The Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter You
Page 25
When you feel you can move your abdomen in and out easily at will, proceed to Stage 2, which incorporates these abdomen movements with your breathing.
Stage 2: Merging Abdominal Movements with Breathing
• Sit up straight.
• Place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your abdomen.
• As you breathe, allow your shoulders to relax into their natural position.
• Gently encourage chest movements to reduce as you breathe, using the guidance of your mind and your hand.
• At the same time, try to coordinate your abdomen movements with your breathing.
• As you breathe in, gently guide your abdomen outward. Imagine you are breathing into your tummy. (Try not to make the movement too big, as doing so may cause dizziness.)
• As you breathe out, gently draw your abdomen in.
• Your breathing should be gentle, silent, and calm.
• Perform this exercise for a few minutes to acclimatize yourself to the movements of your diaphragm and your breath.
If you are finding this exercise difficult, you may find it easier to activate abdominal breathing while lying on your back in a semi-supine position. Try the following exercise lying on a mat with a small pillow under your head and your knees bent, as shown on the following page.
• Place a relatively large book on the area just above your navel.
• As you breathe in, bring your breathing into your abdomen by gently guiding your abdomen to move the book upward.
• As you breathe out, gently allow the abdomen to move back to its original position.
• The inhalation is the active phase, and the exhalation is passive, as you allow the air to leave the body naturally and effortlessly. While breathing in, imagine inflating your tummy with a light amount of air and watch the book rise. While breathing out, imagine a balloon slowly deflating of its own accord.
Stage 2 in Brief
• Breathe in. Gently guide your abdomen out.
• Breathe out. Gently draw your abdomen in.
When you are confident that you are able to match your breathing with the movements of your diaphragm, proceed to Stage 3.
Stage 3: Reducing Breathing Volume Using Abdominal Breathing
If you have tried Stages 1 and 2 but still find you are unable to switch from upper-chest to abdominal breathing, don’t be concerned—it can take time to readjust to a new way of breathing after years of breathing from the upper chest. You can still proceed to Stage 3—simply keep practicing all three stages until it becomes easier. The more you use these exercises, the greater your tolerance of carbon dioxide will become.
Reducing your breathing is about lowering the amount of air you take into your lungs during each minute. As you reduce your breathing, there will be a slight accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood, assisting with the relaxation of the diaphragm. If you have already mastered diaphragmatic breathing through the first two stages, then you will find that it is a lot easier to reduce your breathing volume toward normal as you practice Stage 3.
There are two main approaches to reducing breathing volume using diaphragmatic breathing. The first is to bring a feeling of relaxation to the body, to gently allow your breathing movements to slow down and become softer. As your body relaxes, your breathing will automatically reduce in response. The second approach is to tune in to your breathing pattern, noting the size of each inhalation and exhalation. By concentrating on the rhythm of your breathing for a minute or two, you will gain a sense of how much air you are taking into your body. As you follow your breathing, gently encourage it to slow down so that your breathing movements gradually reduce to the point where you feel a subtle need for air.
This urge to breathe is the core of reduced breathing exercises and is a sign that you are actively altering your breathing habits toward a healthier, more effective level. When you first attempt reduced breathing exercises, you may find the sensation of air shortage difficult to maintain, but it is essential to keep practicing if you want to bring about changes to your body and improve your sporting performance. The following sentence is the most important point of this entire book, and something I explain to my students daily:
The only way to know you are reducing your breathing volume is feeling as if you would like to take in a bigger breath.
The need to take a bigger breath is similar to the feeling you will have experienced during your measurement of BOLT. This urge for air should not be stressful, but should be similar to what you might experience during a normal walk.
In Stage 3, we will bring abdominal breathing and reduced breathing together. To practice this exercise, it can be very helpful to sit in front of a mirror to observe and follow your breathing movements:
• Sit up straight.
• Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen.
