You lose energy, gain weight, lower performance, feel stressed and make yourself vulnerable to disease with rapid, shallow breathing. Right now, count how many complete breaths (inhale and exhale is 1 breath) you take in 15 seconds. Get 4 or more? You're in a stress response pattern, and all those bad things are happening.
You are also detraining your breathing muscles, as rapid, shallow stress response breathing makes deep diaphragmatic breathing more difficult. Accessing your full lung capacity becomes problematic. And without full lung capacity, you are setting yourself up for premature death. The Framingham Heart Study, the gold standard for U.S. longitudinal studies, noted the the best predictor of longevity is FEV1 - essentially how much air you can get into and out of your lungs.
Now try this simple one minute exercise to tap the awesome power of good breathing. Inhale slowly, easily and deeply for 4 seconds. Exhale slowly, easily and deeply for 4 seconds. Rest for 4 seconds. Repeat 3 times, but the third time rest for as long as you comfortably can before inhaling again. Your next inhale will be big, smooth and effortless. That's your natural breathing response. If you were in stress response breathing, your life just changed. This technique is especially effective if you have trouble falling asleep or are stressing out. Just repeat the series several times, if necessary. You might feel light-headed initially. That is because your more complete and efficient exhale rid you of more carbon dioxide than normal, and your body tries to maintain a constant oxygen/carbon dioxide ratio. It will quickly stabilize. And you will be a big step closer to your best.
The way you breathe programs your nervous system and controls your metabolism. Most of us have rapid, shallow breathing patterns as a result of stress response conditioning. This is not an efficient way to live.
Optimal Breathing® Development is a science-based approach that retrains the body to breathe deeply, calmly and effortlessly. Developed over a 30 year period by Master Breathing Coach Michael Grant White, it uses a structured protocol of proprietary techniques to increase blood oxygen; improve blood chemistry; increase vital capacity (VC) and tidal volume (TV), and decrease Reserve Volume (RV). It facilitates increased oxygen uptake/utilization (QO2), strengthens or restores breathing proprioception and kinesthetics and reduces muscle tension.
TRANSLATION? Your breathing becomes slower and more efficient, your breaths bigger. You get more of the oxygen you need, and become more efficient at ridding yourself of waste products and toxins. The stress response, with its attendant rapid, shallow breathing is extinguished and relaxation response breathing takes its place. You function better, physically and mentally; you stop making yourself sick and start making yourself healthier. It feels as good as being stressed feels bad.
And you perform better. Bob Underwood ran his best time in three years at the USA Track and Field National 5k Masters Cross Country Championships after a five minute demonstration of just one of the techniques used in a session. He was 2nd fastest on the 3rd place team.
On Wednesday, September 13 Human HyperFormance gave a presentation on Optimal Breathing Development to the Siena College Division I MAAC Champion Women's Tennis Team.
The December issue of the national publication Running Times Magazine features Human HyperFormance and Optimal Breathing Development runningtimes.com/Article.aspx
Optimal Breathing Development sessions lasts about an hour and cost $100. The first session includes a Voldyne 5000 volumetric exerciser unit that the client keeps to help measure breathing performance and covers assessments, awareness, hands-on techniques and client exercises to maintain and improve breathing function. You program your autonomic nervous system with every breath you take. There is a reason that yoga, tai chi, qi gong and other eastern systems stress breathing patterns--they have a huge effect on your health and your state of mind.
Then, take the next step with The Mind/Body DeStress/Detox
