International Nose Breathing Week was conceived by Buteyko practitioners worldwide to raise awareness about the vital significance of correct breathing for health and longevity.
Today it is generally accepted that over-eating is a serious problem that may cause diabetes, heart disease, and many other modern diseases. However, it is remarkable that the equally serious risks associated with chronic hidden hyperventilation (over-breathing) have not yet been recognised by mainstream medicine.
Over-breathing will make you sick in the same way
that over-eating will make you sick
The common perception is that the more we breathe, the better we live. Many health practitioners, sports coaches, Yoga teachers and Pilates instructors subscribe to this view. However, this advice contradicts fundamental principles of respiration. Healthy breathing is breathing that meets the body’s needs and provides optimal conditions for health. It doesn’t mean the more you breathe the better off you are, in the same way that the key to good nutrition is not eating more.
The figure below, compiled from medical studies of ‘healthy subjects’, shows that minute volumes (a measure of breathing) have doubled in fifty years. It is significant that breathing-related disorders like asthma, allergies, sleep apnoea and stress disorders have seen a similar rise over the same period.
The figure demonstrates that breathing rates have doubled in the last fifty years
Source: A. Rakhimov – The key to Normal Breathing
Raising awareness about the hazards of mouth breathing and over-breathing
This campaign involving hundreds of Buteyko educators worldwide will help alert health professionals and the public to this fast-growing health problem.
With greater public awareness of the need for better breathing there will be more urgency for health professionals to incorporate screening and breathing training into general practice.
What you can do about it
Mouth breathing encourages over-breathing that is linked with, or may be a major cause of, asthma, anxiety, angina, hay fever, hypertension, IBS, CFS, orthodontic problems, sinusitis, sleep apnoea, snoring, general poor health and many more conditions.
Chronic hidden hyperventilation, usually associated with mouth breathing, is just one of the many factors addressed by the Buteyko Breathing Clinic programme.
If you suffer from any of the above conditions and would like to know more about our programme, please phone our clinic on 09-360 6291. You will also find plenty of information on this website, including our quick online breathing self-assessment.