• Imagine a piece of string guiding you upward from the top of the back of your head. Imagine the space between your ribs gently widening.
• As you breathe in, gently guide your abdomen out. Keep your chest movements to a minimum.
• As you breathe out, gently guide your abdomen in, still keeping your chest movements small.
• Follow each breath in and out through your nose.
• Tune in to the amplitude of each inhalation and exhalation. Try to get a sense of the size and frequency of each breath.
• As you breathe, exert gentle pressure with your hands against your abdomen and chest. This should create extra resistance to your breathing.
• Breathe against your hands, concentrating on making the size of each breath smaller.
• With each breath, take in less air than you would like to. Make the in-breath smaller or shorter.
• Breathe out with a relaxed exhalation. Allow the natural elasticity of your lungs and diaphragm to play their role in each exhalation. Imagine a balloon slowly and gently deflating of its own accord.
• When the in-breath becomes smaller and the out-breath is relaxed, visible breathing movements will be reduced. You may be able to notice this in a mirror.
By using a simple exercise like this you can reduce your breathing movements by 20 to 30 percent. If your stomach muscles start to feel tense, contract, or jerk, or if your breathing rhythm becomes disrupted or out of control, then the air shortage is too intense. In this situation, abandon the exercise for 15 seconds or so and return to it when the air shortage has disappeared.
The most common mistake is to deliberately tense the muscles of the chest or abdomen to restrict breathing movements. If you find this happening, then take a break from the exercise for 15 seconds or so. When you return to it, encourage your breathing to reduce by exerting gentle pressure on your chest and abdomen with your hands, encouraging your breathing to slow and diminish using relaxation rather than force.
Do not be concerned about the number of breaths you take per minute. Ideally, this should not increase. However, if your BOLT score is less than 20 seconds, you may find that your breathing rate increases during the exercise. If this happens, try to slow down your breathing and keep it calm. As your BOLT score increases it will become much easier to maintain control of your breathing during reduced breathing exercises.
At first, you may only be able to maintain an air shortage for 20 seconds before the urge to breathe is too strong. With practice, you will be able to maintain an air shortage for longer periods. Remember, you are trying to create an air shortage that is tolerable but not stressful. Aim to maintain this tolerable air hunger for 3 to 5 minutes at a time. Practicing 2 sets of 5-minute exercises is enough to help you reset your breathing center and improve your body’s tolerance of carbon dioxide.
During reduced breathing exercises it is vital that you create a hunger for air in order to bring about an accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood. When this happens, the respiratory center in the brain is reset toward a calmer and more normal breathing volume. In order to reset the respiratory center by j
ust a little, it is necessary to experience an air hunger for about 10 minutes. You can divide most of the exercises in this book into 2 sets of 5-minute sessions, or, if you feel you are confident and experienced in reduced breathing, you may practice for 10 minutes straight.
The Oxygen Advantage: Encompassing Many Factors to Improve Health and Fitness
General Program Based on BOLT and Health
Please note: Oxygen Advantage exercises that involve holding the breath to create a medium to strong air shortage during walking, jogging, or running create a similar effect to high-intensity training. As a result, they are not suitable if you are elderly, pregnant, or have high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type 1 diabetes, kidney disease, depression, cancer, or any serious health concern. Instead, practice nasal breathing and the gentle Breathe Light to Breathe Right exercise until these conditions are resolved.
Similar to physical exercise, it is recommended to practice the Oxygen Advantage exercises at least two hours after eating.
Program for BOLT Score of Less Than 10 Seconds (or an Unhealthy or Older Person)
• Measure your BOLT score each morning after waking.
• Breathe through the nose both day and night. To ensure nasal breathing at night, it will be necessary to wear paper tape across your lips during sleep.
• Practice the Breathing Recovery Exercise throughout the day, ideally spending 10 minutes 6 times per day doing small breath holds of between 2 and 5 seconds.
