Conditions

Special thanks to Tess Graham who contributed to the symptoms section below and allowed to quote from her website breatheability.com.
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Asthma

While current medical thought is that asthma is a disease which cannot be cured and must be treated with a lifetime of medications, the Buteyko Method is showing otherwise.
Tens of thousands of asthma sufferers around the world have overcome their symptoms and do not need medication simply by changing their breathing, as have allergy sufferers.

People suffering from asthma and allergies universally over-breathe. That is, they breathe more air than their body needs, either through their mouths or through their noses. Research has shown that asthmatics breathe 2-3 times more air per minute than is normal, with normal being 5 liters of air per minute.

Breathing is one of the very few things doctors don’t measure, and breathing more than is needed is not obvious until a person is heavily hyperventilating or having a panic attack. If sugar levels, cholesterol levels, iron levels, blood pressure and heart rate can be too high or too low, why can’t breathing? It can, and normalizing breathing (reversing chronic hyperventilation) returns the body to homeostasis.
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The Buteyko breathing method helps reverse hyperventilation and restore normal breathing patterns. Please see booklet by Peter Kolb for a more in depth explanation: Buteyko - For the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation
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Sleep apnea / Snoring

Do you snore? Your spouse? Your child(ren)?
Snoring is frequently viewed as ‘merely’ an annoyance or even cute in a child. Snoring, however, is much more than noise. It indicates poor breathing habits and can have many health complications including sleep apnea, a much more serious condition where breathing stops temporarily during sleep for varying lengths and with varying frequencies.
Common symptoms in people with heavy snoring and sleep apnea include:

• Interrupted, fitful and non-refreshing sleep
• Heavy breathing
• Restless legs
• Gasping/choking sounds during sleep
• Tendency to fall asleep during daytime activities
• Excessive yawning

Sleep disordered breathing has also been associated with greater risk of high blood pressure, stroke, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer and of motor vehicle accidents. In children, snoring and sleep apnea have been associated with learning and behavioral disorders including ADHD.
In addition, people with disordered breathing often have water at their bedside to drink during the night then still wake up with a dry, uncomfortable mouth. They are much more susceptible to gum disease and dental cavities. Children will invariably have crooked teeth and long faces.
Treatment, therefore, is vitally important. Current treatment choices include nose and throat surgery, dental devices, nasal medications, a CPAP (face mask) which can lead to face remodeling in adults and improper facial growth and development in children) and lastly, addressing the dysfunctional breathing habits.
Because dysfunctional breathing underlies the snoring and sleep apnea, it is really what is needed but is rarely even a choice from a ‘conventional’ point of view.

In fact, it is poor breathing habits in the day like mouth-breathing, fast and heavy breathing, frequent sighing, that not only inflame soft tissue in your airway, but also alter your brain’s breathing control mechanism and set you up for what happens during sleep.

People who breathe correctly, that is through the nose, softly, slowly, and smoothly – do not have sleep disordered breathing. They do not snore, draw their tongue into the back of their throat or vacuum their throat closed at night. That is why improving your breathing in the day helps you breathe and sleep better at night – usually from the first night.
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The Buteyko breathing method helps reverse hyperventilation and restore normal breathing patterns. Please see booklet by Peter Kolb for a more in depth explanation: Buteyko - For the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation
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Stress and anxiety

Anxiety, apprehension, stress, tension and fear are normal human experiences. Our survival has depended on those things in times of danger. Our bodies are finely tuned to react and react quickly when we are threatened. We are primed to fight or flee, then return to “normal”.
Many people in our modern society experience some or all of these feelings on a daily basis. Some to the extreme of debilitating panic attacks coupled with paralyzing fear and possibly impending doom.

Acute hyperventilation (extreme over-breathing) is obvious during a panic attack in which the physical symptoms of extreme fear include pounding heart, excessive perspiration, dizziness, nausea, confusion and difficulty breathing.
Much less noticeable is the habitual over-breathing which is almost always present in people who suffer daily fear, stress, high levels of tension and anxiety at a lower level.

Research has found that people with panic disorders breathe 12 liters or more a minute at rest when it should be 5 liters. The problem with that is it can contribute to a constant arousal of the nervous system, resulting in elevated levels of adrenalin, heart rate, nerve stimulation and others. Your entire body is chronically in a state of “readiness” for impending trouble.
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The Buteyko Breathing Method helps to reverse that chronic over-breathing, letting the body return to a calm state. Please see booklet by Peter Kolb for a more in depth explanation: Buteyko - For the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation
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Athletic performance

Your performance may be limited by poor stamina, early fatigue, lactic acid build up, respiratory illness, poor sleep quality and performance anxiety. Inefficient, dysfunctional baseline breathing is the common denominator. One of the most basic requirements for achieving peak performance is good oxygenation of your muscles, heart and brain. You can actually control how well your tissues are being oxygenated by how you breathe.
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The Buteyko breathing method helps reverse hyperventilation and restore normal breathing patterns. Please see booklet by Peter Kolb for a more in depth explanation: Buteyko - For the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation
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Chronic cough

Coughing may feel like the best way to clear stubborn phlegm and mucus, but in fact it may make the situation worse. Chronic coughing is harsh on the delicate tissues of your airways and lungs. When we cough, we breathe very deeply, drawing in large amounts of unfiltered air, irritating and dehydrating the mucous membranes lining the airways. This can lead to swelling and inflammation and an increase in mucous production. Chronic coughing dries out the mucous which makes it sticky and even harder to dislodge. The huge loss of carbon dioxide during coughing may cause constriction in the airway as the smooth muscle goes into spasm.
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The Buteyko breathing method helps reverse hyperventilation and restore normal breathing patterns. Please see booklet by Peter Kolb for a more in depth explanation: Buteyko - For the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation
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Dental and Facial development

Dentists today check your gums for disease, they check for cavities and with increasing regularity, they check for tongue tie. Most are very aware of the contribution of mouth breathing to gum issues, tooth decay and orthodontic problems.

Probably the first and most horrendous experiment showing the effects of mouth breathing was conducted on monkeys 1981.

‘The experiments showed that the monkeys adapted to nasal obstruction in different ways. In general, the experimental animals maintained an open mouth. All experimental animals gradually acquired a facial appearance and dental occlusion different from those of the control animals.’ All the mouth breathing monkeys developed craniofacial changes and crooked teeth. Egil P Harvold. Primate experiments on oral respiration. American Journal of orthodontics. (Volume 79, issue 4, April 1981, pages 359- 372)

At this time there are hundreds, if not thousands, of published papers showing the detrimental effects of mouth breathing during childhood.

One of the most notable orthodontists studying and working with children is Dr. John Mew (www.orthotropics.com) who has shown repeatedly that “if mouth breathing is treated early, its negative effect on facial and dental development and the medical and social problems associated with it can be reduced or averted” (General dentist: Mouth breathing: adverse effects on facial growth, health, academics and behaviour. Jefferson Y, 2010 Jan- Feb; 58 (1): 18-25).

A YouTube video by Dr. Mike Mew (Dr. John’s son) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvoX_wEtwDk

The Buteyko breathing method stresses nose breathing and helps reverse hyperventilation and restore normal breathing patterns. Please see booklet by Peter Kolb for a more in depth explanation: Buteyko - For the Reversal of Chronic Hyperventilation