Archive for the ‘Mind & Body’ Category
Message: The way you breath may change you blood’s pH
Read also Carbon Dioxide: Good or Bad?
It is well known that breathing is the most natural and potent regulator of pH in the blood and brain tissue. Simply increasing or decreasing the breathing rate and depth, the body manages to adjust it1s chemistry to any changes in environmental condition and swings in metabolic rate. The process does not require our attention and is fulfilled automatically.
However, unlike the automatism of the heart contraction, the breathing automatism is not absolute. We can voluntary change the way we breathe. Humans used this possibility since ancient times including breathing exercises in their spiritual and healing practices. Does it mean we can voluntary influence our pH? It does. But the question is: what for? What kind of our internal machinery would be affected?
Consider this. Deep intensive breathing (hyperventilation) leads to lack of carbon dioxide and thus to so called respiratory alkalosis (high pH), whereas moderate breathing suppression (hypo-ventilation) induces slightly excessive level of CO 2 (hyper-capnia) leading to respiratory acidosis (low pH).
Respiratory alkalosis eventually causes a number of problems, including elevation of pH inside the cells. The condition may be benign or potentially catastrophic. When pH reaches the value of 8 the metabolic disorders can produce a fatal result. Why? Below there are most known consequences of respiratory alkalosis, and each of them can be a reason for troubles (click here for footnoted list of symptoms).
1. First of all, fails the key for adequate oxygen delivery to tissues — appropriate co-ordination of breathing and blood flow
2. It does so partly because haemoglobin, which carries oxygen from lungs to tissues, fails to yield the oxygen there
3. Now, in spite of deep breathing, there is too little oxygen in the arterial blood
4. The blood flow in the vessels slows down
5. The blood vessels width decreases
6. Metabolism in the blood vessel walls impairs
7. Metabolism in the brain tissue impairs
8. Metabolism in the kidneys impairs
9. Turnover of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium impairs
10. Brain and muscle tissues start producing excessive lactate
11. Removal of acid metabolites decreases to counteract the tissue alkalosis
12. Regulatory effects of some hormones fail
13. Breathing airways start resisting to the airflow
14. Bronchi1s width decreases dramatically
15. Asthma symptoms worsen
16. Breathing gets unstable
17. Ventilation is inhibited
18. Arterial hypertension develops
19. Increased heart rate occurs
20. Pathological hyperactivity of the brain neurons develops
21. Evoked electrical potentials of the brain cortex get inhibited
22. Evoked electrical potentials of the spinal cord and subcortical structures show abnormal patterns
23. There is a decrease in favorable alpha wave power in the electroencephalogram
24. There is a threefold excess in the release of adrenaline into the blood
25. Panic attack develops
26. The blood inclines towards clotting
27. Gastro-intestinal tract hyperactivity develops, leading to irritable bowel syndrome Are these pathologies reversible? Luckily yes. Abnormal breathing causes them, breathing normalization cures. But what does breathing normalization mean? Breath deeply — isn’t it the key in all kind of breathing techniques? Then how about hyperventilation?!
It depends. You could see what happens with hyperventilation. Are there cases when it can be helpful? Yes, but mostly in clinical situations, when medical professionals take care of you. For example, in the case of acute brain trauma, edema, stroke, high intracranial pressure, high intraocular pressure. Perfectly adequate is deep breathing during birth process, when it is beneficial for both mother and baby. It is OK to breath deeply while exercising or during the hot weather. It is OK in any case when your body needs to elevate the pH.
Message: Panic attack can be stopped by voluntary shallow breathing. Interestingly, it also helps asthma sufferers.
<< Read the 1st part
There is a disease, panic attacks, a major symptom of which is a strong, uncontrollable fear and frantic hysterical breathing. Do you know how that panic attack is fought? It’s hard to believe, but the victim is made to breathe into a paper bag (brown paper bag #4). What happens was recorded by placing a gas sensor inside the bag. After it is breathed in for a short time, the concentration of carbon dioxide inside increases. Then the attack stops. Turns out, not only the lack of oxygen but also the lack of carbon dioxide is harmful to the body. In the “Medline” there are many hundreds of clinical and experimental evidences on the harm of lack of carbon dioxide (hypocapnia), along with good effects of moderate hypercapnia.
