my hope that the principles in this book will eventually be taught to all
small children so that decades of suffering can be avoided. Youth should not be
wasted on illness.
James Hooper
Buteyko Instructor
Bachelor of Science
Member Australasian Buteyko Association
Principal Buteyko Practitioners Training College of Australia
- Page 128 -
APPENDIX 5 Authors Notes & Details
His other interests include accelerated learning techniques, advanced fitness train-
ing, bird watching and gardening.
James Hooper
Instep International Publications,
P.O. Box 2094,
Townsville, Qld. 4810
Australia.
E-mail: instep@beyond.net.au
http://www.ultra.net.au/learn
This site has numerous free tips on Accelerated learning, a free newsletter called
Mental Wizard Update, and offers the most amazing music for relaxation or for
learning.
Postscript
This Manual and Audio Tape Set is now available in the Spanish Language.
- Page 129 -
APPENDIX 5 Authors Notes & Details
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