Am I a Dysfunctional Breather?

THE BOLT TEST

WE'RE GOING TO START WITH AN EXERCISE ARE YOU A DYSFUNCTIONAL BREATHER?

We'll begin by doing a little exercise to see what type of breather you are and how you breathe. It's called a Bolt score.

It gives us a good indication of your body's biochemistry, the blood oxygen level test.

We hold our breath; we count how long we can hold on to an out-breath. And that will indicate the level of our tolerance to carbon dioxide.

So, how long can we hold on without taking more oxygen in? And that is a huge indicator of whether we are a good breather or a dysfunctional breather that needs some work.

It's a test to learn our tolerance to carbon dioxide.

We're going to count how long until the first urge to breathe. So it's not trying to hold your breath for as long as you possibly can. That's a different test.

We're just figuring out where the first urge to breathe – note, it's not your intellectual urge, it's your physiological urge.

You'll take an in-breath through your nose. Of course, close your mouth and an out-breath. And then you'll take another in-breath just through your nose and another outbreath. And then one more time, you'll take an in breath and on the next out-breath, let out all the carbon dioxide and then pinch your nose and hold.

Now, you're going to stay holding on to your nose, and you're just going to allow the time to pass. And you're counting how long you can stay in that steady state without the urge to breathe. And once the first urge comes in, that's your number. You can use your phone, or you can use a little alarm to check in on that and figure out what your number is. And you'll stay in that for as long as you possibly can.

And then we end the test.

This is literally just noticing how long it takes until the first urge to breathe. Now that is the first time you say in your head, oh my goodness, how long will this test be? That's the first urge to breathe. Or it might be that you swallow involuntarily or have an involuntary kind of jump of the diaphragm. So you might feel the diaphragm do that.

Or you'll say (in your head), okay, I've had enough. Now, we definitely don't want to push it. That will not give you an accurate indicator because we can hold on longer than the first urge to breathe. And if you have quite a strong willpower and quite a strong desire to do well at tests, you could hold on way beyond it.

If you scored under 40 seconds, so if you only got to 5 seconds, 10,15, 25, 30, even 35, anything under 40 seconds for the first urge to breathe would be classified as a dysfunctional breather. And so that's your status quo.

And it's beneficial to test it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. You will see your bolt score test improve once you start practising some simple daily Breathwork methods.

Your tolerance to your own carbon dioxide will increase your breath rate; the rate at which you breathe and how many breaths you take in a minute will start to reduce.

And overall, your nervous system will start to move down into that more steady state.

Want to learn more? We’ve got so much to tell you about the numerous benefits of Breathwork. Read more of our blogs HERE.

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