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A breath of fresh air South China Morning Post (HK) – Monday March 4 2002 A controversial respiratory technique is providing relief to Hong Kong residents lucky enough to have discovered the ‘miracle cure’. Amanda Watson reports ‘I COUGH FOR UP TO two hours at a time. There are nights when I can’t read my children a book at bedtime because I just go into these spasms. And then I’ll start vomiting cupfuls of blood. Apparently that’s normal with my disease. It’s very common here in Hong Kong.’ Lori Foster is in her early 40s, a petite, sleek housewife. And the disease she’s talking about is bronchiectasis. Permanent bronchial damage, to you and me. Her lungs, say the nine doctors and specialist she’s seen, are damaged beyond repair and the best she can hope to do is manage her condition. Her immune system is packing in, she gets frequent respiratory infections, she feels tired all the time and normal life is out of the question: it’s difficult, for instance, visiting the hairdresser or dentist because lying back just starts off the coughing. Life has become a non-stop round of inhalers and antibiotics. But just three years ago, Foster was as fit as the rest of us. She’d only just arrived in Hong Kong from Australia and was trail-walking to explore Hong Kong. So when she first became sick and doctors started testing for asthma and tuberculosis, she was shocked. ‘I was in tears when my doctors finally diagnosed my condition and told me I couldn’t get my lung function back again. It was devastating. Like a sentence.’ Now, after spending ‘hundred of thousands of dollars’ on medical bills, she says she’s lost faith in conventional medicine. It’s been hazy about why she’s in this state – and has come up with no solutions. Which is why we’re sitting talking – out in the yellow pollution which now frequently befugs even rural Sai Kung – just before we go into another course session on a controversial respiratory technique. ‘Shut up!’ In the chic exercise room of Sai Kung’s The Studio, Australian Jac Vidgen begins by sharply telling the 10 of us who’ve signed up to shut our mouths and breathe only through our nose. He dictates what we’ll do for the next five days – ‘it’s a ruthless compassion’ – but we’re the ones soon looking like little Hitlers, with our fingers stuck under our noses, indulging in a spot of nasal-gazing. How much are we breathing in and out? Can we see ourselves doing it in the mirrored-room? What do we feel like? ‘Listen to yourselves,’ he says, when he tells us to breathe more shallowly, so that there’s this disturbing feeling of slight shortness of breath and no visible signs of chest movement? There are charts to fill in (part of each session we time how long we can do without breath, walking and even jumping to extend the time), extensive medical histories to divulge, HK$3,000 to hand over. At night, we are told, we must tape our mouths to make sure we only breathe through our noses. That proves a rather frightening experience – it feels a bit like condemning yourself to an early grave. Vidgen is a ‘senior practitioner’ who travels throughout Southeast Asia teaching the Butekyo Breathing Technique, a breathing method first developed by the Russian respiratory physician, Dr Konstantin Buteyko, nearly 50 years ago. It’s based on the theory that Western society’s stresses mean that many of us have developed into hidden hyperventilators, which Buteyko believes is a major underlying cause of illness and linked to over 200 diseases. What asthmatics – and the rest of us – need to do to correct that, Vidgen adds, is breathe less. Taking in less air, he says, is a simple solution through which we could cure ourselves with a few minutes’ exercise daily of everything from allergies, ME (chronic fatigue syndrome), asthma, migraines, insomnia, depression and high blood pressure to snoring and weight loss. No more obsessional need for inhalers and antibiotics, Vidgen suggests. For some of Hong Kong’s 300,000 asthma sufferers, promises like that are not to be sniffed at and there is an increasing interest in the technique – long taught in Australia and introduced into Britain in 1994 – here in the SAR. Buteyko felt the key to the problem of dysfunctional breathing wasn’t insufficient oxygen but too much. His solution: recondition our breathing. Vidgen explains that normal breathing results in a very specific accumulated gas mixture that we need to function properly – and modern stresses mean most of us are getting the ratio of oxygen we inhale and carbon dioxide we exhale all wrong. Conventional medicine, skeptical as ever, has paid little attention to the idea. ‘In terms of the relative importance of our three major functions – eating, sleeping, breathing – breathing is supreme, it’s vital,’ says Vidgen, a former caterer and event promoter. ‘And yet most of us have never been taught to breathe. Even worse, most people in our society believe that more is good and certainly that breathing in more is a good thing. We’ve developed a stress mechanism that was related to fight or flight when we were hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago. Now, in a short time, we’ve dramatically changed how we live. The reality now is that every time you experience anxiety or worry, say operating a computer or your mobile phone, your breathing, heart rate and hormones change, and that change is not appropriate if you are at rest,’ says Vidgen. ‘The nature of our lifestyle has increased our breathing pattern and we cope by a whole range of compromises because that’s the design of the body. No matter how you treat it, it will compensate. But this time it’s simply wrong.’ Vidgen, rake thin but energetic enough to talk theory for hours, has experimented on himself and tells us repeatedly the Buteyko method has cured himself of sinus conditions and a host of other minor ailments. His clients in Hong Kong suffer from all manner of complaints. Financier Peter Wynn Williams started a Buteyko course last year with severe asthma, a problem that got worse whenever the weather became hot and humid. He’d had the condition since he was 10, but here it grew rapidly much worse. And that meant long-term drug use. Buteyko, he says, has had a dramatic effect on that. ‘It’s reduced my symptoms considerably for a start. I’m using a lot less medication too,’ Williams says. ‘I thought the whole idea sounded quacky to start with. You feel stupid holding your nose. But now I’d say the single biggest benefit has been sleeping with my mouth taped over. I found it difficult at first but it’s really improved my sleep dramatically. I feel much more rested.’ Back on the Sai Kung course, nine-year-old Peter Austin is running about the room, holding his nose to extend his pauses between breaths. He’s past a minute and still going strong. He’s asthmatic, so it’s quite an achievement for him and he’s visibly pleased to be picked out from our group as someone who should be able to recondition their breathing easily – the young being less set in their ways Vidgen explains. Not to be outdone, I try pacing up and down for longer and my head feels like it’s going to explode. But then Peter has a bigger incentive. He plays football for his school and that has always meant frequent breaks to use his inhaler. His worried mother wants him to stop playing until the breathing problems stop. But Peter loves sport, so he sticks with the 10-hour, week-long course. ‘I felt left out of sport before I started this,’ he says afterwards. ‘No one picked me for games. But I already feel I can play better. I don’t feel myself struggling for breath so much now. It feels like I’m in control.’ Visit the Web site www.buteykoasia.com for more information on the Butekyo Breathing Technique. How do you know if you over-breathe? Try Konstantin Buteyko’s ‘control pause’. Sit upright but be relaxed. Breathe in gently for two seconds, exhale gently for three seconds, now hold your breath until the first moment that it becomes difficult. If you can only hold your breath for less than 10 seconds, you have serious health problems. Under 25 seconds, your health needs attention; 30 seconds you are mildly asthmatic; 60 seconds, you’re in good health....
Breathtaking news By Cathy Babao Guballa Philippine Daily Inquirer, Lifestyle, May 01, 2001 ASTHMA is no joking matter. Parents of asthmatic children go through hell each time a child experiences an attack. The summer months are particularly difficult – the deadly combination of heat and smog certainly have a deleterious effect on the health of these children. In the Philippines for a series of lectures on the Buteyko Method of Breathing Reconditioning is Jac Vidgen, an Australian, senior Buteyko practitioner who promises to bring relief and breath of hope to those suffering from asthma and other related disorders. Vidgen has been involved with the Buteyko method for the past seven years. Previously based in Sydney, he did regular workshops there as well as in New South Wales. He is the first practitioner to bring the method to Southeast Asia. He has been featured on the CNN morning show in Asia and trained by Alexander Stalmatski, a leading prot*g* of Dr. Buteyko. Vidgen however is quick to say that the method is not easy and requires commitment and dedication. To those who are willing to commit, he promises great improvement in health. “Breathing is the most basic thing we do everyday.” Vidgen begins to tell us. How much should we breathe? A normal person, Vidgen says, takes 20,000-30,000 breaths per day. Most people think that “the more breaths, the better”. Vidgen says this is a misconception and any examination of the physiology of respiration indicates that this concept is quite misleading – even dangerous. Beginnings of Buteyko The treatment was developed in the 1950s in Russia by a Russian medical doctor and scientist, Dr. Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko. Dr. Buteyko made some clinical observations and discoveries, which revealed that human breathing habits, seem to have strayed from what our physiology books describe as normal. What he identified as increasingly prevalent in modern society, is low level (and mostly hidden) hyperventilation, which he discovered is a major underlying cause of human illness. Buteyko further noticed that by reducing this overbreathing to more normal respiratory volume levels, a whole range of diseases and their symptoms improved. He then developed a program for enabling patients to retrain their breathing pattern, which has evolved into the Buteyko technique. Stress, asthma and Buteyko Stress is a well-known stimulant for hyperventilation. As a response to stress the heart rate increases, breathing deepens and hormone production changes. Vidgen says that during most of the period of evolution of the human body, stress occurred simultaneously with physical activity for which these responses were quite appropriate. “When our ancestors were startled by the proverbial lion, their respiration would increase. Doing so would rid them of carbon dioxide which made room for the rapid build-up during the subsequent effort at escaping the lion.” Vidgen explains,”The stress then was short-lived. If you weren’t eaten by the lion, you would escape and your stress would disappear.” Nowadays however, most of the stress occurs while our bodies are at rest – in which case the above responses become quite inappropriate. In prolonged periods of stress, deeper breathing becomes an unrecognized, unconscious and continuous habit and physiological pattern. Once the body becomes conditioned to the lower levels of carbon dioxide, the respiratory mechanism drives a person to breathe more than he needs to, thus keeping the levels low. Vidgen further explains that with low levels of carbon dioxide, the body’s smooth muscle tissue can go into spasm or constriction, creating problems in the sinus passages, lungs, arteries, heart and digestive system. When hyperventilation is triggered to increase air, the lungs of an asthma sufferer react with constriction of airways, excess mucus production and swelling – as in the symptoms of asthma. How Buteyko works In the same way that lingering stress sustains