Buteyko Breathing is a therapeutic intervention based on a set of principles/goals. The first and arguably most important is the establishment of full-time nasal breathing during both wakefulness and sleep.
It was created by Constantin Buteyko who was a Ukranian doctor who studied and worked in Russia. He was an investigative and enquiring personality who needed to understand how and why disease occurred in the human body. He was initially driven to find answers for his own ill health and as he discovered solutions, he set his mind to using them on his patients and sharing this in the wider medical community. He faced many challenges.
Dr Buteyko believed all illness could be linked to incorrect or Dysfunctional Breathing. Today we have a significant and ever-increasing body of clinical evidence which supports these claims.
When you consider that breathing is the most fundamental thing every human does – approximately 25,000 times per day, it makes sense that getting this wrong can have a huge impact on the functioning of the body.
ADHD, anxiety, depression and other illnesses of the mind and emotions have been linked to dysfunctional breathing. Read more about this here.
Moving now away from the internal workings of the mind, consider rhinitis, temporomandibular joint disorders, and upper airway collapse, all of which have direct connections to dysfunctional breathing.
Upper airway dilator muscles in the throat and neck cannot function effectively when breathing is dysfunctional. There’s an interesting clinical paper about this here.
Asthma, bronchitis and COPD are all exacerbated and indeed can be related to dysfunctional breathing.
Recently it has been established that people with reflux and gastro-intestinal disorders are not using the diaphragm correctly and this is a major muscle of breathing.
Pelvic floor dysfunction is significantly improved when breathing is functional.
50% of people with lower back pain aren’t breathing correctly!
And the list goes on…
Indeed, it seems to me that Dr Buteyko was probably absolutely correct in postulating that all disease is related to Dysfunctional Breathing.
Just last week one of my clients told me that he believed learning Buteyko Breathing has probably added another 10 years to his life. I have no doubt that it has!
In fact, many years ago, Prince Charles engaged Dr Buteyko who helped him with his allergies…
You can watch the amazing story of Dr Buteyko here.