Do I breathe the right way?
HOW DO YOU BREATHE?
Becoming aware of how you breathe is the beginning of change, so it’s good to know your breath status quo is, where I am at right now, and where would I like to get to.
NOSE V MOUTH
Are you a mouth breather or are you a nose breather? What if we told you that the nose is the only organ designed for breathing? Your mouth isn't actually designed for breathing. Mind blown.
Your mouth is designed for talking and laughing and eating and drinking and singing and all of those other wonderful things, but it is not designed for breathing.
EXCESSIVE CHEST BREATHING
Another trait of a dysfunctional breather is excessive chest breathing. When you breathe, your chest moves. Of course, it will along with your belly, along with your neck and your shoulders. But excessive chest moving only is a sign of a dysfunctional breather.
NOISY BREATHING
Do you make noise when you’re breathing in and out? Can YOU actually hear yourself breathing, or it's a congestion in my nose? Let's say, you are a nose breather, which is great, but then you make a lot of noise when you breathe, or you make noise when you’re breathing through your mouth, that's a trait of dysfunctional breathing.
YAWNING
Do you notice yourself sighing a lot AND frequently yawning? This is paradoxical breathing; it’s when you breathe in, and your chest kind of collapses when you breathe. This creates excessive movement in your shoulders when you're just sitting. If you have any other disturbance to your breath, like unexplained breathlessness when you're not necessarily doing big tasks when you're not exercising, or irregularity of breathing. i.e. breathing really fast, and then you’re breathing really slow.
How dysfunctional a breather am I?
We'll begin by doing a little exercise to determine your type of breather and how you breathe.
That will give us a good indication of your body's biochemistry. The great thing about it is that it's up to you to self-monitor and self-regulate. I'll talk you through that. We do what's called a Bolt score.
We call it the Bolt.
It's a test to learn our tolerance to carbon dioxide and how functional our breath is.
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 you are a good or dysfunctional breather that needs some work.
We're going to count the time 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.
LET'S DO IT:
You can use your phone or a small alarm to check in on that and find out your number.
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'll hold on to your nose and allow time to pass. You'll count how long you can stay in that steady state without the urge to breathe, and you'll stay in that for as long as you possibly can.
Or you'll say (in your head), I've had enough. You want to avoid pushing it. That will not give you an accurate indicator because we can always hold on longer than the first urge to breathe, especially if you have quite a strong willpower or a strong desire to do well at tests; you could hold on way beyond it.
But think about it physiologically, not intellectually, when that first urge comes up to breathe.
How long does it take you until the first urge to breathe? Once the very first urge comes in, 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.
That is 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.
As you practice some super-simple breathing techniques as you go about your day, your Bolt score test will improve.
Because your tolerance to your own carbon dioxide will increase, your breath rate and the number of 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.
It's the foundation of everything. Next, we add the scaffolding – some easy breathing exercises that you can do at any time, stage, or place in your day.
Want to learn more? We’ve got so much to tell you about the numerous benefits of Breathwork. Read more of our blogs HERE.
Or book a 1:1 session with our founder, Milena Jaksic, HERE
Have a look to see when our next Sync Method live event is HERE
Or book a corporate session with Milena at your workplace and introduce your team to all the physical and emotional benefits some daily breathwork can bring. HERE