The Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter You

by Patrick McKeown

  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. But at the end of the day, we’re all operating on the same spectrum, with good breathing at one end and bad breathing on the other. It’s not just people with asthma who benefit from less constricted airways. The feeling of chest tightness, excessive breathlessness, cough, and the inability to take a satisfying breath is experienced by many athletes, including those without a prior history of asthma, but can be eliminated by simply improving the way you breathe.

  The Regulation of Blood pH

  In addition to determining how much oxygen is released into your tissues and cells, carbon dioxide also plays a central role in regulating the pH of the bloodstream: how acidic or alkaline your blood is. Normal pH in the blood is 7.365, and this level must remain within a tightly defined range or the body is forced to compensate. For example, 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. Maintaining normal blood pH is vital to our survival. If pH is too acidic and drops below 6.8, or too alkaline and rises above 7.8, the result can be fatal. This is because pH levels directly affect the ability of our internal organs and metabolism to function.

  Scientific evidence clearly shows that carbon dioxide is an essential element not just in regulating our breathing, optimizing blood flow, and releasing oxygen to the muscles, but also maintaining correct pH levels. In short, our body’s relationship with carbon dioxide determines how healthy we can be, affecting nearly every aspect of how our body functions. Better breathing allows carbon dioxide to ensure that all the interlocking parts of our system work together in harmony, allowing us to achieve our maximum potential in sporting performance, endurance, and strength.

  Without the requisite amount of CO2 in the blood, blood vessels constrict and hemoglobin cannot release oxygen into the bloodstream; without the requisite amount of oxygen, working muscles do not perform as effectively as they should. We become breathless, or hit a wall in our capabilities. 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.

  Eliminating overbreathing is the key to harnessing the potential of the CO2 you already have inside you. Knowing how your respiratory system works is the first step in this empowering process, as it was for Alison, an amateur athlete who was an avid cyclist.

  I met Alison when she was thirty-seven years old, and she had been cycling seriously since her late teens. She trained two to three times each week without fail, cycling up to 37 miles during each session. Cycling allowed Alison to have her own time, to leave her thoughts and worries behind, and to get out into nature and feel the breeze on her face.

  Despite her years of regular training, Alison was experiencing excessive breathlessness and a desperate need for air even while cycling at a moderate pace. During her long rides, she often experienced light-headedness and nausea, requiring her to get off her bike and wait for a few minutes by the side of the road to recover. Sometimes this problem was so severe that she felt like throwing up or fainting. Given her dedication to her training, she didn’t understand why she wasn’t in better condition, like her more fit cycling companions.

  These bouts of nauseous dizziness continued, so Alison visited her doctor and then a specialist. They both ruled out asthma and any heart problems, giving her a clean bill of health. But the problem didn’t resolve itself, and Alison’s anxiety grew. She knew something was wrong, even though the medical tests and examinations revealed nothing.

  A local sports coach put Alison in touch with me, and I immediately recognized signs of habitual mouth breathing, including excessive breathing movements from the upper chest. She sighed regularly and often felt short of air. Her bad breathing occurred not just while exercising, but in her everyday life, so she had created a self-reinforcing cycle that severely limited her abilities. While most health professionals would not give a moment’s thought to Alison’s breath, I was in no doubt that better breathing was the answer to her problem.

  Alison was enormously relieved when I made her aware of her overbreathing habit as the root of her symptoms. She understood straightaway that if she was breathing too much during her everyday activities, then it stood to reason that her breathing would increase proportionately during sports, leading to excessive breathlessness. As is the case with many people, and not just athletes like Alison, overbreathing had thrown off her whole system. By losing the carbon dioxide her body so badly needed in order to send oxygen to her heart, other muscles, lungs, and head, she had hamstrung her own abilities. The breathlessness caused by mouth breathing had created a vicious cycle in which Alison felt the need to take in larger breaths to cope, resulting in a breathing volume that was even further increased.