• Another option to help recover breathing is to exhale through your nose, pinch your nose with your fingers, and walk while holding the breath for 5 to 10 paces. Rest for 1 minute and repeat 10 times.
• Engage in 10 to 15 minutes of slow walking each day with the mouth closed. If you need to breathe through your mouth, you must stop walking to recover your breath.
• When your BOLT score increases to 15 seconds, you will find it a lot easier to bring relaxation to your body and to Breathe Light to Breathe Right. It is more beneficial to practice this exercise than Breathing Recovery once your BOLT score has reached 15 seconds. The minimum time required for an individual for such a low BOLT score is to practice Breathing Light to Breathe Right for 1 hour per day (6 sets of 10 minutes each).
• As your BOLT score increases, it will become a lot easier to engage in physical exercise. Your expected progress is to increase your BOLT score to 25 seconds within 6 to 8 weeks.
• Fill in the following chart to mark your progress.
Sixty-five-year-old Michael enjoys slow walking. He has chronic asthma and suffers from symptoms such as coughing, breathlessness, and wheezing. Michael’s BOLT is 7 seconds. This program emphasizes quality over quantity.
At the beginning, given Michael’s low BOLT score, he will find it difficult to Breathe Light to Breathe Right because the air hunger may destabilize his breathing. Therefore, a better initial option for him is to concentrate on breathing only through the nose both during the day and at night, and to practice many small breath holds (Breathing Recovery Exercise) throughout the day. It will also be very helpful for Michael to relax his body and encourage his breathing to soften, as long as doing so is not stressful and does not destabilize his breathing.
Gentle walking alone will be sufficient for Michael to generate a tolerable air shortage. He will not need to hold his breath during his walk unless he feels comfortable doing so. Sometimes, holding the breath during a walk is a good way to overcome chest tightness and to help increase one’s BOLT score. If Michael practices breath holds during his slow walks, they should be limited to no more than 10 paces. He should not hold his breath beyond the point at which he loses control of his breathing, as doing so will disrupt his breathing and possibly cause asthma symptoms.
Practicing the exercise Breathe Light to Breathe Right is very worthwhile and will be a lot easier for Michael to apply when his BOLT score reaches 15 seconds. Michael’s BOLT score will continue to increase as long as he dedicates 10 minutes by 6 times daily to his reduced breathing. This may sound like a lot of hard work, but living with asthma is extremely hard work in itself and will already be costing Michael a lot in terms of reduced quality of life and productivity. Reducing his breathing throughout the day will be the best investment in time that Michael has ever made.
Program for BOLT Score of 10 to 20 Seconds
• Measure your BOLT score each morning after waking.
• Breathe through the nose at all times. Wear paper tape across your lips during sleep to ensure nasal breathing at night.
• Regularly observe your breathing throughout the day to ensure it stays calm and soft.
• Swallow or hold the breath any time you feel a sigh coming. If you miss a sigh, then gently exhale through your nose and hold your breath for 5 to 10 seconds to compensate.
• Practice the Breathe Light to Breathe Right or Breathing Recovery exercise for 10 minutes, 3 times a day: once in the morning, once during the afternoon, and once before bed.
• Practice Breathe Light to Breathe Right—Walking for between 30 and 60 minutes per day; you can slow jog if your BOLT score is greater than 15 seconds.
• Fill in the following chart to mark your progress.
Jennifer works as a sales and marketing manager for a UK-based clothing store. Her work can be demanding, resulting in long hours spent in her car or in front of the computer. Travel takes up a large amount of her time, both to and from the head office and from store to store. Because of her busy schedule, Jennifer has gotten out of the habit of regular physical exercise. As she approaches her thirty-fifth birthday, she has become more conscious of her health and fitness and has decided to embark on a new exercise program.
