Are you a bad breather? Would you like to
increase the amount of oxygen in your body naturally? If so, why don't we just breathe
really fast and really deeply like this? You've probably seen people
doing this online, right? But wait a minute, I'm getting a little bit dizzy.
If I keep doing this, sometimes I get a headache. In fact, one time I did it so much I even fainted,
I passed out. But how does that work? If I'm breathing fast and I'm breathing deep I'm bringing
in more oxygen. But why is oxygen getting cut off to my brain? Are you confused yet? If so, you are
not alone. The world of yoga breathing is very, very confusing and in this video we'll talk about
number one, why your blood oxygen levels right now they're probably just fine and you don't need
more. Number two, what you probably do need more of is actually carbon dioxide, this is taught
to us by the Bohr effect. And number three, we'll look at rather than focusing on
over-breathing or hyperventilation, we'll talk about optimizing your breathing, and
we'll take a look at a couple of exercises you probably haven't seen before to increase your
respiratory efficiency, strengthen coordination of your diaphragm, and then some flexibility
exercises for your thoracic region. Hey, my name is Lucas I am a breathing coach and a
yoga teacher. I have a TEDx talk on breathing you might have seen from a few years back. I have been
teaching both students and coaches/professionals since 2007 and I find that the vast majority of
the world is confused about breathing. Everyone's focused on oxygen and they're missing the point of
oxygen exchange and CO2 balance. That's what we'll talk about today. A quick disclaimer - this is
for educational purposes only. If you have asthma, COPD, emphysema, please go see a doctor. There
is a PDF down below with a summary of everything that we'll chat about, including the exercises,
feel free to grab that in the description. OK, so hyperventilation, why doesn't that
bring more oxygen into my body? Well, it certainly brings more oxygen into my lungs
and it certainly brings oxygen to my blood, but that's not the same as getting it to the
cellular level. Here's the way it works. There's something called the Bohr effect, which was
discovered by a researcher named Christian Bohr over a hundred years ago in in Denmark. What
he discovered is that when oxygen comes in it is bound to hemoglobin, it's called oxyhemoglobin or
HbO2, and essentially, these hemoglobin molecules, they hold on to the oxygen and it's transported
around and that's all fine. However, in the absence of carbon dioxide it's very difficult for
your cells in the body to access that oxygen. So, you've got a whole bunch of oxygen that your
body can't get access to and so that's why plenty of oxygen and yet I'm getting a headache,
plenty of oxygen and yet my brain gets oxygen deprived, and I might even faint. The goal of
almost everything, including breathing, in health is balance, trying to find the appropriate balance
between sleep and wakefulness, between work and rest, between oxygen and CO2. Let's talk more
about CO2. If we were to go out on the street and ask a hundred people "How are your oxygen levels?"
I find that most people assume that their oxygen is really low. They assume that they're starving
for air like they're on the top of Mount Everest and they just need more. This is not true. And the
reason that I know that is because with a simple twenty dollar device you can buy online, this is
a medical device, it's called a pulse oximeter, you will find that almost everyone, unless
they have disease, or illness, or suffering from some kind of respiratory challenge, a medical
condition, they have 95 to 99 percent saturation in their blood, which essentially is like
a full tank. Let's imagine you're filling up your car with gas at the gas station and your
thing reads full, your gas meter reads full but you just keep pumping. More gas is not more gas,
it just drips out all over the floor. More oxygen is not more oxygen. My gas tank is full, I'm
at 98 percent, I don't need more oxygen. What I need is to optimize my respiratory system so
that I'm able to absorb the oxygen that I have, not get light-headed and dizzy. Now, that same
group of people who have a full tank of oxygen, they also are doing something that is problematic
and that is that they're over-breathing. Now they're not breathing that fast, however most
people are breathing about 20 or 30 percent faster than they should. Ideally, we'd like to breathe
around 12, 15, 16 breaths per minute. Everybody's a little bit different and most people breathe
faster than that. That faster breathing lowers our CO2 and this leads to an imbalance where we're
unable to access the oxygen that we already have, it's trapped with that hemoglobin. When we look
at most breathing exercises, when we look at most serious practitioners of breath work, the majority
of their breathing practices focus on this balance of oxygen and CO2, which usually comes down to
slowing down their breath, normalizing their breathing patterns. The second thing we need
to focus on is our respiratory efficiency, breathing better. From a muscular perspective,
your diaphragm is the biggest muscle involved in breathing, so let's strengthen and coordinate
it. From a posture perspective, if you're hunched over and you have tightness in your chest and
shoulders, this can also limit your ability to breathe efficiently. I'd like to show you a
couple of exercises you probably haven't seen before. The first one is designed to strengthen
and coordinate your diaphragm and the second one is designed to free up your thoracic cavity, so
you can breathe more efficiently. Let's take a look. The first breathing exercise we'll do is a
resistance 4x4 breathing pattern. The 4x4 refers to our inhale to the count of four, and exhale to
the count of four, and our target rate is four to six breaths per minute. As we mentioned before,
our optimal, normal, walking around, sitting at a cafe breathing rate, is maybe 12 or 15, 16 breaths
per minute. We'll deliberately cut that in half to train our body to slow down and optimize O2 and
CO2 balance. As you probably guessed, when we slow down our CO2 goes up but our oxygen levels
don't really change very much at all. We still have that full tank of gas, 95 to 99 percent.
