Asthma is a chronic health condition, mostly commonly affecting child wellness, and is treated with medications, such as inhalers. But what if you were told that you could improve your wellbeing with an effective technique that costs nothing, is easy to use, and works as well or better than drugs but without the side effects? It sounds impossible, but such a treatment has been around for decades.
For the last 60 years, doctors in Russia, Europe, Canada, and elsewhere have used a method known as Buteyko Breathing to improve asthmatic wellness. Named after the Russian doctor who developed it, Buteyko Breathing has been shown by a growing number of scientific studies to be as effective as conventional drugs. Carol Baglia, a licensed respiratory therapist and certified Buteyko instructor with Cleveland-based Correct Breathing Concepts, says, ‘Buteyko is definitely growing in popularity. Access to it was limited until the past few years.’
Baglia is quick to stress the fact that Buteyko practitioners don’t advocate throwing away asthma medications; instead clients are always instructed to consult their doctors before reducing medications. However, she noted that asthmatics tend to have less need for medications after learning the symptom-reducing technique, adding ‘most people are able to eliminate the need for drugs.’
The Buteyko method is essentially a shallow-breathing technique, based on the knowledge that asthmatics tend to over-breathe or hyperventilate compared to people who don’t have asthma. When you implement the Buteyko breathing method, you take small, measured, shallow breaths through the nose, allowing you to gain more control over your breathing. This may seem counterintuitive, as your natural response to an asthma attach is to breather deeply to pull in more oxygen, but Baglia says that taking slower, smaller and more shallow breaths through the nose helps you to avoid hyperventilation and “reset” your breathing rate at a naturally lower pace.
You can learn the Buteyko breathing method via YouTube videos and web-based instruction techniques, but, according to Baglia, the best way to learn the technique is in a small classroom setting – typically with 5-10 people – with an instructor certified by the Buteyko Institute of Breathing & Health. You can also purchase a self-help home study kit or else there are several books written on this subject. Baglia commented, ‘The biggest complaints that I get is that people wished that they had known about Buteyko sooner and complain because their doctor did not tell them about it sooner.’
Comments are closed.