Most of us give very little thought to how we breathe; we assume that because we do it every second of every moment that we are alive we know how to do it, right? But if we look around we'd see that everyone seems to be doing it in a different way. We have people who are shallow breathers, some are deep breathers, and then we have the fast and slow breathers. And finally before I forget we also have the people who breathe through the mouth rather than the nose, but that's for another day's article.



So which one is doing it right?

It's like driving a car, a lot of people can drive but from being on the road we all know how bad some drivers can be. They may have passed the test on the day and qualified for a license but over time some bad habits have crept in and they got lazy with their driving technique. The same goes for breathing, have you got lazy with yours? Could it be that your breathing is making you sick? And are you getting (as the man would say ?your moneys worth?) is the effort you're putting in giving you the best results?

They amount of material that exists on how to eat and prepare food and how important a good diet is huge but why is better breathing not given any consideration? It is the most important thing we do every day, we can live for some time without food or water but without oxygen we can live mere minutes. Should we not consider its importance too?

Did you know that the higher the volume of air a person breathes can be closely related to the extent of their illness! This was discovered by the Russian scientist Dr. Buteyko who found that this ratio was so precise he could actually predict in his hospital the exact moment when a patient was going to pass away.

The majority of people have the bad habit of over-breathing. Over breathing is when you breathe in too much air and breathe out too much carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide levels are very important to your body and I'll go into this in a second but we all have the idea that because we breathe out carbon dioxide it's a waste product but maybe we don't know the full story?

So why is carbon dioxide so important to us?

Did you know the level of carbon dioxide is important when the oxygen is traveling around the body? If the levels of CO2 are below the required 5 - 6.5% the bond between your haemoglobin (which carries your oxygen in the blood) will be too sticky and won't be able to release it to the cells and tissues that need it as its traveling around. The oxygen in your system could make a whole round trip of your body and never be released to do its work.

CO2 is also important to keep your blood vessels and capillaries dilated because it helps by keeping the surrounding muscles smooth and relaxed. You can see this in a person that sufferers with asthma the airways constrict because of a low level of CO2. To the person suffering the asthma attack it feels that they need more oxygen coming in but if they had more CO2 in their system the airways would naturally relax and allow you to breathe freely.

You can see this at work yourself if you ever suffer from having a stuffed nose (that you find hard to breathe through). Take a breath and hold it for a little while longer then you normally would do, and allow the levels of CO2 to increase and you will find that your nose passage ways of your nose will start to relax and unblock themselves. If it doesn't unblock after the first attempt keep breathing like this until it changes.

CO2 is also important for the ph balance of our body. We've all heard of the acid/alkaline balance of the body, the more acidic the body the sicker it becomes and more alkaline the healthier the body. This ph scale goes from number 1 (acidic) to number 14 (alkaline) and at healthy human body falls between the two at number 7.

When too much carbon dioxide leaves the body because of over breathing the body becomes more alkaline and this lowers your metabolic activity and leaves you with poorer immunity. Causing you too suffer from more colds and flu's. But as the levels of Co2 are increased the immune system increases responds also.

I hope after reading this article you've learned of how important right breathing is for your body, both in how you breathe (using the nose rather than the mouth) and why what you breathe out is just as important as what you breathe in.