hyperventilation long enough for the respiratory center to adapt to lower levels of carbon dioxide, so too Buteyko therapy works by breathing over a long time. Under the program, patients learn to recognize their own overbreathing pattern and how to retrain their breathing to normal levels. A range of adverse symptoms are reversed, and relief from asthma and many other conditions follow. The following benefits are typically observed: Recovery of nasal breathing. This allows for effective filtration, humidification, regulation of temperature and airflow, as well as reduction of allergen entry. For asthmatics, relief of acute bronchospasm through the bronchodilatory properties of carbon dioxide, leading rapidly to a reduction in the need for bronchodilators; then reconditioning of the automatic breathing pattern and avoidance of bronchospasm with continued practice and application of Buteyko’s methods. Reduction of excess mucus Improvement in a range of other conditions such as allergies, rhinitis, sinusitis, anxiety disorders, apnea, snoring and emphysema Improvement in quality of sleep Increased energy levels and enhanced sports performance Vidgen says the manner of teaching is varied depending on the individual’s age, history, condition and response. Some lifestyle modifications involving posture, nutrition, sleep and exercise are recommended to enhance the benefits of the breathing exercises. Workshops are taught in five-to-two-hour sessions and class size is kept to a minimum of 5-15 participants. Patients are supplied with notes and support materials during the workshops to include diaries for recording of exercise results, pulse variations, symptoms, medication, reports of sleep length and quality and energy levels. Vidgen concludes by saying that changing unconscious breathing patterns requires much discipline, perseverance and persistence but the results and benefits gained from such dedication is truly, as the song goes, worth every breath one takes....
South China Morning Post. Features. Monday, February 19, 2001 BUTEYKO BREATHING Dr Rose Ong As a first-time mother, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was to watch my toddler gasping for breath during an acute asthmatic attack. With the worsening air pollution problem in Hong Kong, it was enough to send me running to the drug store to stock up on bronchodilator and steroid inhalers. These medicines became my security blanket. Like most parents, the thought of keeping my child on chronic medications was disturbing, but there didn’t seem to be any alternatives . . . or were there? Buteyko Breathing Technique, or BBT, was invented by a Russian scientist, Dr Konstantin Buteyko. After World War II, he decided to dedicate himself to the study of the ‘most complicated piece of machinery of all, the human organism’. In 1946, he enrolled in the First Medical Institute in Moscow and worked with patients suffering from a variety of medical problems, including many with breathing difficulties. He observed that patients suffering from high blood pressure, hay fever, sinusitis, asthma, chest pains, and emphysema all breathed abnormally. While the average breathing volumes of a normal adult is around 5 litres per minute, they were breathing up to three times that much. Buteyko concluded there was a connection between dysfunctional breathing and more than 200 disease states. He theorised the problem wasn’t due to insufficient oxygen, since these patients generally breathed too much rather than too little. He felt the key was carbon dioxide. He thought with dysfunctional hyperventilation, as the condition was known, the amount of carbon dioxide dropped too low, leading to bronchospasms – contractions of the small airways. In 1952, he devised a drug-free programme that taught patients to recondition their breathing pattern. When the breathing is normalised, carbon dioxide levels increase, leading to the opening of small airways and improvements of many chronic diseases. Carbon dioxide has long been recognised as playing an important role in the brain’s respiratory control centre, mediating metabolic pathways, enzyme reactions and the immune system. Buteyko experimented on himself and cured himself of the high blood pressure and headaches he had been suffering. In 1990, BBT was introduced to Australia. Since then, Buteyko practitioners have treated more than 10,000 patients with favourable results. In 1994, BBT was introduced to Britain. Any ideas, though, that a non-surgical, non-medical alternative to treating asthma – an increasing epidemic worldwide for reasons unknown – would be welcomed by health professionals, would be mistaken. Instead, Buteyko practitioners are unhappy over the lack of acceptance by mainstream medical practitioners, despite more than 40 years of clinical trials and positive experiences with thousands of patients. A well-controlled clinical trial was conducted in Australia in 1995, comparing a group of chronic asthma patients dependent on bronchodilator and steroid medications, to a matched control group. For three months the BBT group experienced a 90 per cent decrease in the use of bronchodilator medications compared to the control group. They also reported improvement in their quality of life. With longer term follow-up, the BBT group was found to require lower levels of steroids. All the positive findings would normally have been convincing enough to sway even the most sceptical scientist. However, two key observations were made which were troubling. One was that the clinical improvements did not correlate with increasing carbon dioxide levels in test subjects, as would have been hoped if the underlying principle proposed by Buteyko were correct (although this could have been the result of the testing procedures). The second was that when the BBT subjects’ lung functions were measured objectively using peak flow meters, there was no significant improvement, even if the patients felt better! Instead of clearing the air, the study merely created more confusion and controversy. Clearly more studies are needed. It may take a leap of faith, but if there is a way my child can be cured of asthma without the use of medications, sign me up. Visit Web site www.buteykoasia.com for more information....
