Yoga, Breath and Prevention of Disease

Yoga, Breath and Prevention of Disease

Today’s world is swaddled in uncertainty and negativity, stress and superficiality. These qualities raise our blood pressure, making our hearts race and our bodies stress. How long can we live in this situation? What can we do to find peace in the uncontrollable mundane? This post is intended to provide some reasons why our breath work can be one of not many decisive ways to health, clarity and peace. Take it or leave it, but I speak from experience, and my experience is that the first step to trusting the breath practice may start with knowing what breath does to our body and mind.

Modern science understands the process of breathing very well. And while their understanding of how to care about breath is still very imperfect, for the purposes of our individual breath work, scientists have given us a great deal for continuing on our path confidently and with great efficiency. In that sense, we modern breathing humans are very fortunate.

What is also important is that not a single scientific discovery of respiratory medicine has contradicted the ancient yogic understanding of breath. Detailed research or a quick AI search would support this statement, implying that what the ancients learnt through experience and observation, we the moderns are only confirming by technical measuring and analysis. This adds the much-needed validation to our intuition and body sense; doctors know a lot, but so does each of us in relation to our own body.

One of the most respected textbooks on respiratory care tells us that maintaining normal acidity in the blood “is one of the body’s more important functions, and one in which respiration plays a major role”. (1) We are used to thinking about acidity in connection with our digestion, but here we are talking about blood. Why is blood important? In our largely watery body, blood vessels permeate every region, thus supporting the metabolic processes of every cell. The sheer density of blood vessels in the body traces the body itself, and everyone knows that blood’s main function is to carry oxygen (O2) to the cells, while taking away any disposed toxins, including carbon dioxide (CO2). What is then the connection between acid in the blood and our inhaling O2 and exhaling CO2? And how does each of our 20,000 daily breaths affect our 30 trillion cells?

While the science of respiration is complicated, here is what might be helpful to know:

1. To protect our health and normal functioning, our body works to maintain a stable internal environment despite varying external influences (stress, temperatures, etc.). This tendency is called bodily homeostasis. Its central component is the maintenance of the acid-base balance (normal acidity) in the blood.

2. When we talk about the acid-base balance, we usually talk about our pH. If you have low pH, you have too much acidity in the blood, and the opposite means you have too little. The normal pH is 7.4 (on the scale of 1 to 10) and in the healthy body it typically fluctuates very little.

3. The body works very hard to prevent pH fluctuations since having them means disease, and this mechanism is called compensation. Many things can cause pH to fluctuate, but one of the main reasons is malfunctioning respiratory system, which includes breathing.

4. Here is how this works. When venous blood takes CO2 out into the lungs to be exhaled, it never takes it out completely, and certain level of CO2 is permanently circulating in the blood. This should change our perspective on CO2 as a body toxin. Our bodies need CO2 all the time, just like they need O2. But not only that. Having the right amounts of CO2 in the blood may be even more important for our health than inhaling enough O2.

Here is why.

5. Excessive CO2 in the bloodstream can occur due to many physiological and neurological causes, including infections and organ traumas, but it also happens due to chronic conditions such as inadequate functioning of respiratory muscles preventing normal exhalation. If your inhale is long and your exhale is short, interrupted or laboured, CO2 will not be evacuated in the right amounts. This causes excessive CO2 in the blood (aka acidosis), which in turn lowers your pH level.

6. When your blood is high with CO2, the following will occur:

• Confusion and disorientation

• Headaches

• Anxiety and panic attacks

• Fatigue and drowsiness

• Nausea

• Shortness of breath, laboured breathing and rapid breathing

• Cardiovascular problems and symptoms, including increased heart rate and high blood pressure

• Muscle twitches and spasms

• Strain on the kidney, the second organ in our body that together with lungs is responsible for maintaining body’s homeostasis and pH level.

To put it simply, when we do not, or physically cannot, exhale properly, we risk to disbalance our body in the most significant ways.

But this is not the end of the story.

7. Low CO2 in the blood pushes pH levels up which results in alkalosis, a condition which, among other things, prevents O2 from being efficiently delivered to our cells, thus massively impacting the physiological functioning of our organs, bones and tissue. Science tells us that one of the main causes and consequences of low CO2 is hyperventilation - with chronic rapid breathing we get rid of too much CO2. We also know that insufficient CO2 in the blood will prevent O2 from being offered to the cells no matter how much inhaling we would do to get O2 into our lungs. The simple truth is that without enough CO2, O2 molecules will be mindlessly circulating in the bloodstream without reaching our starving cells!

Some people may wonder how quickly improper breath is able to cause fluctuations in CO2 and pH. Maybe, it takes forever, and then why worry? Here is the response from an AI search engine:

Q: how fast would pH levels be affected with hyperventilation?

A: Hyperventilation can affect pH levels rapidly. During hyperventilation, blood pH rises quickly due to the excessive exhalation of carbon dioxide. This change in pH can occur within minutes of the onset of hyperventilation … It's important to note that the body has buffering systems that attempt to mitigate rapid pH changes, but these can be overwhelmed by sustained hyperventilation.”

Q: Got it on the low CO2. How fast would pH levels be affected with excessive CO2 in the blood?

A: pH levels in the blood can be affected rapidly by excessive CO2, with changes occurring within seconds to minutes. When CO2 levels in the blood increase, it quickly leads to a decrease in blood pH, causing acidosis.

Q: OK. How fast low CO2 in the blood can affect the absorption of oxygen by the cells?

A: The effect of low CO2 in the blood (hypocapnia) on oxygen absorption by cells can occur rapidly, within minutes of the onset of the condition.

What is the moral of this story? Improper breath affects your health directly and immediately.

What is the bright side? Unlike other conditions capable of affecting our health (genetics, bacteria and viruses, toxins and accidental injuries), our ability to control breath is within our reach every second of the day. Becoming aware of one’s breathing habits and taking 10 minutes to breathe with awareness in the morning and before going to bed can do wonders to our body and state of mind. Making it a daily habit can prevent diseases and help the body to fight those we already have.

We have an enormous resource of personal health and happiness at our immediate disposal.

Breath in, breath out, my friends.

(1) Egan’s Fundamentals of Respiratory Care, 6th Edition, Chapter 14, p 303.