The matter is that carbon dioxide is a strong physiological regulator of not only breathing function where it plays a leading role. It also affects the smooth muscles, including bronchi’s and blood vessels’. It is our “broncholytic” and “vasodilator” that is always with us.
Can a well known for forty years in Russia Buteyko’s breathing system’s powerful effect be related to that? Buteyko’s system is a series of simple breathing exercises that are exactly opposite all breathing schools (excepting maybe the Pranajama). However, they all have something in common — a requirement of diaphragm breathing. But Buteyko, besides the diaphragmal breathing instructs breathing as rare and shallow as possible. And the system works!
Now Buteyko’s system is being successfully developed in Australia, where for some reason there are especially many asthma victims. There is a professional association of Buteyko that already helped thousands people, and not only with asthma. Asthma research foundation supported the testing of the method afterwards released the results where it admitted that the goal of the test was to ridicule the unscientific system but had no choice but to recognize its obvious therapeutic effect (Medical Journal of Australia. 162(1):53, 1995 ). In Scandinavia, independently from Buteyko, a breathing apparatus (they named cassette), not much different from a snorkel, was developed which lets the patient rebreath some air. That increases the carbon dioxide concentration and also gives positive effects.
Amazingly, the cassette method is not completely free of “placebo” suspicion! Some people improved breathing when they were told they were rebreathing, though they were not: the cassette had a hidden hole, and the patients were breathing with perfectly fresh outside air! The method is turning out to be the body-mind one! Besides direct biochemical changes in the blood (the proper pH) and favorable blood vessel condition, the method requires one’s concentration on the body’s inner state, which is therapeutic itself. Also, some excess of CO 2 causes the increased concentration of endorphins in the blood, and endorphins are potent physiological regulators and adaptogenes. So, is that true that “everybody tries to breath out all kind of filth“? Think again.
Message: Necessary as air means most necessary. Our breathing process is unique in many ways. Everyone knows how long a man can live without food, water and air. Without air — almost no time. A few minutes, and brain cortex dies. Also unique is the availability of air: so far no one came up with a way to sell it. Finally, unique is the process’s character which is almost automatic. Almost. That’s the topic for today.
To Breathe or not to Breathe?
“…look, everybody breathes in pure oxygen, but tries to breath out all kinds of filth!”
A. Raikin
A man is sitting in a closed room and is doing something. The window is closed, the air conditioner is off. Oxygen is consumed, carbon dioxide is exhaled, thus increasing the CO2 concentration in the room. What happens?
None can say for sure! In a short period of time a number of following might change:
- Breathing depth
- Breathing frequency
- Heart’s contraction strength
- Pulse
- Blood flow velocity
- Blood vessel resistance
- Oxygen availability to tissues (how easily it is transferred from hemoglobin into tissues)
In a longer period of time, something else will change:
- Lungs’ vital capacity (how much air is taken in for the deepest breath)
- Amount of hemoglobin
- Amount of erythrocytes (red blood cells carrying oxygen)
- Eritropeses (production of erythrocytes in bone marrow)
Your breathing function is affected by the combination of all these parameters which in turn are related to each other, how — it’s impossible to predict. Moreover, each time, random combination might “fall out.” So when something changes in the oxygen availability to tissues or you change your breathing, your body brilliantly evades to compensate for those changes.
So do we need to control our breathing?
Seems that a healthy animal or a child has no need to. Some breathing techniques manuals instruct to uncover a baby and see how rhythmically it’s stomach rises and falls. The chest barely moves. That type of breathing is called diaphragmal, because the diaphragm, a muscle between the chest and stomach is the one that makes the lungs expand and contract. That type of breathing is meant for quiet body state.
When an awakened baby cries, it is visible that the chest starts working to take in as much air as possible. It is an emergency breathing. It is meant for stress and hard physical efforts. In rest, the body functions’ control is overrun by parasympathetic autonomous nervous system. In emergency cases — it is taken over by a competitive nervous system, the sympathetic one. It increases body’s work in order to escape a predator, chase a prey, or endure fear or rage. For example, the heart rate is increased, blood vessels contract to avoid losing too much blood in case of a wound, and so on. Functions that are not immediately needed, like intestinal movement, are slowed down.
