More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
April 25 - May 20, 2016
Carbon dioxide performs a number of vital functions in the human body, including: • Offloading of oxygen from the blood to be used by the cells. • The dilation of the smooth muscle in the walls of the airwa...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
A fundamental element of the Oxygen Advantage technique is to understand the Bohr Effect—the way in which oxygen is released from hemoglobin and delivered to the muscles and organs.
Christian Bohr, “The carbon dioxide pressure of the blood is to be regarded as an important factor in the inner respiratory metabolism. If one uses carbon dioxide in appropriate amounts, the oxygen that was taken up can be used more effectively throughout the body.”
The crucial point to remember is that hemoglobin releases oxygen when in the presence of carbon dioxide. When we overbreathe, too much carbon dioxide is washed from the lungs, blood, tissues, and cells. This condition is called hypocapnia, causing the hemoglobin to hold on to oxygen, resulting in reduced oxygen release and therefore reduced oxygen delivery to tissues and organs. With less oxygen delivered to the muscles, they cannot work as effectively as we might like them to.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, the urge to take bigger, deeper breaths when we hit the wall during exercise does not provide the muscles with more oxygen but effectively reduces oxygenation even further. In contrast, when breathing volume remains nearer to correct levels, the pressure of carbon dioxide in the blood is higher, loosening the bond bet...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“an exercising muscle is hot and generates carbon dioxide, and it benefits from increased unloading of O2 ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
For the vast majority of people, 2 minutes of heavy breathing is enough to reduce blood circulation throughout the body, including the brain, which can cause a feeling of dizziness and light-headedness.
In general, blood flow to the brain reduces proportionately to each reduction in carbon dioxide. A study by Dr. Daniel M. Gibbs, which was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry to assess arterial constriction induced by excessive breathing, found that the diameter of blood vessels reduced in some individuals by as much as 50 percent. Based on the formula πr2, which measures the area of a circle, blood flow decreases by a factor of four. This shows you how radically overbreathing can affect your blood flow.
It is well documented that habitual mouth breathing during waking and sleeping hours results in fatigue, poor concentration, reduced productivity, and a bad mood.
The same can also be true of individuals whose occupation involves considerable talking, such as schoolteachers or salespeople.
but the exhaustion that follows endless business meetings is not necessarily due to mental or physical effort—more likely it is a result of the effects of elevated breathing levels during excessive talking.
However, in the case of talking, breathing increases without an actual need for more oxygen, causing a disturbance to blood gases and reducing blood flow.
Depending on genetic predisposition to asthma, the loss of carbon dioxide in the blood can also cause the smooth muscles of the airways to constrict, resulting in wheezing and breathlessness. However, an increase of carbon dioxide opens up the airways to allow a better oxygen transfer to take place and has been shown to improve breathing for persons diagnosed with asthma.
carbon dioxide also plays a central role in regulating the pH of the bloodstream:
when the blood’s pH becomes more alkaline, breathing reduces to allow carbon dioxide levels to rise and restore pH. Conversely, if the pH of the blood is too acidic (as it is when you overconsume processed foods), breathing increases in order to offload carbon dioxide as acid, allowing pH to normalize.
It becomes a cycle: It’s not just the breathless exertion that leads to panting. It’s the panting that leads to breathless exertion. In the chapters to come, you’ll learn how to break this cycle and build a new, positive one.
It’s important to bear in mind at this point that the purpose of breathing is to get rid of the excess carbon dioxide, and not to get rid of as much as possible. Overbreathing for a period of days and weeks, however, removes more carbon dioxide than is necessary, increasing the sensitivity of the brain’s receptors.
When breathing receptors are less sensitive to carbon dioxide levels, you will experience a reduction in breathlessness as your body is able to work harder with far less effort; breathing will be lighter during both rest and physical exercise. Efficient breathing means that fewer free radicals are produced, reducing the risk of inflammation, tissue damage, and injury.
Free radicals (or oxidants) are formed when the oxygen we breathe is converted into energy. During exercise, breathing markedly increases, resulting in an increased production of free radicals.
left unchecked by antioxidants, free radicals attack other cells, causing inflammation, muscular fatigue, and overtraining.
It has been said that one of the main differences between endurance athletes and nonathletes is their response to low pressures of oxygen (hypoxia) and higher levels of carbon dioxide (hypercapnia). In other words, endurance athletes are able to tolerate a greater concentration of carbon dioxide and lower concentration of oxygen in the blood during exercise. Intense physical exercise results in increased consumption of oxygen and increased production of carbon dioxide, so it is vitally important that athletes are able to cope well with changes to these gases.
In order to attain outstanding performance during sports, it is essential that your breathing does not react too strongly to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and decreased concentrations of oxygen. Over time, intense physical training will help to condition the body to better tolerate the...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
VO2 max. This simply refers to the maximum capacity of your body to transport and utilize oxygen in 1 minute during maximal or exhaustive exercise.
considered to be the best indicator of cardiorespiratory endurance and aerobic fitness.
athletic ability to perform during increased carbon dioxide and reduced oxygen pressure corresponds to maximal oxygen uptake. In other words, the ability to tolerate higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the blood means a higher VO2 max can be achieved, culminating in better delivery and utilization of oxygen by the working muscles.
When the breath is held, oxygen saturation in the blood decreases, leading to increased production of red blood cells to offset the drop.
running economy is regarded as a better predictor of performance than VO2 max.