By Joy Rojas from the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, August 06, 2000 Issue A DVOCATES swear it reduces asthma attacks almost to the point of nonexistence. Others attest it’s relieved them of allergies, coughs, clogged noses, sneezing, snoring, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, stress and hypertension. In one extreme incident, it’s even believed to have brought back the monthly period of a menopausing lady of 52! “It,” however, is neither a wonder pill nor a miracle gadget. It’s a revolutionary treatment, one that-hold your breath now-encourages people to decrease their breathing. Welcome to the Buteyko Breathing Method. Developed in 1952 by Russian respiratory physician Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, the method was based on the idea that illness evolves from our tendency to overbreathe. When we breathe too much, we exhale more carbon dioxide (CO2), thus creating a deficit of CO2. Lowered levels of CO2 strengthen the bond between hemoglobin (in red blood cells) and oxygen (O2), making it difficult for the sufficient oxygenation of brain tissues and other vital organs. If there is insufficient CO2, our tissues may suffer oxygen starvation (hypoxia) regardless of the amount of O2 present. To restore the body’s balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, patients of the Buteyko Method are trained to change their breathing patterns altogether, first by breathing exclusively through the nose. “Unlike the mouth which was designed for talking, eating, and drinking, and is too huge to act as a filter, the nose is effective as a filter, regulator and temperature controller,” says Australian senior practitioner Jac Vidgen. Patients are also asked to adapt the method’s definition of “correct breathing”-that is, barely perceptible breathing, the kind you don’t hear or see whether one is at rest or in motion. Having taught the Buteyko Method to a variety of students since 1993, Vidgen is well aware of the resistance that comes with this radical approach. “It can be difficult to change something you do 20 to 30 thousand times a day,” he agrees. “But it’s actually not complicated. It only requires consciousness change and a paradigm shift about breathing-and most people are not really interested in changes and paradigm shifts.” The few who are, however, appear to be reaping the benefits of the drug-free solution. Vidgen, who recently concluded a series of workshops last July (five two-hour sessions held in a span of two weeks), initiates his patients into the Buteyko Method the same way: after explaining the concept of overbreathing, the coach then instructs his patients to assess their own breathing pattern through this easy test. Sitting in an upright position and with his mouth closed, the patient takes a light breath in and a light breath out and pinches his nose shut with his fingers. Upon feeling the very first impulse to breathe (way before the point where he must gasp and heave for air), the patient releases his hold on his nose. Called the “Control Pause,” this “pause” allows the body to produce carbon dioxide. The longer the pause (Buteyko says an ideal Control Pause is one that is comfortably held for 50-60 seconds), the higher the level of carbon dioxide in the system. While the exercise sounds like a cinch, both Buteyko and Vidgen emphasize the importance of having a qualified practitioner around to closely supervise patients, lest they misinterpret the method and aggravate their current condition. As fiercely passionate as he is to Buteyko’s method, Vidgen does acknowledge traditional treatments (“I have a lot of respect for conventional medicine,” he insists, “so believe me, if I break my leg I’m going to see a doctor”) plus the fact that bad breathing isn’t the only root of all illness. “There’s genetics, there’s environment, there’s diet, there’s lifestyle,” he enumerates. “But you don’t have as much control or access over these aspects as you do your breathing. Breathing is critical to life. You can live four weeks without eating, you can live three days without drinking – these are all undeniably essential to our health. But none of them even comes close to the importance of the way we breathe.” Amazing, almost-instant results support the senior practitioner’s bold pronouncements. Depending on how serious one is with the method, a chronic mouth-breather who commits to breathing through his nose may note a dramatic change in his symptoms in half an hour. Moderate asthmatics, meanwhile, have reported a profound reduction in their need for relief medication a day or two after the Buteyko session. During one of Vidgen’s free introductory lectures, a lady on the verge of an asthma attack instinctively reached for her Ventolin puffer. The coach offered to assist her through the breathing method, and in a few minutes, the lady’s asthma was averted. Vidgen’s last success story, however, came to him via e-mail: a young severely asthmatic woman who attended his workshop in Australia last April 1999 wrote him recently to share her incredible progress. Since starting on the Buteyko Method, she’s lost 35 kilos, hasn’t used a nebulizer, cut down significantly on her relief and preventive medication, and has traveled thrice in the last year without having to lug along her suitcase of steroids and puffers. “It’s an extraordinary example,” beams Vidgen. “But I get them every day.” Touching testimonies like these are clearly reward enough for a man who, despite his attraction to alternative forms of treatment (he’s tried yoga, vegetarianism, vitamins and minerals), was led to the Buteyko Method because he needed a job fast. Financially indisposed at 44, Vidgen (whose professional background includes catering, theater and event organizing in Sydney, Australia), accepted administrative work from the company that brought in Alexander Stalmatski, Dr. Buteyko’s leading prot‚g‚ and Vidgen’s mentor. Inspired within weeks by how safe and