Several US universities have developed the test predicting the development of premature babies. If the control of parasympathetic system is dominating, the prognosis is definitely better: the possibility of cerebral palsy, mental retardation and other typical pathologies of premature babies, is much less. Domination of the sympathetic nervous system, in babies as well as in adults, on the other hand provides for not so good a prediction. Of course, the body is more comfortable under the parasympathetic control, and the latter is dominant until something out of the ordinary happens.
Nevertheless, like in many other cases, we are deviating from the natural order of things. In this case, it is an abuse of the sympathetic system’s services. Hence are the tendencies to high blood pressure, increased pulse, etc. Hence is the emergency type of breathing when it is not needed.
Try breathing as deep and as fast as you can. Soon, you will get dizzy and might even get a headache. Asthma victims might get an asthma attack. People with heart problems might get an angina attack… >> Read more
Message: “There are few fitness programs which don’t advocate exercising. The benefits of strengthening muscles extends beyond just the calorie burning effect of moving more. Weight bearing exercise is important for women who are worried about osteoporosis, and being strong and flexible can have a positive impact on energy levels, and overall well being.” — M. Ball
Longer, Leaner, and Taller: A Review of Pilates
by Maggie Ball
Lesley Ackland is a walking advertisement for the Pilates exercise system. At over 50 years old, Ackland is stunning, and has the sort of body that most 20 year olds would love. Pilates is a low impact exercise specifically designed to ‘elongate’ and strengthen the body rather than build bulk, and Ackland has been teaching Pilates at her Body Maintenance Studio in London for over 10 years. She is also the author of 4 other Pilates books, and is clearly dedicated to this program. The basic premise of Pilates, which is very popular with dancers and models, is to strengthen ligaments and joints, increase flexibility, and lengthen the muscles. The exercises are simple, and not very different from other types of callisthenics, although they draw from Yoga a focus on breathing, and on slow, controlled movements done perfectly, in an attempt to integrate mind and body. The book covers the origins and philosophy behind Pilates, including the use of things like creative visualisation, breathing, control over the specific body parts being conditioned, flow, precision, and coordination.
The exercise program is broken up into segments focusing on balance, breathing, abdominal exercises, side stretches, back exercises, legs, and upper body exercises. Each exercise includes a photo of Ackland demonstrating the technique. Although the exercises are pretty easy, it can take some practice to coordinate the breathing, and get the movements exactly right, and these are key points to the Pilates program, but explanations are very clear, and if you read through each one first, and practice the breathing until it is almost rote, it isn’t hard to do these. The most attractive element of Pilates is that they focus on increasing muscle length through stretching, and avoiding the creation of bulky muscles. This is particularly relevant for women, who don’t want to create treetrunk legs or even super muscled arms. There are suggestions for using weights, and hints on posture, and general tips on gradually increasing the benefits of the movements with weights, and other forms of resistence.
Thorson’s First Directions publish a range of new age type books, featuring popular heath related topics and short, easy to follow formats. Pilates is a small, hardcover book which is easily carried around, and many of the exercises can be done anywhere, with little equipment. If you don’t already have a callisthenic program, and don’t live close enough to attend Ackland trendy (but expensive) studio in Convent Gardens, this book is a pretty good investment.
For more information about Ackland, or Pilates, or to purchase a copy of Pilates , at a discounted price, click here: Pilates
About the reviewer: Maggie Ball is content manager for The Compulsive Reader, Preschool Entertainment, and is the author of The Literary Lunch: Recipes for a Hungry Mind and The Art of Assessment. Her fiction, poetry, reviews, interviews, and essays have appeared in hundreds of on-line and print publications.
Message:
Today, we’ll experiment with breathing awareness again (see also). We’ll breathe while standing in the basic posture, controlling position of the rib muscles and diaphragm. We’ll watch how the tiny muscles that move the eyeball influence breathing, making it slow when the eyes are lifted up.
Breathing control, Pranajama, from the very beginning was an important part of the Yoga system. Elsa Gindler (1885-1961) developed a holistic approach to the human body-mind functions via the movement of breathing. Subsequently, she founded a school for breathing and body awareness.
Elsa Gindler wrote “The biggest breathing muscle in the human body is the diaphragm, the lowering of which can only take place when the jaw and the throat are relaxed, the belly is free, and hip joints allow free leg-movement and flexibility in the lower back. When these conditions do not obtain, the body compensates by lifting the shoulders, pulling up the chest bone, and contracting the sphincter muscles in the throat, movements which weaken the muscles which assist the breathing process.”
