The Oxygen Advantage

Here’s the first thing we need to wrap our brains around: We breathe too much.

Really? Yah.

We’ll talk about the underlying physiology of WHY the way we breathe is sub-optimal then how to go about optimizing it in a moment. For now, let’s do a quick check on whether or not YOU overbreathe.

Here are a few signs that you may be overbreathing:

• Do you breathe through your mouth at times as you go about your day?
• How about at night? Do you breathe through your mouth as you sleep?
• Do you snore?
• Do you breathe more from your chest than your abdomen?
• Can you visibly notice and/or hear yourself breathing while at rest?

How’d you do?

Yes to some or all of those suggests a tendency to overbreathe.

Let’s take a quick look at why that’s a problem and then how to optimize!

In 1904, a physiologist named Christian Bohr (father of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr) discovered what is known as the “Bohr Effect”—which is a central component of the Oxygen Advantage.

Here’s how Bohr put it: “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.”

Here’s the (super) short story on what we need to know: Hemoglobin is the part of our blood that is responsible for carrying oxygen from the lungs and into the tissues and cells of our body.

To optimize our energy, we want to get really good at helping hemoglobin release that oxygen. That requires the proper levels of carbon dioxide. Overbreathing disrupts that level and, ironically, leads to less oxygen released.

The primary goal of the Oxygen Advantage is to help us recalibrate our carbon dioxide levels—essentially getting us comfortable having more of it in our bodies.

The last Note I created was on Dr. Mercola’s Effortless Healing. Mercola is a huge fan of the Buteyko Method and McKeown’s Oxygen Advantage approach. He actually wrote the foreword to this book. In Effortless Healing he talks about this approach and just how important optimal breathing is. Here’s how he puts it: “Getting oxygen into your cells is every bit as important as eating the right foods and drinking fresh, pure water. But we usually take breathing for granted, in spite of it being our most fundamental need.

Your life likely is far removed from that of your ancient ancestors. Thanks to technology and economic improvements, you are more comfortable, with improved living standards and sanitation. But you are also susceptible to the damage caused by consumption of processed foods, competitive stress in school and at work, and far less physical exercise. All these factors negatively influence your breathing.

You may not realize it, but carbon dioxide plays an essential role in utilizing the oxygen within your body. When your carbon dioxide level is too low, changes in your blood pH make your red blood cells (haemoglobin) less able to release oxygen to your cells. This is a problem because oxygen is the fuel for your cells. Without enough oxygen, your cells can’t perform their duties optimally—they become more susceptible to viruses, and they can’t create as much energy.”

And, most importantly practically-speaking, he tells us: “Ironically, to improve blood flow and body oxygenation, we need to breathe less, not more.”

P.S. Here’s a quick look at a quick test to see how comfortable you are with carbon dioxide and whether you’re breathing too much. It’s called the Body Oxygen Level Test (or BOLT for short). Take a normal breath through your nose. Hold your nose. Time how many seconds you can hold your breath before you feel “the first definite desire to breathe”—not a max hold when you’re at a 10 gasping for air but more like a 6 or 7 need to breathe.

How many seconds did you last? 20 is considered a normal starting point. Even though a lot of athletes only score around 20, 40 seconds is the ideal BOLT score for a healthy individual. Every 5 second increase is supposed to deliver significant gains in energy and reduced breathlessness during exercise. (I’m fired up to get to 40. :)

Now we’re ready for a super quick look at some Ideas on how to go about optimizing.

That’s from a chapter called “Noses Are for Breathing, Mouths Are for Eating.”

Short story: You should be breathing through your NOSE essentially *all* the time (even during intense exercise with rare moments for an extra burst via the mouth).

The ONLY time we used to breathe through our mouths back in the day was when we were in a true emergency situation. Now, some of us ALWAYS breathe through our mouths, essentially living in a constant state of fight-or-flight stress. That’s not a good idea.

So, the #1 thing we want to do to optimize?

Breathe through our nose.

All the time.

P.S. We also want our breathing to be from our abdomen, not our chest.

Why? Glad you asked! → “Abdominal breathing is more efficient simply because of the shape of the lungs. Since they are narrow at the top and wider at the bottom, the amount of blood flow in the lower lobes of the lungs is greater than in the upper lobes. The fast upper-chest breathing of people who chronically hyperventilate does not take advantage of the lower parts of the lungs, limiting the amount of oxygen that can be transferred to the blood and resulting in a greater loss of CO2. Not only this, but upper-chest breathing activates the fight-or-flight response, which raises stress levels and produces even heavier breathing.