effective the method was, Vidgen trained extensively under Stalmatski and was eventually allowed to teach in Sydney. The Australian brought the Buteyko Method to Asian shores in 1994 when he supervised two patients while vacationing in Bali. Upon the advice of a friend, Vidgen then introduced the method in Manila in late ’96, and has made it a point to return to the country regularly for workshops. (Vidgen may be contacted through his e-mail, jacvid@attglobal.net) Interestingly, Vidgen, a tall and wiry guy of 50, is a one-man operation: he funds his own trips and receives no recompense from any association or the 75-year-old Dr. Buteyko, whom he has not met. But Vidgen, whose days are always as fresh and free-flowing as the air around him, isn’t complaining. “Helping people and working with people is challenging, demanding and very exciting,” he affirms. “It’s a very satisfying and rich life and I like it that I move at a pace I can define.”...
SMALL BREATHS OF FRESH AIR We are normally told to breathe in deeply to get oxygen into the lungs. The man who started a new breathing technique says that for therapeutic results, the oppposite is true. By DJ Bee, Thailand Tattler December 1999 Issue As a radio DJ here in Thailand I’m quite used to being told that I talk too much but I must say I was a little taken aback when I met Jac Vidgen and he told me that I breathed to much! My bottom jaw almost hit the floor. “Keep your mouth shut” he snapped before breaking out into a cheeky chuckle and adding “and breathe through your nose!” Lost for words, I sat and listened as Jac went on to explain the basic principles of Buteyko, a breathing technique which is used by Russian Cosmonauts and Asthma sufferers worldwide. Before promising to keep my mouth shut, I persuaded Jac to let me sit in on one of his sessions to find out more. The technique, which he travels Asia teaching, trains people to learn to recognise their own over-breathing patterns and how to retrain their breathing to normal levels. The method is getting worldwide attention with a documentary in the UK on the BBC and numerous programs on Australian TV, while here in Asia, Jac was recently featured on a special Buteyko CNN report as the first person to introduce the method to the region. The results he told me were astounding. Immediate relief from the symptoms of asthma, sleep disorders, allergies, and stress to name just a few. Furthermore long term practice brings huge benefits in sports performance, respiratory conditions like emphysema & COAD, weight control and skin disorders. Even children as young as four years old have benefited from the technique. The method was developed by Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, a Russian respiratory physician, who discovered that the stresses of modern living have resulted in most of us chronically overbreathing, which creates imbalances in oxygen/carbon dioxide levels, causing reduced oxygen supply to the cells and a myriad of breathing disorders and general ailments. Buteyko’s research suggests that these illness develop as the body endeavors to compensate for the imbalance caused by incorrect breathing habits. Jac was introduced to the method by a friend, who was teaching the technique in Australia and needed help with administration and promotion. Initially, he was employed to telephone past patients in Melbourne from Sydney, to tell them that they were coming back with the next workshop and invite them for a free follow up. The first question he asked them was how they were doing. He spoke to hundreds of people, very quickly it became apparent to him how devastating asthma was in peoples lives and how successful the method was. The response made him very excited. He also realized that previously, he had always thought he was fairly fit and if anyone had asked how his breathing was, he would have told them it was fine. He’d learned yoga and how to sing with no problems. When he took time to observe his own breathing he realized the he too was overbreathing. It suddenly dawned on him that he’d been plagued with 44 years of constant irritation from chest, sinus and throat infections, allergies and hay fever. He realized that he too needed to sort out his own breathing. Once he did, he alleviated all the problems. In the last six years he hasn’t taken any antihistamine, antibiotics or decongestants for anything in the respiratory region. What also happened was, he needed less sleep, his energy levels became higher, his immune system got stronger and didn’t feel the need to take any Vitamins. Jac added that medical studies indicate that all asthmatics overbreathe and, in fact, it seems over ninety percent of people breathe incorrectly. Yet current conventional medicine rarely looks at people’s breathing habits from a diagnostic perspective. So, three days later I sat with Jac and his patient (lets call him Mr A) an Asthma sufferer who gets attacks at least once a week. Jac explained that he would he teach us how to retain and use our CO2 ( Carbon Dioxide ) as a natural smooth muscle dilator by following a strictly supervised program of breathing exercises. He added that the program wasn’t difficult, but a coach was needed because although in essence method is fairly simple, it’s easily misunderstood and often has to be modified to suit a patient’s state of health. Dr Buteyko himself says that the technique should never be learnt from books or videos because practitioners need to see what’s going on and give the patient feedback in the early stages. First of all, Jac got a detailed history of our health. He then took our pulse and proceeded to teach us how breathe to less through our nose. The thought crossed my mind that this was the first time that I had ever paid any serious attention to something my life constantly depended on. We eattwo or three times a day, we breathe twenty thousand to thirty thousand times per day and we can go without food for days, but we can’t go without air for more than five minutes. Towards the end of the first session both Mr A and myself both felt immediate improvements in our breathing. Jac gave