Exercise
- Straighten the body watching yourself in the mirror
- Lift up the shoulders
- Rotate them back and down
- Keep them as far back and down as you can
- Relax the arms
- Make the neck long and straight, do not pull the head backward
- Make it sure the pelvic is well aligned vertically and does not curl back or forward
- Slowly put the palms to the sides of the rib cage, make it sure that the chest does not work during breathing
- Look up and close the eyes
- Gradually limit the breathing until you feel an endurable lack of air
Message: A simple exercise based on the ideas of the Alexander Technique helps to reduce stress, look confident and relaxed, and feel better about yourself. Read about the technique first, then try the exercise below.*
Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955), an actor, the founder of the Alexander system, investigated human unconscious habits and how they interfere with learning, performance, and physical functioning. The total system has been established in 1880’s and has been very popular ever since. Among it’s early proponents were celebrities albert Einshtein and Gorge Bernard Shaw.
Two Nobel Prize-winnerss for Medicine and Physiology, Sir Charles Sherrington and Sir Nikolaas Tinbergen, mentioned the technique in their Nobel Prize acceptance speeches. Here is what they said: “Mr. Alexander has done a service to the subject by insistently treating each act as involving the whole integrated individual, the whole psychophysical man.” (Dr. Sherrington). “I noticed with growing amazement, very striking improvements in such diverse things as high blood pressure, breathing, depth of sleep, overall cheerfulness, mental alertness, resilience against outside pressures and also in such refined skills as the playing of a stringed musical instrument.” (Dr. Tinbergen)
Recently, studies showed that Alexander Technique’s efficiency in reducing pain and stress was higher than massage therapy’s efficiency (1). Alexander Technique lessons also helped individuals with Parkinson’s disease (2)
Sources
- Br J Sports Med 2008;42:965-968
- Int J Clin Pract, January 2012, 66, 1, 98–112
Exercise
- Standing in front of a mirror, lift up your shoulders, rotate them back and press them down
- Keep your shoulders as far back and down as you can for the count of 16.
- Relax your arms. Make your neck long and straight, do not tilt your head.
- Flatten the lower part of your back and contract your abdominal muscles to flatten your stomach.
- Take a minute or two to ‘memorize’ how your body feels while in this position.
Remember this feeling every time you are under stress
———
* This exercise is a part of the Therapeutic Movement classes taught by T. Zilberter at the MetroSport Athletic club, Durham NC in 1992-1995
Message: It is thought that exercising “crossing” and “number eight” movements (e.g., in Tai-Chi) helps to improve the balance between the right and left brains. Here’s an exercise that you can do even if you don’t know how to do Tai-Chi.*
The hemispheres of human brain are asymmetric, operating in difference contexts: the left is mostly logical and the right side is mostly intuitive. It is possible, by exercising inter-hemispheric interaction, to balance these two aspects of one’s cognition.
Read more –> click here
Number eight figure
Basic posture. Extend the right arm in front of you at the level of eyes. Don’t move the head.
- Draw horizontal #8 figure, moving the right wrist. Follow your fingertips with eyes only
- Increase the amplitude of the movement, including elbow, then the whole arm
- Further increase the amplitude in horizontal direction, making steps to the right and to the left
- Increase the amplitude in vertical direction, reaching up and lifting on the tiptoes and down, squatting
- Combine vertical and horizontal components
- Same with both hands, palms directed to each other
- Feel the “body” of the number eight figure between your palms
———
* This exercise is a part of the Therapeutic Movement classes taught by T. Zilberter at the MetroSport Athletic club, Durham NC in 1992-1995
Message: ATM classes are effective in improving health and functional measures (1). It is believed that they are most efficient when the exercises are done in groups. However, next best is doing the basic exercises on your own. For example, here is an exercise combining body awareness and guided imagery. A tip from people’s feedback: Read these instructions aloud, then play it when doing this exercise.*
The healing and educational method “Awareness through movement” (ATM) has been developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, a physicist and the first Judo Master in the West. Dr. Feldenkrais developed the ATM method trying to copy the amusement and curiosity he observed in healthy infants. The ATM method encourages adults to replenish the kind of body awareness they had as infants and thus to create new or forgotten ways to move and behave.
Source:
1. The Open Rehabilitation Journal, 2010, 3, 62-66
Body awareness exercise
Starting position: supine, the arms along the body, palms turned up, fingers comfortably half-bent.
1. Flatten the back, close the eyes and relax
2. Direct your awareness to the toes: feel how they are becoming heavy and warm
3. Brush away any thoughts and sensation but feeling your toes warm, heavy and relaxed
4. However, don’t be anxious about your feelings, simply sign slightly and say internally, ‘Oh well”, then continue the exercise
5. Move your awareness to the ankles: feel how they are becoming warm, heavy and relaxed
6. Move your awareness to the knees, then thighs, hips and buttocks
7. Concentrate on the entire lower body relaxation, watch for a while how the flow of heat and blood pulsation is spreading through the lower body
8. Brush away any thoughts and sensation but feeling your lower body warm, heavy and relaxed
9. Slowly move your awareness up along the spine: feel how the spinal muscles are becoming warm, heavy and relaxed
10. Take also under control of your attention the abdominal muscles: feel how they are becoming warm, heavy and relaxed
11. Concentrate on the ribs: they should not move noticeably
12. Move your awareness to the shoulders: feel how they are becoming warm, heavy and relaxed
13. Concentrate on the entire trunk body relaxation, watch for a while how the flow of heat and blood pulsation is spreading through the trunk
14. Brush away any thoughts and sensation but those of feeling your entire body warm, heavy and relaxed
15. Move your awareness along the right arm: feel how it is becoming warm, heavy and relaxed
16. Move your awareness along the left arm: feel how it is becoming warm, heavy and relaxed
17. Concentrate on the palms: feel how they are becoming the most hot part of the body, the total body’s energy flows toward the palms
18. Feel the heat of the palms with your fingertips
19. Feel how the energy exits the palms in a form of rays of light
20. Watch how the heat of the whole body is being transformed into this light
21. Watch how the body continues to generate the energy for the light
22. Brush away any thoughts and sensation but the generation of the light
23. Feel joy and freedom
24. Slowly close the fingers and thus stop the light flow
25. Gradually direct the wave of gentle contraction backward to those of the previous relaxation
26. Rock slightly the head
27. Turn the palms down
28. Open the eyes
29. Arch the low of the back
30. Stretch the total body
———
* This exercise is a part of the Therapeutic Movement classes taught by T. Zilberter at the MetroSport Athletic club, Durham NC in 1992-1995
Message: Meditation can prevent brain cortex loss
Magnetic resonance imaging to assess cortical thickness revealed that brain areas—such as the prefrontal cortex involved with memory, attention, and sensory processing—were approximately 5 percent thicker in the subjects who meditated compared with those who did not. This difference was most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset agerelated cortical thinning.
Source: Neuroreport 2005;16:1893–1897
Message: Add this exercise to your daily routine
Breathing awareness exercise can be done during the body-centered meditation. However, as an independent exercise, it is usually recommended to perform in the upright position, sitting straight in a comfortable chair, the legs uncrossed.
After mastering the breathing awareness, it can be included into many rhythmic and cyclic exercises, like walking, jogging, swimming (this one is especially suitable because of the forced breathing rhythm, for example, during the breast stroke). Breathing meditation can be the important part of psychological and spiritual impacts of repetitive movements. Because of that, it is probably not a good idea to read, watch a TV or to talk while, say, working out on a stationary bicycle or walking.
This exercise can be performed while sitting on the exercise mat, possible moved to a wall for the better support of the back. It is also possible to use exercise steps. However, the classic posture is while using the chair.
Breathing awareness exercise
1. Sit upright with the legs crossed, if on the floor, and uncrossed if on the chair
2. Uncross the hands in any case
3. Straighten your back. Look straight forward
4. Catch the balance and relax the stomach
5. Close your eyes
6. Do not force or control your breathing
7. Do not try to breathe deeply
8. Do not try to hold the breathing
9. Breathe comfortably and simply watch the breathing
10. Brush away any thoughts and sensation but those of breathing in and out
Homework: repeat this exercise every day at least three times, 5 times every time. Use this technique every time you are under stressor experiencing health problems, like elevated blood pressure, pain, headache, etc.