However, a third and far more widely accessible method of boosting running economy is to practice breath-hold techniques, which have been proven to improve respiratory muscle strength and endurance.
Since carbon dioxide is the primary stimulus for breathing, the length of your breath-hold time is influenced by how much carbon dioxide you are able to tolerate, or your ventilatory response to carbon dioxide.
A strong ventilatory response to carbon dioxide means that your threshold will be reached sooner, resulting in a lower breath-hold time. Conversely, a good tolerance and reduced ventilatory response to carbon dioxide results in a higher breath-hold time.
The good news is that your BOLT score can easily be increased with a series of simple breathing exercises incorporated into your existing way of life or exercise regimen. A common starting BOLT score for an individual who exercises regularly at a moderate intensity will be approximately 20 seconds. If your BOLT score is below 20 seconds, depending on genetic predisposition, you will probably find you experience a blocked nose, coughing, wheezing, disrupted sleep, snoring, fatigue, and excessive breathlessness during physical exercise. Each time that your BOLT score increases by 5 seconds, you
...more
The ideal BOLT score for a healthy individual is 40 seconds. In the book entitled Exercise Physiology: Nutrition, Energy, and Human Performance by William McArdle and colleagues, the authors observe: “If a person breath holds after a normal exhalation, it takes approximately 40 seconds before the urge to breathe increases enough to initiate inspiration.”
to achieve your full potential, a BOLT score of 40 seconds should be the goal.
The result that comes up again and again is that the lower the breath-hold time, the greater the likelihood of breathlessness, coughing, and wheezing during both rest and exercise.
The overall goal of the Oxygen Advantage program is to increase your BOLT score to over 40 seconds, but every time you improve your BOLT score by 5 seconds you will find that symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and breathlessness reduce drastically. More on eliminating exercise-induced asthma can be found in chapter 12.
When a BOLT score is 40 seconds, breathing is effortless, calm, gentle, quiet, soft, and minimal. At a BOLT score of 40 seconds, it is difficult to see breathing movements. The natural pause between each breath is generally about 4 to 5 seconds. The number of breaths during rest per minute varies from 6 to 10 minimal breaths.
1. Stop Losses of Carbon Dioxide • Breathe through your nose, day and night. • Stop sighing; instead, swallow or suppress the sigh. One sigh taken every few minutes is enough to maintain chronic overbreathing, so it is necessary to counteract the sigh by swallowing or holding the breath. If you notice your
sighs only after they have taken place, then hold your breath for 10 to 15 seconds to help compensate for the loss of carbon dioxide.
Avoid taking big breaths when yawning or talking. Individuals with a low BOLT score are often tired, and yawn frequently throughout the day. Try not to take in a large breath during a yawn. Likewise, individuals who talk for a living need to be aware that their breathing should not be heard during talking. If you find that you can hear your breathing during talking, then it is better to slow down the speed of your talking, use shorter sentences, and take a gentle breath through your nose between each sentence. • Observe your breathing throughout the day. Good breathing during rest
...more
2. Improve Tolerance of Carbon Dioxide This is where you practice exercises designed to reduce your breathing volume toward normal. They will bring a feeling of relaxation to your body and encourage your breathing to slow down and become calmer. The objective is to create a tolerable need or hunger for air. A sustained need for air over the course of 10 to 12 minutes resets the receptors in the brain to tolerate a higher concentration of carbon dioxide.
Steps 1 and 2 are necessary to increase BOLT score from 10 to 20 seconds. 3. Simulate High-Altitude Training During physical exertion, as discussed, breathing volume increases along with metabolic activity, which generates carbon dioxide. Breathing less than you feel you need to during physical training is an excellent method of conditioning the body to tolerate a higher concentration of carbon dioxide, while at the same time subjecting the body to a reduced concentration of oxygen. The benefit of implementing Oxygen Advantage breathing techniques during physical exercise is that a stronger
...more
In order to increase a BOLT score from 20 to 40 seconds, it is necessary to perform physical exercise while incorpora...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
The most accurate BOLT score is taken first thing after waking.
therefore an early morning score will be based on your breathing volume as naturally set by your respiratory center.
Your goal is to maintain a morning BOLT score of 40 seconds for a period of 6 months.
BOLT score of 10 seconds or under: • Breathing Recovery Exercise to unblock the nose • Nose-breathe at all times • Avoiding sighing and taking big breaths • Breathe Light to Breathe Right during rest • Breathing Recovery Exercise
BOLT score of 10 to 20 seconds: • Nose unblocking exercise • Nose-breathe at all times • Avoiding sighing and taking big breaths • Breathe Light to Breathe Right during rest and physical exercise BOLT score of 20 to 30 seconds:
Nose unblocking exercise • Nose-breathe at all times • Breathe Light to Breathe Right during rest and physical exercise • Simulate High-Altitude Training during a fast walk or jog BOLT score of 30 seconds or greater: • Nose-breathe at all times • Breathe Light to Breathe Right during rest and physical exercise • Simulate High-Altitude Training during jogging or running • Advanced Simulation of High-Altitude Training
It is also advised to have a BOLT score of at least 20 seconds before attempting breath holding during jogging or running.
Typical detoxification symptoms may include: • Increased demand for water • Loss of appetite • Bad taste in the mouth • Increased moodiness • Short-term headache • Increased secretions of mucus from the lungs by people with asthma • Head cold with runny nose, especially during physical exercise
