Breathe

Poor breathing puts you at higher risk for a slew of diseases and problems.¹³ Which one (or more) of these resonates with you?

• Cognitive problems. Unbalanced oxygen and a stress-inducing style of breathing make concentration difficult and cause problems with memory (and can even change your brain).

• Emotional health. Both depression and anxiety are worsened by shallow, erratic breathing.

• Pain. Whether it’s injury pain or fibromyalgia, if it hurts and you breathe badly, it’s going to hurt more (and longer).

• Back issue. Whether it’s a cervical spine, lower back, or neck and shoulders issue, if you aren’t breathing well, it’s directly affecting your spine health.

• Low energy. Bad breathing lessens the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to the cells. The cells get stressed and have to prioritize survival over growth.

• Hypertension. Suboptimal breathing may contribute to hypertension. When you breathe badly, the blood vessels constrict, which can lead to higher blood pressure, and which in turn makes the heart work harder. In effect, people with high blood pressure who were made to breathe slower several minutes a day saw their blood pressure drop.¹⁴

• Acidity. Faster breathing results in respiratory alkalosis. This, in turn, snowballs into a slew of medical disorders that can be long-term and serious.

• Digestive woes. Optimally, your breathing muscles stimulate peristalsis, the wavelike motion of the intestines that promotes digestion and elimination. Without this internal abdominal massage, you’re likely to find yourself coping with issues such as constipation, bloating, gas, heartburn, and irritable bowel syndrome.

• Sleep. You’ve been breathing in a way that tells your neurological system that you are in “fight or flight” all day. There’s no way you’re going to just switch into gentle deep sleep immediately. Period.

You might not think much about your lungs until you’re short of breath or have a condition like asthma that affects their function. But these seemingly ordinary organs have the power to determine whether or not you’re supplying your brain and body with the sustenance they need. The very purpose of the lungs is to draw in oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from your body. And keeping this balance is exactly what your body needs to be alert, productive, and happy.

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CARDIO

You find yourself gasping for air after climbing a few flights of stairs and automatically think, “I really need to do more cardio.” It’s true that cardio—or aerobic exercise—is crucial in keeping you healthy. It’s a type of activity that can strengthen your heart muscle by improving its ability to pump blood (and oxygen) throughout the body. Cardio can have a bevy of benefits, but your heart can only move as much oxygen as you bring into your body. Here’s the crux of the problem: cardio exercise gives your heart a great workout, but it does nothing to beef up the power of your lungs, improve the flexibility of your thoracic cavity (the bones, tendons, cartilage, and muscles that make up the chest wall), or strengthen your inspiratory (inhale) and expiratory (exhale) muscles and the thoracic diaphragm. In other words, you can have the heart and cardiovascular system of an elite athlete but the lungs and breathing muscles of a total couch potato. Just because you train until you’re sweating up a storm and heaving for breath doesn’t mean you’re actually working out the specific components that make for better breathing.

OXYGEN IS CELL FUEL

Stop and consider how much money you spend on vitamins, juices, and the newest electrolyte-infused alkaline-neutral water. However, what it comes down to when all is said and done is that your body’s main source of energy is oxygen. Period. As oxygen circulates throughout your system, it is released into the cells in your tissues and organs, where it can interact with certain enzymes, creating fuel for your body. Oxygen, then, is vital for the respiration and growth of healthy cells—the very cells that allow you to think, the cells that break down your food, the cells that produce balancing hormones and neurotransmitters. Without those hardworking cells, you’ll find yourself reaching for energy drinks and medications to help you feel better. Meanwhile, the real solution is right under your nose.

Sure enough, it seems that everyone has a solution for increasing oxygen in the body, from mouth devices that restrict airflow, oxygen tents, and chlorophyll drops, to drinking ionized water or huffing canned oxygen. On the market, you’ll also find supplements promising to improve the ability of red blood cells to bind with oxygen. While some have validity, others don’t, so consider this: You can most certainly add oxygen to your blood, but the boost it gives you—if it does—is fleeting. Why not simply improve the way you breathe? And if you’re breathing wrong all the time, shouldn’t the first step be to correct this?

Imagine needing only two breaths instead of ten in order to catch your breath. And being able to push yourself more during your workouts and recover more quickly afterward. And your energy levels will naturally be higher. And you’ll be able to think more clearly and recall more precisely. That’s the promise of optimal oxygen intake—and it’s something you can achieve by working out your breathing muscles.

