I recently did a two-day course offered by the Professional School of Behavioral Health Sciences. It was led by Scott Sonnon, one of the US Government’s top experts and researchers on elite fitness training, performance enhancement, and human survival under extreme conditions.
Here are some of my notes, tips, and takeaways that can help not only elite operators in the field, but everyday people in everyday life. Breathwork basically comes down to energy management. And when it comes to survival, as Scott says, it’s a good idea to kill bad ideas in our head before they kill us!
Topping the things that I’d like you to think or re-think about is that our cognitive, perceptual and emotional states are brought about by conscious and unconscious breathing habits and patterns. In fact, breathing mediates cognition, perception, emotion, metabolism, speech, and performance.
Old school thinking is that we need to establish a baseline breathing rate before testing anyone. In fact, breathing rate is one of the first things that every doctor or nurse checks whenever they examine or evaluate a patient. But breathing rate does not take into account breathing volume, breathing mechanics, or breathing chemistry. And it does not touch on psychophysiology or behavior.
Traditional exercise and exertion monitoring is based on maximum heart rate and O2 volume. But today we are learning that capnography (CO2 Monitoring) is king. And this is where the difference between ‘maximal’ and ‘optimal’ comes in, because maximal breathing effort often includes dysfunctional breathing behaviors.
In fact, many peak performers are so good at what they do, that they can excel in their business, art, or sport despite their dysfunctional breathing habits! And it is during peak states of exertion, that most dysfunctional breathing occurs.
Keep in mind that chest and abdominal muscles serve dual purposes: body movement or bracing, and breathing. And when breathing is serving our speaking or singing needs, it may not be serving our physiological needs. And the same is true with emotions: when we are using the breath to manage our emotions, we may be interfering with the body’s biological and physiological needs.
This relates to something called secondary gain. Some breathing habits can get in the way of some things or enhance some things. Studies in labs and in the field show that when we anticipate something challenging, complex, or stressful—whether it is mental or physical—immediate changes in the brain and in breathing occur. These changes affect perception and can create cognitive distortions.
Over-breathing, rushing the inhale, aborting the exhale or pushing the exhale are the most common breathing dysfunctions. They cause hypocapnia—too little alveolar and arterial CO2 (carbon dioxide in the lungs and blood). And it turns out that ‘slow deep breathing’ isn’t always the best thing to do in times of stress and anxiety!
Many studies are done during exercise, exertion and public speaking, because at these times, hidden breathing disorders can be immediately or eventually revealed. In fact, 75% of us dysregulate our breathing chemistry in these situations. So the key is in how quickly we can bounce back.
We need to learn to recognize early shifts and subtle changes in our breathing—in other words, we need to practice more breath awareness! Functional resilience is now being understood in terms of how fast we recover from hypocapnia—that is how many breaths it takes for us to normalize respiration.
Remember that exertion is a survival trait, and it triggers compensation, anticipation, and unconscious adaptive strategies. And so, whenever we exert ourselves (either mentally, physically, or emotionally) we tend to use our neocortex to take over the breathing rather than allowing the ancient respiratory center in the brain to regulate things.
Notice how horses and other animals snort or huff or bark in anticipation of something. It turns out that they do this to quickly blow off a little CO2 in preparation for fight, flight, or action. In humans, these adaptive reflexes can become dysfunctional habits.
Our breathing habits and reflexes alter our psychology, and vice-versa. We trigger breathing changes in anticipation of tasks, during them, and when recovering from them. The question is whether those changes are healthy and resourceful or not.
Breath holding happens when the brain is trying to reset itself—when it is processing new information. Breathing patterns learned during exertion can be triggered by momentary cognitive confusion. External mechanics can interrupt flow, performance, and chemistry.
Breathing patterns both positive and negative, used in sports can carry over into everyday life. And speaking of exercise and exertion, the pursuit of 6-pack abs and a small tight waist turns out to be a perfect recipe for chronic dysfunctional breathing!
All of this is based on science, but it is not always a good idea to follow the science, because science is always progressing. And today, the best trained pulmonologists still don’t understand breathing psychophysiology or the connection to behavior. Basically, what or how you think while you breathe is often more important than the breathing itself.
A lot of dysfunctional breathing habits are caused or exacerbated by the fact that most kids, instead of running and climbing and playing outdoors in the woods with rocks and sticks, they are inside on a couch or glued to a computer screen, clicking their devices and playing with joysticks, keyboards. The fitness industry seems to be a substitute for all the natural activities that we used to engage in.
Studies show that Zoom meetings produce more physiological/cognitive stress than live meetings. This means we need to integrate 1-2 minutes of breathing and movement into every 30 minutes of online activities, or 10 minutes of breathing and movement for every hour of computer or desk work.
Here’s another interesting fact: eating while watching a screen interferes with our digestive process! Looking at our food turns out to be very important. It has been found that micro facial expressions express and reflect micro breathing changes. And the habit of swallowing or clearing your throat when you are nervous can create the habit of interrupting the flow of breath and to start worrying when we are under any kind of pressure.
Here is a cool finding from recent studies: For many people, Breath Awareness or Conscious Breathing work better than anxiety medication! Sometimes you have to go around the block to cross the street.
I hope some of this helps you. I hope it inspires you to dig deeper into the difference between breathing which is a behavior, and respiration which is reflexive. I hope some of this motivates you to be your own scientist, and to explore different styles of breathwork and breathing studies.
Good luck in your practice, and many blessings on your path!
Dan (Guchu Ram Singh)
Breathmastery.com
June 2024