us a routine which we were to practice at home that night and the next day. Throughout the following day I paid close attention to my breathing and avoided deep breaths through the mouth. The result was quite amazing although I slept less and had a big drop in appetite my energy level increased and the usual stressful day at work was a breeze while people around me puffed and panted I stayed calm and centered. Over the course of the next sessions Mr A also felt big improvements in both his breathing and general health. He told us one day that while out shopping he did have an asthma attack but instead of puffing on his inhaler he used the Buteyko method and overcame the attack easily. Scientific trials conducted in Australia have shown that asthmatics are able to reduce relief medication by at least 90% and preventative medication by 50% after practicing the Buteyko Technique. Great news for asthma sufferers but the drug companies manufacturing inhalers may gasp at the inevitable cut in sales. So next time sometime tells you to take a deep breath, think twice, and tell them to check their physiology books....
Teaching Asia to Breathe Thailand Indochina Traveller August 1999 issue Asia’s cities are choking their inhabitants – and visitors – but you don’t need a face mask or ventilator to cope with the allergies, asthma and smog. Don Schultz tries the revolutionary Buteyko breathing technique as it becomes available in Southeast Asia. Even cosmonauts do Buteyko. In Bangkok, it’s not unheard of to see a Thai with a decongestant inhaler kept up one nostril. As asthma cases rocket, allergies mount, and chronic fatigue sets in, emergency puffers like Ventalin, Theofalin and Bricanol are used at the slightest discomfort. Ironically, an asthma attack is the body desperately trying to breathe LESS. Like anti-biotics, bronchodilators over-ride your natural defences! “The primary reason for over-breathing seems to be stress without corresponding physical action, plus inappropriate diet, sedentary lifestyles, bad posture, pollution, etc,” explains Jac Vidgen, a Bangkok-based Buteyko breathing practitioner currently touring Southeast Asia. Apparently, it’s not only asthma sufferers who hyperventilate; we all do. That sounds like heresy, when received wisdom is that deep breathing is good. In fact, it’s controlled shallow breathing that enables high performance of your body and mind. Ask any yogi. Problem is, breathing is the only automatic bodily function we can change, so bad habits ratchet up the rate we inhale. By reversing that trend, Buteyko exercises stop us exhaling too much carbon dioxide, which isn’t a waste product, but a maligned gas we make in order to improve oxygenation of the blood and relax the smooth muscles in our organs. If you’ve a stressed-out heart, liver or digestive system, you can imagine how much more efficiently, and comfortably, your body could function if you simply breathed correctly. “More than 90% of people with asthma or respiratory problems achieve considerable improvement – often within a few days,” says Jac. “In the Queensland trial, asthmatics reduced reliever medication by 96% and preventer medication by 50% at 3 months with reduced symptoms [Medical Journal of Australia, Dec.1998].” Given that breathing is the most important bodily function, it’s amazing that doctors almost never consider it, let alone measure it. Instead, preventative allopathic medicine concentrates on less critical factors like diet, exercise, sleep, stress, fluid intake – and drug prescription. Actually there is an agreed measure for breathing, but if heart rate, blood cholesterol or uric acid were reading 4-6 times normal you’d be more than worried. Yet mass hyperventilation was routinely overlooked until Dr Konstantine Buteyko’s 30 years of observations and tests led to his theories being adopted by Russia’s health service in 1982. Even cosmonauts do Buteyko. Still unconvinced? If you breathe imperceptibly through just your nose, something astonishing happens – your bronchial tubes enlarge naturally. “I’ve had three colds in the year since I learned Buteyko and never once has my nose been blocked,” says Phil Cornwel-Smith, editor of Bangkok Metro Magazine. “It also stops sneezing, gets rid of headaches, reduces my appetite, keeps me slimmer, shortens sleep, calms my mood…” It can also cause traces of past illness to resurface before dissipating for good, which is one reason a practitioner’s vital. Plus you simply can’t correct faults that feel “right” from a book or video. Philip learned Buteyko because of allergies, but it also revealed muscle trauma from computer work. “I couldn’t believe it when I learned that in the room during my fifth Buteyko class there was a cat. Previously my eyes and nose would’ve been streaming, but now not even a sniffle,” he says. “It’s liberating. In heavy traffic everyone else is choking while I let my nose gently filter out the fumes. It’s incredible how I notice heavy mouth-breathers have so much else wrong with them.” Jac is well armed about the dangers of using the mouth to breathe. “The nose not only filters, but also humidifies, adjusts the temperature and regulates the flow (in and out) – essential roles when you’re exposing about a football field of your tissue to the outside air 30,000 times a day.” Interestingly, we’re most vulnerable to this while asleep and should rest on our left side. The list of ailments alleviated by Buteyko is astonishing – sinusitis, sleep apnoeia, psoriasis, immune deficiencies, angina, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, cancer, and even snoring – but disputed by status-aware doctors and a pharmaceutical industry that’s funded by dependency drugs like anti-histamines. “Every medical advance faces resistance, but I sense Buteyko’s going to be a biggie,” says chiropractor Dr Leon W James of East-West Healing Concepts in Bangkok, who notes how doctors were dismissive of chriopractic’s results until proven wrong in court. “It’s good that Buteyko’s already had laboratory trials, but it needs many more of them.” Patients are, however, more receptive than ever to holistic treatments. “Buteyko reaches all the body’s systems through the circulation,” says Dr James. “Like chiropractic, it seems to unlock healing forces through a non-drug and non-surgical approach that gives you personal control.” Ultimately, Buteyko isn’t about treating problems, but preventing them. Interestingly, the asthmatic children in Jac’s classes often have less complicated health issues than their unawares parents. If you can discipline yourself to the five-day course, Jac claims, “You’ve got a preventative tool for life.” Copyright 1999 by Thailand Indochina Traveller Magazine....