A BETTER WAY TO BOOST OXYGEN

There is a better way to boost oxygen intake—and I’ll teach it to you. Moreover, its effects are permanent (and free).

1. Vital Lung Capacity (VLC): Wrap a measuring tape an inch beneath your sternum.¹⁵

Your sternum (breastbone) is a long, flat, bony plate shaped like a capital “T” that connects to your rib bones via cartilage. You may feel a “notch” where your ribs curl up and meet in the very middle of your chest. Exhale and measure the circumference of your body. Then inhale and measure. Don’t change the way you breathe in order to make this number change; simply breathe the way you do normally.¹⁶ Subtract the exhale from the inhale, then divide that number (using a calculator) by the exhale. The result is your VLC, as a percentage.

2. Breathing style: The two overarching styles are Vertical and Horizontal. Most people are Vertical Breathers (also called “Clavicular Breathers”).¹⁷ If you are a Vertical Breather, the following sentences will resonate with you:

• I feel as if I get taller when I inhale and shorter (or “come down”) when I exhale.

• My shoulders move up when I inhale and down when I exhale.

• I feel as if I breathe “filling up”: my whole body stretches slightly up when I inhale, then drops on the exhale.

• When I put one hand on my chest and one on my belly, the top moves more.

• When looking in the mirror, I see my neck “engage” on the inhale, then relax on the exhale.

• On the inhale, I try to think of the top of my head as lengthening upward, then coming down when I exhale. My middle stays still.

• I feel as if I breathe “up” when I inhale, and relax “down” when I exhale.

Lourdes’s Story

At seventeen years of age, Lourdes was brought in to see me by her parents because she had been diagnosed with acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome. She was on the brink of hospitalization and had almost no energy at all, having been put through a bevy of invasive gastrointestinal tests. In passing, one doctor recommended that she learn diaphragmatic breathing. Frustrated that none of the doctors at the hospital could recommend a specialist to teach breathing, much less diaphragmatic breathing, her mother finally found me on the Internet. Because of my expertise as a psychologist, I was able to determine that Lourdes’s anxious personality had manifested as a digestive problem, including very Vertical Breathing with little Vital Lung Capacity. Learning to use her diaphragm to breathe, along with calming breath exercises solved both problems at once. Lourdes gained weight back over the next four months and developed a daily breathing and meditation practice that helped control both her anxiety and her digestive problems.

GRADING

The Short Breathing IQ (BIQ) considers two very important parameters: your Vital Lung Capacity, as it’s measured from the outside of your body, and your breathing style. Take a look at this grading chart. On the vertical axis, locate where you are as far as your style is concerned; and on the horizontal axis, find where your VLC is. (If you need a refresher when you do the division needed to get a percentage, see here.)

Does it look as if you got a “D” this time? Start working and get yourself up to a “C,” then a “B,” then an “A.” You can do it!

The bottom line is that if you’re a Vertical Breather—your inhale isn’t big and your exhale is small—you have work to do. Start reading and practicing!

13 The renowned Framingham study, which has followed the health of 5, 209 men and women and their descendants over three generations, presents persuasive evidence that the most significant factor in health and longevity is how well one breathes. The complete study can be accessed at the National Institute of Health’s database: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/.

15 An early description of this method for measuring VLC appeared in 1852 in Dr. Henry Ancell’s A Treatise on Tuberculosis: “One method is, to measure the mobility of the walls of the chest, since this corresponds very closely with the actual breathing power. This may be done with a common tape measure. Firstly, the minimum circumference of the chest over the nipples, after a forced expiration; and secondly, the maximum circumference, after causing the chest to be fully expanded, should be noted … This method enables us to form a rough estimate of the vital capacity of the lungs, and I have found it practically useful” (p. 90).

18 If your belly moves inward, this doesn’t count as expanding belly movement; see “Paradoxical Breather” in Chapter 3.

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HOW BAD IS IT, DOC?

WORRIED? YOU SHOULD BE

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT CARDIO

OXYGEN IS CELL FUEL

A BETTER WAY TO BOOST OXYGEN

DETERMINING YOUR BASELINE

Lourdes’s Story

GRADING