For this practice it's helpful if you have a resistance device. Now, I have this device which
you can buy online, they cost about ten dollars. I find to gamify the breathing
it provides some resistance which helps to train my diaphragm. However,
there are simpler devices like this one or even a reusable straw, like an aluminium
straw, that you might have in your kitchen, it'll provide a little bit of resistance. Why do
we want resistance? Well, think about resistance training. Your diaphragm, your main breathing
muscle, is a skeletal muscle, just like your biceps, and when you load it with resistance,
in this case by restricting our inhale, it helps to build the muscle strength number
one and coordination, neuromuscular connection, and it's a very, very effective way to go. We'll
do 10 rounds and we'll inhale through our device, through our device or through our straw,
to the count of four, and then we'll exhale through our nose to the count of four. Try
to make the breath round, so the inhale and the exhale have an equal rate and an equal
volume. It's a little bit challenging at first, but you'll get the hang of
it. Let's start together. Again, remember, the device doesn't matter. I
like this one because it's a bit of a game. A simple restricted breathing device or even a
simple straw from your kitchen can be really, really effective. We just want to add a little bit
of resistance so that our diaphragm muscle has to work a little harder. Remember, our goal is a 4x4
count, targeting four to six breaths per minute. Let's look at one more exercise. This is a
stretching exercise designed to open up our intercostal muscles, our chest and our shoulders,
since many of us are constricted here. This can actually impair your breathing physiology. Now
that we've done a breathing exercise, I'd like to share with you a flexibility exercise specifically
to work on our thoracic region, our intercostal muscles, the muscles between your ribs, and also
the muscles of our chest and shoulders, which very often restrict breathing and they can reduce our
breathing efficiency. This is a simple pose but it works great. We'll do a two minute hold. I
have a timer here, I have a block. If you don't have a block, a book can work. I would encourage
you to use something hard, it will work better. On top of that I will put a pillow, you can use a
folded up towel, that'll work just fine as well, and I'll rest my scapula, my shoulder blades here
- so not my lower back, but way up higher. Lastly, I have a broomstick here and this allows me to
flex my shoulders, extending my arms above my head. I'll position myself so that the edge of the
block creates a leverage point, drop my head back, extend my arms back, close my eyes, and I'll
breathe here in and out through my nose. My objective here is to free up my thoracic cavity
so that I'm able to make the most of what I have. As we spoke about before, so often we feel like we
need more oxygen but in most cases what we need to do is make the most of what we have, optimize our
breathing, and absorb the oxygen that's already there. In this case we're working to improve our
posture and free up our respiratory efficiency. Good, bend your elbows and carefully, with your head
coming up last, make your way up to a seated position. Hope you found this video
helpful. Just to summarize what we talked about, with breathing exercises often, rather
than trying to pump up our oxygen, which is often already high, we're usually
trying to boost our CO2 to balance out our gas exchange. We talked about the importance of
building the strength and coordination of your diaphragm and potentially opening up this region
of the body so we can breathe in a way that's the most efficient. The name of the game is making the
most of what you already have, lots of oxygen, a really great breathing system. If you'd like more
educational videos on yoga, science-based videos, hit subscribe down below. If you have experiences
with any of these practices, I'd love to hear from you in the comments down below. For my other
yoga breathing teaching videos you can always find my calendar at yogabody.com. Thanks so much for
joining us and we'll see you in the next video.