ISSUE No: 48 July 1998 SECTION: Features WRITER: Phil Cornwel-Smith Waiting to Exhale Did you know we’re all mildly hyperventilating? Phil Cornwel-Smith learns from the Buteyko method how breathing less can cure asthma, allergies, stress and even snoring. “You don’t need to wear a mask in Bangkok if you know how to breathe” “Though some results are miraculous, they’re in fact earned, logical and physiologically based.” Who Breathes the Buteyko Way? Russian cosmonauts, to conserve air in space. World Champion and Olympic bronze medallist kayaker Ramon Andersson. Olympic athletes, including rower Emmily Snook and swimmer Matthew Dunn. 10,000 sufferers of respiratory ailments in Australian and New Zealand alone. Patients in Russia’s health system, where it’s been an integrated treatment since 1981. “Take a deep breath.” Sound advice when you’re under stress you’d assume and a common response around the world, but not according to Jac Vidgen, an Australian practitioner of Buteyko, a self-corrective method of breathing. He urges you to “breathe less”! “What they’re really saying is control your breathing,” he explains. “It’s only very recently as upright creatures that we’ve experienced stress the way we do. Our heart rate and breathing increase and chemical changes occur. Now, that’s appropriate for a hunter or fighter, [but not] for someone sitting behind a desk or in traffic. Our respiratory centre, part of that bank of computers in the rear of the brain that controls the body’s automatic processes, has been reprogrammed by the culture we live in.” Don’t be alarmed – you can change it back! “In the 1950s, Russian respiratory physician Dr Constantin Pavlovich Buteyko, found that by re-training incorrect breathing habits, chronic patients significantly improved in a whole range of breathing related conditions, such as allergies, sinusitis, hayfever, anxiety, sleep apnoeia, emphysema and chronic fatigue syndrome, but the easiest [to improve] is asthma.” “I was trained five years ago by a Russian protégé of Buteyko, Alexander Stalmatsky, who’d been brought to Australia [where 10% of the population is asthmatic], then New Zealand, where in the two countries we’ve had more than 10,000 patients and 30 practitioners,” says Vidgen, who’s giving a lecture and clinic at Marisa Collection over July 21-30. Buteyko’s now become a hot fad in the UK, the USA and on the World Wide Web, but it’s actually rooted in logic. Consider this: “You eat two to four times a day. If you don’t eat you can live for a month. If you don’t drink you can live for days. You sleep two to ten hours a day; if you don’t sleep you can live for a week. Exercise is good three times a week, but you don’t have to exercise to live. You breathe 30,000 times a day. If you don’t breathe you die within five to ten minutes. That primary function has profound effects on the body and mind.” Now compare public knowledge about diet with widespread ignorance about our intake of air. “In physiology books normal breathing at rest is 4-6 litres of air per minute to balance body gases and metabolic function,” explains Vidgen. “We breathe 10-20 times a minute, which should mean 0.25 to 0.5 litre per breath.” Problem is most people in this industrial century have come to breathe two, three, four or even more times that. That means you and I are hyperventilating! “Hyperventilation for most of us means ‘huh-uh-huh-uh-huh’ [demonstrating a heaving chest and wheezing], but if you were to pant that’d be between 30 and 50 litres per minute. So we’re talking about a relatively low level of hyperventilation. Now unless your very well trained that’s very hard to recognise.” So why don’t doctors ever test our minute tidal volume? “We’ve discussed this with high ranking physicians in Australia. One response was: ‘It’s not diagnositically interesting, because it’s easily influencable by the patient’ – which is exactly why what we do works!” exclaims Vidgen, aghast. “But if a patient can influence their own health, that’s highly threatening to allopathic modern medicine.” And Vidgen’s due to encounter opposition to this method from Thai medical doctors during a panel debate at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on July 29 from 8pm. Sounds like the usual naturopathic anti-establishment mantra, but Jac feels that the “valid alternative treatments” similarly tackle symptoms and not causes, and invade our bodies with chemicals. “We don’t invalidate other approaches,” he asserts. “We give people tools and a structure, but the only thing that can consistently change it is you. People have to be willing to take a new level of responsibility for their health.” “If you’ve been doing something wrong enough for long enough, when you try to change it, it’s got to feel uncomfortable. It causes headaches, just like fasting for a day would,” says Vidgen, comapring it to the Alexander posture technique. Because books, videos or tapes can’t overcome what habitually ‘feels right’ nor manage individual response and progress, Buteyko’s best taught by an expert and Vidgen plans to train up locals on twice-yearly visits to Bangkok, Bali and Manila. “At first you feel, ‘I’m not getting enough air.’ Of course that’s not true,” says Vidgen of the initial discomfort of pauses between breaths in the training. Most people think breathing’s just about getting oxygen; actually it’s a discomfort level of carbon dioxide that triggers inhalation – something we habitually override. “When you hyperventilate you’re gasping oxygen in, [but] exhale carbon dioxide faster than you make it. Now you’d say ‘what does that matter, it’s a waste gas.’ We prefer to call it an end product and before you get rid of it, CO2 plays a range of important functions. It’s the forgotten chemical.” “The result is you don’t absorb oxygen effectively from your blood, your pH in your blood and respiratory system tends to shift to alkaline, and the muscles that surround your myriad smooth vessels will be inclined to spasm or constrict.” That’s not just your brochial tubes, but also the micro-vessels in your brain, your cardiovascular passages, your digestive and reproductive passages and all your blood vessels.” You breathing’s probably increased on hearing that! The spasming during an asthmatic attack is because they’re not getting enough carbon dioxide – a natural defence mechanism undermined by non-emergency use of oral puffers to open bronchial tubes artificially. “I firmly believe one reason asthma’s worse these days is the availability of bronchio-dilatory drugs: Ventalin, Bricanol, Theadur, Theofalin,” says Vidgen combatively, “though they’re wonderful in life or death situations.” Puffers are commonly used in Thailand at the slightest slightest sign of discomfort, when they should be on preventatitve therapy, such as steroids. “Many people have a great fear of that, but in fact our bodies make cortico-steroids,” he says. “When you don’t breathe correctly you don’t make enough of them and they’re the very chemical you need to help control your breathing.” This phenomenon is akin to antibiotics and anti-histamines weakening your immune system, which, Buteyko claims, is another beneficiary of correct breathing. As are cardio-vascular, hormonal, neuro, circulatory and digestive systems, sugar and cholesterol levels, common colds, allergies, anxiety attacks and even snoring. In fact, Buteyko breathing has been an integral part of the Russian health system since 1981 and is used to treat complains as diverse as angina, haemorroids, varicose veins and even cancer. If you want individual or family training, Vidgen can do that, but prefers one-to-one in a group, because of the benefits of feedback. His two-hour workshops are on three consecutive days, with breaks to practice before and after the fourth session, plus a fifth, “to fine tune things so the person’s confident, clearly aware of what it’s doing and how to manage it according to their life. If you need follow up, I do that for free,” he offers. “Very few people have that need.” To my shock, his test of my breathing efficiency (I’m average) instantly relieves my pollution-induced congestion. “If you breathe too much bad air, guess what, you get a blocked nose,” laughs Vidgen. “It’s your body telling you: breathe less. You don’t need to wear a mask in Bangkok if you know how to breathe.” Bad news for Ventalin shareholders. “Most people would say their skin’s the most exposed part of their body to the air,” he adds. “In fact if you spead out your skin it’d cover a few sqaure metres. If you spread out the alvaeoloi pockets from your lungs they’d cover a football field. Now, if you use the wrong hole you’re exposing unfiltered, non-humitity controled air at the wrong unregulated rate to this huge mass of tissue. Your nose is a much better regulator [and] a very efficient filter.” “We usually look at health in terms of insurance, or fixing things,” he observes. “Buteyko’s an investment in your long term health, which most of us don’t do very often.” And you can imagine its value to athletes, divers, actors and singers. Australian Olympic swimmers, rowers, kayakers and ironmen already use it, as do Russian cosmonoauts in space, for obvious reasons. “We like asthmatics because we know they’ll work hard and get quick improvement,” grins Vidgen, who overcame hayfever, sinusitis and psoriasis through Buteyko, even though his breathing still isn’t perfect. “Those I’m seeing in Bangkok have reduced relief medication by about 90% in four sessions. Though some results are miraculous, they’re in fact earned, logical and physiologically based.” Vidgen recommends mild lifestyle changes in eating, sleeping and exercise habits (“Aerobics done with the mouth open is a joke.”) You might assume your breathing’s most natural during sleep, but it’s often at its worst, as morning phlegm reminds many of us. “Humans probably breathe better when not lying flat,” says Vidgen, who recommends dozing on your side (left is better due to bronchial layout); on your back is an absolute no-no. “It’s most people’s experience that they get shorter and more efficient sleep, better energy levels and a decrease in hunger,” he says, further claiming: “If you’re overweight, it’ll usually result in you losing weight.” As Buteyko detoxifies the body, suppressed symptoms temporarily recur and smokers expel some startling substances. “Serious smokers justify continuing to smoke by saying they’ll be able to deal with it better,” remarks Vidgen. “And you know, they’re right! Wouldn’t you want a strong body if you’re going to put even more garbage into it than you get out of the air?” But health freaks aren’t always on target. I’d filled my 5.5 litre lungs in my daily yoga regimen with pride, only to learn I’ve simply gotten better at deep breathing bad air! Gulp. “Actually how those yogic masters of pranayama breathe in ordinary life is hardly at all,” says Vidgen, observing how humans with a high consciousness – priests, yogis, monks, martial artists – usually have highly trained self-discipline of their body, mind and breathing. There’s an inseparable relationship between your breathing and your mind.” And when meditating, sure enough, my breath settles to the imperceptible level textbooks recommend. Essentially, Buteyko’s about restoring pre-modern norms. Native American braves trained to hunt through their breath not moving a feather held under their nose, says Vidgen. “They also slept with their babies, holding their lips closed. What a good idea. Train children to breath correctly and they’ll have a much healthier life.” Copyright 1998 by Bangkok Metro Magazine....