Observe your own breathing when you are stressed, or watch the breathing of anxious relatives, friends, or colleagues—you will see that this type of breathing is generally located in the upper chest and goes at a rate faster than normal. When we are stressed we tend to overbreathe and resort to breathing through the mouth. Stressed breathing is faster than normal, audible, produces visible movements, and often involves sighs. Many people habitually breathe in this manner every minute of every hour of every day, holding them in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight with adrenalin levels high. The work of even the best stress counselors, psychologists, or psychotherapists will be limited unless they first help their patients address their dysfunctional breathing. When oxygen delivery to the brain is reduced, no amount of talking and reasoning is going to correct this deficiency. Stressed and anxious patients can only make the progress they really need when their bad breathing habits are addressed.”

That’s some pretty powerful stuff.

Have you ever noticed how YOU breathe when you’re stressed? Check it out and notice how super stressed people tend to breathe.

Remember: Stress <=> rapid chest breathing <=> fight-or-flight = enervating = not the place we want to hang out.

Slow down. Breathe through your nose. Into your abdomen.

We want our breathing to be quiet, controlled, and rhythmic. In a word: effortless.

McKeown shares a story about meeting a tai chi master who, he said, had textbook perfect breathing: “It was abdominal, effortless, and almost invisible to the eye.”

She told him that during tai chi tournaments judges want to see quiet, gentle, and light breathing. Get this: They’ll deduct points (!) if breathing is evident. ← Love that.

Thich Nhat Hanh captures the spirit of the type of breath McKeown is trying to help us create. Here’s how he poetically puts it The Miracle of Mindfulness: “Your breath should be light, even, and flowing, like a thin stream of water running through the sand. Your breath should be very quiet, so quiet that a person sitting next to you cannot hear it. Your breathing should flow gracefully, like a river, like a watersnake crossing the water, not like a chain of rugged mountains or the gallop of a horse. To master our breath is to be in control of our bodies and minds. Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used.”

So, what about all those “big” breaths we’re often encouraged to take? McKeown tells us: “The commonly used practice of taking big breaths is based on the misconception that taking in more air will increase the oxygen levels of the blood. However, since arterial blood is already almost fully saturated with oxygen (between 95 percent and 99 percent) during normal, healthy breathing, ‘big’ breathing is rendered totally unnecessary.”

Fascinating… Our blood is already fully saturated so it’s not about getting more oxygen into our bodies via a deep breath, it’s about getting more oxygen OUT of our hemoglobin and into our cells. And that’s not achieved through “big” breaths but through effective breathing and carbon dioxide levels as discussed above—which, again, is via quiet, controlled, and rhythmic breathing.

Q: How’s YOUR breath?

P.S. McKeown has a bunch of practical exercises to help us optimize. Check out the book for more. One of them is designed to simulate the positive effects of training at altitude in which you go for a walk and practice breath holding.

Basic idea: Go out for a walk, breathe normally through your nose. Then take a small, silent breath in and a small, silent breath out. Then hold your nose closed with your fingers until you feel a strong need to breathe. Quickly recover your normal breathing (through your nose!). (Don’t hold for so long that you can’t recover your breath within 2-3 breaths.) Repeat.

How many paces can you take? Believe it or not, he can help formerly asthmatic kids get to 60 (!) paces. (I’m excited to get there.)

I’m also practicing breathing through my nose when I exercise—including high intensity training. It’s nutty how quickly I’m adapting and how hard I can go while properly oxygenating my muscles while/by breathing LESS.

Do you breathe through your mouth at night? (Good signs you may include waking up with a dry mouth and/or waking up feeling lethargic.)

If so, here’s the solution: Get yourself some 3m Micropore tape and slap that on the ol’ lips before you go to bed.

You’ll look like a nut (I promise!) but you’ll also train yourself to breathe through your nose which, as we now know, is a key component to optimizing our breathing and therefore our energy. (Wear the tape with these blue-light blocking glasses if you want to be *really* cool. :)

I’ll need to add this Idea to Sleep 102. (More sleep goodness in Sleep 101!)