  Following two weeks of practicing the various exercises in this book, Alison reduced her breathlessness, and her nausea and fainting stopped. Her fitness levels and health also improved remarkably; she felt calmer, slept better, and had more energy throughout the day. Of course, not everyone with overbreathing experiences blackouts, as the effects of overbreathing will depend on genetic predisposition (which we’ll discuss in chapter 13), but in all cases there will be some negative symptoms to be found—often unexplainable by doctors and specialists, as was the case with Alison. As the late chest physician Claude Lum explained, breathing too much “presents a collection of bizarre and often apparently unrelated symptoms, which may affect any part of the body, and any organ or any system.” It’s crucial to identify overbreathing as soon as possible, so as not to arrive at the extreme symptons Alison found herself battling.

  In the next chapter we will look at a very simple way to measure our tolerance to carbon dioxide and relative breathing volume, and what this means to our health and sports performance. Finally, and more important, we will begin to learn the first steps to improving body oxygenation.

  CHAPTER 2

  How Fit Are You Really?

  The Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT)

  If you took a moderately paced run alongside an elite athlete, you would expect that his breathing would be light, rhythmic, easy, and effortless. You certainly wouldn’t expect him to be huffing and puffing like a steam train. In fact, studies have shown that athletes experience up to 60 percent less breathlessness than untrained people when performing the same amount of exercise.

  It is this feeling of intense breathlessness during exercise that often limits our ability to go faster and farther, and lighter breathing can be extremely advantageous to improving your performance. Being able to perform physical exercise with easy, slow breathing is not only a mark of good fitness; it is also healthier and safer.

  During strenuous physical exercise, the consumption of oxygen increases, leading to a slightly reduced concentration of O2 in the blood. At the same time, increased muscle activity and metabolic rate produces more carbon dioxide, causing an increased concentration of CO2 in the blood.

  As we have already explored, each breath we take is influenced by the continuing pressure of carbon dioxide (and to a lesser extent by the pressure of oxygen) within arterial blood vessels. When there is an increase of carbon dioxide and a decrease of oxygen, breathing is stimulated.

  A very simple way to experience the effect carbon dioxide has on our stimulus to breathe is as follows: Gently exhale through your nose and pinch your nose with your fingers to hold your breath. As you hold your breath, carbon dioxide accumulates in the blood, a
nd after a short while the receptors in the brain and neck signal the breathing muscles to resume breathing to get rid of the excess. You will begin to feel these signals in the form of contractions of the muscles in your neck and stomach, along with an urge to take in air. Let go of your nose and resume breathing through the nose when you feel the first messages of your body telling you to take a breath. 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.

  The sensitivity of your receptors to carbon dioxide and oxygen will have implications for the way your body copes with physical exercise. When your breathing receptors have a strong response to carbon dioxide and reduced pressure of oxygen in the blood, your breathing will be intense and heavy. Your body will have to work much harder to maintain this increased breathing volume, but because overbreathing causes carbon dioxide levels to drop, less oxygen will be delivered to working muscles. The result? Overexertion, a disappointing performance, and possible injury.

  Conversely, having a greater tolerance to carbon dioxide not only reduces breathlessness but also allows for much more effective delivery of oxygen to your working muscles during exercise. 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. Free radicals are a part of normal bodily function and are only of concern when there is an imbalance between these oxidants and the antioxidants that neutralize them. Oxidative stress occurs when there are too many free radicals in your system; 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 these changes, but a more effective method can be found in the pages of this book. The breathing exercises outlined in the Oxygen Advantage program can easily be incorporated into any form of exercise, no matter what your fitness level and even if you are laid up with an injury. You can even improve your fitness using a simple 10-minute exercise while sitting down.

  Increasing VO2 Max

  A performance-related term you need to know is maximal oxygen uptake, or 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. VO2 max is one factor that can determine an athlete’s capacity to sustain physical exercise and is considered to be the best indicator of cardiorespiratory endurance and aerobic fitness. In sports that require exceptional endurance, such as cycling, rowing, swimming, and running, world-class athletes typically have a high VO2 max. Furthermore, the goal of most endurance programs is to increase VO2 max.