Jennifer’s starting BOLT score was 12 seconds, with no apparent health concerns. In the beginning, it was important to avoid the common mistake of overdoing it. In an effort to make up for years of not exercising, there is often a temptation to plunge straight into intensive exercise, but performing beyond your ability can lead to increased breathlessness and feelings of failure. This can sometimes be enough to put you off a new program completely when you would have made much better progress by simply taking exercises at your own pace. The mantra for beginning any exercise program should always be: slow and steady, increasing the intensity and duration by no more than 10 percent each week.
I started Jennifer off very gently, matching specific exercises to her BOLT score and fitness level. To gently condition her body to a greater tolerance of carbon dioxide, Jennifer increased her daily walks to a light jog as soon as her BOLT score reached 20 seconds. During her first week of jogging, she alternated between 2 minutes of walking and 2 minutes of jogging. In the second and third weeks, she began jogging for 3 minutes followed by walking for 1 minute. By the fourth week she had achieved her long-awaited goal of jogging for a half hour straight, and more important she was able to do this comfortably with her mouth closed. All in all, Jennifer’s commitment to nasal breathing, gentle reduced breathing exercises, and regular physical exercise achieved impressive benefits with no risk of injury or feeling defeated from overtraining. By intelligently adapting a new exercise program to her needs, Jennifer was able to enjoy her newfound fitness in a way that fit easily around her work and routine.
Program for BOLT Score of 20 to 30 Seconds
• Measure your BOLT score each morning after waking.
• Breathe through your nose both day and at night, including wearing tape over the mouth during sleep.
• Reduce breathing using the Breathe Light to Breathe Right exercise for 10 minutes, 3 times per day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and last thing at night.
• Warm up for 10 minutes by walking and performing a breath hold to achieve a medium to strong air hunger every minute or so to Simulate High-Altitude Training.
• Breathe Light to Breathe Right during a fast walk or jog for 30 to 60 minutes daily with a relaxed body, abdominal breathing, and nasal breathing to create an air shortage.
• After physical exercise, practice the Breathing Recovery Exercise.
• Fill in the following chart to mark your progress.
David is twenty-three years old and a keen athlete. He trains four times per week and plays rugby for his hometown. His BOLT score is 20 seconds.
David has been mouth breathing and sighing regularly for several years. He snores during his sleep and wakes up most mornings with a dry mouth, nasal congestion, and fatigue. He also finds that during training his breathing is noisier than that of his teammates (who uncharitably call him “the train”). David’s heavy breathing can be heard long before he makes a tackle, with his opponents receiving advance warning that he is in pursuit. When I first met David I took note of his narrow facial structure, flaccid lower lip, and slightly protruding and crooked nose, indicating that he had been breathing through his mouth since childhood.
Like many athletes who have invested many years training to maintain their fitness, David was at first a little reluctant to make a drastic change to his regimen. To help dispel any fears, I sat him down and we discussed basic physiology, the importance of optimal breathing for sports success, the theory behind BOLT measurement, and the benefits of simulating high-altitude training.
David is able to maintain breathing through his nose while jogging lightly. However, during intense training, he finds doing nasal breathing too difficult. Training using nasal breathing creates resistance to breathing simply because the nose is a smaller area to breathe through than the mouth. David’s fear is that he may lose muscle conditioning because of the decrease in training intensity resulting from having to keep his mouth closed. Taking this situation into account, the best approach for David is to apply 90 percent of the Oxygen Advantage program in order to improve his BOLT score. This includes simulating a high altitude during jogging, breathing through the nose at all times, and reducing his breathing by relaxing during both rest and regular training. The only exception to nasal breathing should be when training becomes so intense that he needs to periodically breathe through his mouth. In time, as David’s BOLT score increases, he will be able to maintain nasal breathing during high-intensity exercise. In the meantime, he is able to check whether he is overbreathing during training by comparing his BOLT score before training and 1 hour after completing his exercise. His BOLT score after training should be approximately 25 percent higher than before. If it is lower, David should reduce the intensity of his training to the point at which he can maintain strictly nasal breathing.