What are breathing exercises?
BREATHING is an integral part of human life. However, not many understand that even breathing has an art. Cultivating breathing can help us maintain better health.
Breathing exercise is a form of exercise or exercise that aims to improve the work of the respiratory system by strengthening the respiratory muscles, increasing ventilation or the process of inhaling oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the body, and increasing endurance.
Breathing exercises are often used for pulmonary rehabilitation programs. Many methods are currently used for breathing exercises, depending on the purpose of the exercise. One of the most well-known breathing exercises is the Buteyko method of breathing exercises.
Buteyko Breathing Exercises
Buteyko breathing is a breathing technique or method created by a Ukrainian doctor, Konstantin Buteyko. He invented the method in the 1950s.
He is a Russian doctor who postulated that asthma is a disease or disorder caused by excessive ventilation or breathing processes. This causes an imbalance in the amount of air inhaled and exhaled.
Basically, Buteyko breathing is a strategy to practice dysfunctional breathing because it is believed that many certain disorders are caused by abnormal breathing patterns.
This therapeutic breathing method uses breath retention exercises, which are intended to control the rate and volume of the breath. This can help breathing become more stable, calm, and effective.
Benefits of Buteyko Breathing Exercises
As is well known that there are various benefits of Buteyko breathing. This is inseparable from the method's ability to increase awareness of breathing, encourage breathing through the nose, to limit excessive breathing.
By practicing these techniques, you can learn to breathe properly and efficiently, which in turn can help improve certain conditions.
Well, here is a full explanation of the benefits of Buteyko breathing:
1. Regulate the rhythm of breathing
Buteyko breathing is an ideal technique for people with excessive breathing or hyperventilation. Generally, hyperventilation occurs in someone with certain conditions, such as asthma or anxiety.
On the other hand, Buteyko breathing can also help someone who has difficulty breathing when doing strenuous activities. In addition, Buteyko breathing can also reduce stress levels and improve athletic performance.
Another benefit of Buteyko breathing is to improve sleep quality to reduce sleep apnea.
2. Helps manage asthma
There are many benefits that you can get by doing this exercise, especially if you suffer from asthma.
Buteyko breathing is often used to manage asthma. Because, this technique can prevent hyperventilation. You need to know that hyperventilation can cause hypocapnia, which causes low carbon dioxide levels.
3. Reduces anxiety
You need to know that this technique can help you to stabilize your breathing pattern. In addition, Buteyko breathing can also help balance carbon dioxide levels and reduce anxiety.
4. Relieve eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD)
How to Do the Buteyko Breathing Exercise
To do this technique effectively, you need to be in a quiet room. Make sure the room temperature is not too cold or too hot. Usually, this technique is done in a sitting position.
The duration for this exercise varies, but you can try it in at least 30 minutes in one session. In this exercise, you will try to reduce the frequency of breathing by combining increasing the work of the abdominal muscles and relaxing the accessory muscles of the breath. This helps reduce your effort to breathe and increases the work of your diaphragm. Eventually, the amount of air trapped in the lungs can decrease.
In a minimum duration of 30 minutes, you will practice breathing by inhaling air slowly, then holding a long breath repeatedly before exhaling it again with a certain duration of time gradually. This will help increase your immune system and allow for good air exchange in the lungs.
Reporting from the Very Well Health page, Buteyko breathing is best done before eating or another option is two hours after eating. Well, here are some preparations and steps for doing Buteyko breathing.
Preparation:
- Sit on the floor or on a chair
- Maintain an upright posture
- Relax the respiratory muscles
- Breathe normally for a few minutes
The control pause:
- After exhaling relaxed, hold your breath
- Use your index finger and thumb to cover your nose
- Hold your breath until you feel the urge to breathe, this includes involuntary movements of the diaphragm. Then, take a breath
- Breathe normally for at least 10 seconds
- Repeat several times
The maximum pauses:
- After exhaling relaxed, hold your breath
- Use your index finger and thumb to cover your nose
- Hold your breath as long as possible, the maximum pause is usually twice as long as the control pause
- Once you feel uncomfortable, take a breath
- Breathe normally for at least 10 seconds
- Repeat several times
By regularly doing breathing exercises with the Buteyko method, you are expected to be able to breathe in enough air by doing deep breathing and getting more oxygen.
If it's your first time trying Buteyko breathing, there are a few things you need to pay attention to, including:
- When practicing the Buteyko breathing technique, always breathe through your nose
- If at any time you experience extreme anxiety, shortness of breath, or discomfort, stop the exercise. Then, breathe normally
Make sure your breathing frequency is 8-12 times in 1 minute to achieve this. Breathing fast and short causes a lack of carbon dioxide in the body, which can trigger a condition known as alkalosis or a condition where body fluids are too alkaline.
Well, that's some information about Buteyko breathing. Although this technique has many benefits, Buteyko breathing is not suitable for some people with certain conditions, such as serious medical conditions.