  Studies have shown that 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.

  Without a doubt, regular physical training, correctly applied, helps to reduce the body’s response to carbon dioxide, enabling greater exercise intensity and improving VO2 max. During physical exercise, increased metabolic activity produces higher levels of carbon dioxide than normal. Over time, these raised CO2 levels condition the breathing receptors, which results in easier, lighter breathing during exercise and better oxygenation of the muscles. Being able to deliver oxygen more efficiently during high-intensity exercise leads to a higher VO2 max—something most athletes strive toward during their regular training.

  In chapter 7 you will learn how to simulate high-altitude training. When the breath is held, oxygen saturation in the blood decreases, leading to increased production of red blood cells to offset the drop. Since red blood cells carry oxygen, having a greater quantity in your blood will also lead to an increase in aerobic capacity and VO2 max. Along with VO2 max, another performance measurement that is highly regarded by athletic coaches is running economy. This is defined by the amount of energy or oxygen consumed while running at a speed that is less than maximum pace. Typically, the less energy required to run at a given pace, the better—if your body is able to use oxygen efficiently, it is indicative of a high running economy.

  There is a strong association between running economy and distance running performance in elite runners, where running economy is regarded as a better predictor of performance than VO2 max. For this reason, sports scientists, coaches, and athletes are keen to apply techniques that can improve running economy, such as strength training and high-altitude training. 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. Researchers investigating reduced breathing found that running economy could be improved by a remarkable 6 percent following a brief course of breath-hold training.

  At this point you might be thinking that if physical training conditions the body to tolerate higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and lower oxygen, then why go to the bother of practicing this program? Good question, but in our modern world, it is literally impossible to isolate ourselves from the factors that negatively affect breathing, and even many highly conditioned athletes breathe too heavily during rest; their inhalations and exhalations are noticeable and often from the upper chest. They may perform brilliantly, but they could be performing even better.

  It would be disingenuous to expect breathing to be efficient during sport if breathing during times of rest is inefficient. If your breathing is wrong during the normal course of your day, how can it be right during the hour or two spent doing exercise? It just does not work that way. The Oxygen Advantage program focuses on retraining us in the way we breathe during rest and low-intensity exercise as well as moderate to high-intensity activity. This method helps to create good habits and brings lifelong benefits to your breathing, no matter what your level of fitness or your preferred sport.

  In the next section you can determine your sensitivity to carbon dioxide using the Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT), which measures the length of a comfortable breath hold. First you will learn your current condition, then you’ll learn how the Oxygen Advantage can help you improve your sleep, concentration, and energy levels; attain a calmer disposition; reduce breathlessness during physical exertion; and increase that ever-coveted VO2 max.

  The Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT)

  As far back as 1975, researchers noted that the length of time of a comfortable breath hold served as a simple test to determine relative breathing volume during rest and breathlessness during physical exercise. The Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT) is a very useful and accurate to
ol for determining this relative breathing volume. BOLT is simple, safe, involves no sophisticated equipment, and can be applied at any time. BOLT differs from other breath-hold tests because it represents the length of time until the first definite desire to breathe. Holding the breath until you feel the first natural desire to breathe provides useful information on how soon the first sensations of breathlessness take place and is a very useful tool for the evaluation of breathlessness. Other breath-hold tests tend to focus on the maximum time you can hold your breath, but this measurement is not objective as it can be influenced by willpower and determination.

  Athletes possess bucketloads of willpower and determination, so there is no doubt that many of us will be tempted to measure our BOLT score by holding the breath for as long as possible. But if you are serious about improving your breathing efficiency and VO2 max using the breath-hold exercises in this book, I urge you to follow the instructions carefully and measure your BOLT correctly—by holding your breath only until the first distinct urge to breathe is felt.

  In short, the lower the BOLT score, the greater the breathing volume, and the greater your breathing volume, the more breathlessness you will experience during exercise.

  To obtain an accurate measurement, it’s best to rest for 10 minutes before measuring your BOLT score. Read the instructions carefully first and have a timer on hand. You can measure your BOLT now: