BY: PATRICK MCKEOWN
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4 Thoughts
1. An Abundance of Overbreathing
“Just as we have an optimal quantity of water and food to consume each day, we also have an optimal quantity of air to breathe. And just as eating too much can be damaging to our health, so can overbreathing.”
This was the most essential and actionable idea presented in the book: Most of us are chronic overbreathers and need to reduce our breathing volume to achieve optimal health.
And even if we think our breathing is fine (which was the case for me over 5 years ago when I discovered the Oxygen Advantage® [OA]), we may be overbreathing unknowingly:
“Chronic hyperventilation or overbreathing simply means the habit of breathing a volume of air greater than that which your body requires. It does not necessarily manifest as dramatic symptoms, such as the panting a person might experience during a panic attack.”
Thus, it may simply present itself as excessive sighing or yawning, habitual mouth breathing, or as breathing mainly through the upper chest.
Although this might seem insignificant, Patrick tells us that over time, this bad habit can cause or exacerbate a variety of health conditions:
“Chronic overbreathing leads to loss of health, poor fitness, and compromised performance and also contributes to many ailments including anxiety, asthma, fatigue, insomnia, heart problems, and even obesity.”
That sounds pretty crazy for something as seemingly minor as breathing. But it’s not:
“It may seem strange that such a disparate range of complaints can be caused by or worsened by overbreathing, but the breath of life influences literally every aspect of our health.”
So, the number one thing we need to address for optimal health is overbreathing. But before we get to how we do that, let’s look at a simple tool for diagnosing it: the BOLT score.
2. How to Assess Overbreathing: The BOLT Score
“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 tool for determining this relative breathing volume. BOLT is simple, safe, involves no sophisticated equipment, and can be applied at any time.”
The BOLT score (known as the “Control Pause” in Buteyko) is the simplest way to assess your breathing and diagnose chronic overbreathing. It’s powerful because it only measures your first urge to breathe and does not involve willpower like most breath-hold tests.
Physiologically, the BOLT measures your sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is your primary stimulus to breathe. So, the higher your BOLT, the longer it takes to feel the first urge to breathe, the higher your tolerance to CO2 is, and the easier breathing is for you.
The best time to measure your BOLT is first thing in the morning. Sit and relax for about 10 minutes beforehand and then perform the following steps:
1. “Take a normal breath in through your nose and allow a normal breath out through your nose.
2. Hold your nose with your fingers to prevent air from entering your lungs.
3. Time the number of seconds until you feel the first definite desire to breathe, or the first stresses of your body urging you to breathe. These sensations may include the need to swallow or a constriction of the airways. You may also feel the first involuntary contractions of your breathing muscles in your abdomen or throat as the body gives the message to resume breathing. (Note that BOLT is not a measurement of how long you can hold your breath but simply the time it takes for your body to react to a lack of air.)
4. Release your nose, stop the timer, and breathe in through your nose. Your inhalation at the end of the breath hold should be calm.”
In general, the lower your BOLT is, the higher your odds of chronically overbreathing. If you’re looking for specifics, the goal of the Oxygen Advantage is to get you to a BOLT of 40 seconds. But in my limited experience, anything above 20 seconds indicates decent breathing habits.
Lastly, don’t get stressed over your score. It’s just one measurement of breathing health. And it only measures where you are now, not where you’re going.
With that in mind, let’s look at two simple things you can do to increase your BOLT score.
3. How to Fix Overbreathing: The Nose and Breathe Light to Breathe Right
“If you reduce your breathing and properly regulate the amount of air you take in, you will teach your body to breathe more efficiently, and you will become healthier.”
Here are two primary things you can do to reduce overbreathing and become healthier: (1) breathe nasally and (2) practice “breathe light to breathe right.”
#1. Breathe Nasally (especially at night)
You know the importance of nasal breathing by now, so I won’t dwell on it here. Instead, let’s focus on mouth tape during sleep because this is perhaps the biggest help most new people get from the Oxygen Advantage®.
“Taping the mouth at night ensures the benefits of good breathing during sleep, allowing you to fall asleep more quickly, stay asleep longer, and wake feeling energized. The tape that I have found most suitable, as it is simple to use, hypoallergenic, and light, is 3M Micropore tape, which can be bought from most drugstores.”
Even if you did nothing else, mouth tape at night can help significantly with reducing breathing volume because: “Spending a guaranteed eight hours breathing through your nose while you sleep is an opportune way to reeducate your respiratory center to adjust to a more normal breathing volume.”
So, we start by breathing nasally, especially at night.
#2. Breathe Light to Breathe Right
The next step is to deliberately reduce our breathing volume in an exercise called “Breathe Light to Breathe Right” (this exercise is the foundation of the OA program):
“The objective is to create a tolerable need or hunger for air. A sustained need for air over the course of 10 to 12 minutes resets the receptors in the brain to tolerate a higher concentration of carbon dioxide.
[…]
The only way to know you are reducing your breathing volume is feeling as if you would like to take in a bigger breath.”
Rather than go through the detailed instructions here, you can let Patrick guide you through it using the free Oxygen Advantage app. Here are the iPhone and Android links.
By practicing nasal breathing 24/7 and breathing light to breathe right, you can expect your BOLT score to increase by about 3-4 seconds per week until it gets to 20 seconds. After that, it may plateau some. This is where breath-hold training comes in…
4. Improve Performance with the Simulation of High Altitude
“By learning how to simulate high-altitude training, you will increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of your bloodstream, allowing your red blood cells to fuel new capabilities. Additionally, it will help you to sustain sharper psychological focus during physical activity as you become less conscious of the act of breathing. This will free you to devote more attention to maintaining proper form while exercising or formulating strategy in a competitive sport.”
Once you’ve switched to nasal breathing, consistently practiced breathing light, and achieved a BOLT score of at least 20 seconds, you’re ready for the next step in the Oxygen Advantage® program: high-altitude simulation.
Simulation high-altitude simply refers to breath-hold training. Breath holds reduce the oxygen saturation of the blood, mimicking (for very brief periods) being at altitude. Doing this leads to adaptations that improve performance, such as increased oxygen-carrying capacity, better blood flow, greater endurance, and an improved VO2max. It’s essentially “legal blood doping.”
Another benefit of the OA breath-hold techniques is that they occur after a passive exhalation. As Patrick tells us, this helps lower blood oxygen saturation, but it also increases CO2 concentration, building CO2 tolerance. Having high CO2 and low O2 produces adaptions that lessen oxidative stress and reduce lactic acid during physical exercise.
Lastly, the strong breath holds used in the OA strengthen the diaphragm, our main breathing muscle, which can help reduce the onset of respiratory muscle fatigue during exercise.
With all these benefits in mind, here’s how the OA breath-hold techniques are generally performed: (1) a regular inhale and exhale, (2) pinching your nose, (3) holding your breath while walking, and (4) resuming nasal breathing.
To get started, use the OA app or find a certified instructor to ensure you don’t have any contraindications that would make breath holds dangerous.
1 Life-Changing Idea
The Power of Carbon Dioxide: Oxygen and the Bohr Effect
“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.”
I’d say that of all the concepts presented in the book, learning about the power of CO2 for overall health and body oxygenation is the most life-changing.
Specifically, the Bohr effect—and its implications for oxygen delivery—were the most enlightening. Here’s how Patrick summarizes the Bohr effect:
“The crucial point to remember is that hemoglobin releases oxygen when in the presence of carbon dioxide. When we overbreathe, too much carbon dioxide is washed from the lungs, blood, tissues, and cells. This condition is called hypocapnia, causing the hemoglobin to hold on to oxygen, resulting in reduced oxygen release and therefore reduced oxygen delivery to tissues and organs.”
Thus, counterintuitively, when we reduce breathing volume and raise CO2 in our blood (using Thoughts 1-3), we actually increase oxygen delivery to the tissues and cells.
With this principle, we could summarize 90% of the book as: breathe less, increase your CO2, and increase the amount of oxygen delivered to your cells and tissues. This is how we get “the oxygen advantage.”
Life-changing, indeed.
1 Stack of Memorable Quotes
“We can live without food for weeks and water for days, but air for just a few brief minutes. While we spend a great deal of time and attention on what we eat and drink, we pay practically no attention to the air we breathe.”
“What if healthy breathing habits were just as important as healthy eating habits in fostering maximum fitness—or, in fact, even more so?”
“Developing body strength while ignoring breathing efficiency is counterproductive, and this book will show you how to build your respiratory stamina alongside any athletic training program.”
My favorite quote from the book:
“It is quite a striking example of evolutionary balance and beauty that the trees around us that give off oxygen and the trees in our lungs that absorb it share a similar structure.”
“In the words of Christian Bohr, “The carbon dioxide pressure of the blood is to be regarded as an important factor in the inner respiratory metabolism. If one uses carbon dioxide in appropriate amounts, the oxygen that was taken up can be used more effectively throughout the body.””
“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.”
“You may be surprised to learn that the roof of the mouth is in fact the floor of the nose! The nose you see on your face comprises approximately 30 percent of its volume. It is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, with the remaining 70 percent of the nasal cavity set deep within the skull.”
“The traditional Chinese philosophy of Taoism succinctly describes ideal breathing as “so smooth that the fine hairs within the nostrils remain motionless.””
“True health and inner peace occurs when breathing is quiet, effortless, soft, through the nose, abdominal, rhythmic, and gently paused on the exhale. This is how human beings naturally breathed until modern life changed everything.”
“If we use the definition of “extending far from the top” in the context of deep breathing, the “top” will refer to the top of the lungs or the upper chest. A deep breath, therefore, means to breathe down into the full depth of the lungs. It also means using the main breathing muscle, the diaphragm, which separates the chest from the abdomen.”
“It’s very intuitive: If we breathe better, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide inside us, then we can deliver more oxygen to our muscles and organs, including the heart and brain, and thus heighten our physical capacity. All we’re really doing is assisting the body in working the way it was meant to work in the first place.”