An Open Letter To Medical Doctors
and ALL health professionals

If breath is life, then what?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

If you are a traditional medical doctor the following quote it is going to  tempt you to cancel this page and write me off as another  medical heretic. Stay with me for at least  1 minute please. 

"Breathing and related exercises are 100 times more effective to medical therapy than any drug.  This knowledge is indispensable to man and every physical should study it thoroughly". Shen Chia-shu, A Ching Dynasty adept and physician. 

Just keep breathing ............and reading.

AB 2100 is about to be passed in California.  It will allow physicians to treat cancer with Alternative Modalities.  This will set a trend across the USA. The "new age" methods have shifted some 30% of the health dollar over to them.  Because many of them work, and when applied properly, with fewer or no side effects. 

The most basic of all alternative approaches is the way we breathe. But depending upon how breathing is approached there ARE side effects.

Leading edge physicians such as Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra, Sheldon Hendler and Len Saputo agree that there is much to be gained by addressing the way we breathe as it relates to the human body, mind, spirit and emotions and their inter-relatedness, interdependence, and in fact inseparability.

"Breath is life" is a well-known phrase among health professionals. In complementary/alternative medicine also called  mind/body medicine.

My approach to breathing is to separate it into two  major categories.

1. Breathing-energy-work called "breathwork" or "conscious breathing"

2. Breathing-mechanical-function-work called "breathing work". Access <http://www.breathing.com/articles/differences.htm> for further clarification!

Presently, most of category 2 is lumped into category 1. This confuses both schools and is a significant aspect of my research and work.

Western medicine already knows the enormous value of oxygen and its importance to the blood, cells, heart and brain. In addition, many medical doctors believe that it is possible to greatly influence the autonomic nervous system (ANS) through breathing techniques and exercises that affect breathing mechanics. or mechanical improvement. Sadly, much of this "belief" is merely anecdotal and at present beyond our present  means of scientific proof. But that in no way means that it does not have tremendous value in supporting optimal health, peak performance and life extension.

Observing interactions of both traditional and alternative medical practitioners has convinced me that there is much to be learned about the breath and breathing from BOTH perspectives.

It has been stated, "he who breathes most lives most life". The importance of oxygen is widely known. The effect of excessive sympathetic nervous system enervation is also well known but there is serious need for teaching or training individual patients to sense, develop and maintain the breathing volume and oxygen cost of breathing on a day to day moment to moment basis. (Hyperventilation/dyspnea is the main word used and hyperventilation and often misleads one into thinking the breathing more is unhealthy or dangerous.

Oddly enough, and probably due to the common practice and need for using animals instead of healthy humans in scientific research - they do not breathe like we humans - there are no accepted criteria for healthy optimal breathing in humans. Epidemiological studies includes average healthy and sick people – many of which are sub optimal breathers. To date, most data collected - http://www.breathing.com/articles/studies.htm – from the primary measurement for lung function - FEV1 - is based on cross sectional data instead of longitudinal/individual data.

So, many physicians are satisfied with averaged "normal" measurements of breathing function; levels that to my way of thinking are really subnormal when compared with optimally healthy guidelines. These "normal" people often worry me. This "less then optimal breathing" either uses up too much oxygen or reduces blood oxygen below optimal levels inviting disease. The inefficient breathing rate promotes stressful levels—physiology and or the breathing becomes shallow. This lowers blood oxygen levels and/or drives the nervous system at a much faster rate than is healthy. It is like keeping a car engine revving at 5,000 rpm  even while at a stop sign. The biological system will wear out faster. The distressful aspect of hyperventilation working too hard to breathe often stems from this.

To learn more about respiration we must turn our attention to healthy breathing and use it as a role model for future investigation and clinical studies. Some approaches utilizing the breath have long been the basis of ancient disciplines such as Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Pranayama, and classical voice training. Many of these have negative consequences as well as positive. A system needs to be created that utilizes the best of all of them in an integrated manner: an optimal breathing system.

To reiterate: Every activity we do has an oxygen cost to it. There is even an oxygen cost for breathing. The ANS is largely driven by the diaphragm and its influence on the rate and depth of breathing. The breath, however, is not merely influenced by the ANS. It is the lead horse in the team of horses called the ANS. The ANS is most often regulated by the diaphragm’s and its ability to function in a full, free and balanced manner.

The diaphragm is likened to the piston/plunger of a bicycle pump. If you can pull the pump handle back the full length of the piston shaft you can introduce a lot of air into the tire. If the piston is shortened, as in the case of an atrophied diaphragm, the depth and ease of air introduction is reduced proportionately (see http://www.breathing.com/articles/diaphragm-development.htm for comparative pictures of different diaphragm excursions). This higher rising action also has monumental influences on the depth or strength of parasympathetic enervation. The higher the diaphragmatic rise, the more depth of potential parasympathetic stimulus. I call this the "parasympathetic stroke". It is the basis of the maintenance of "courage under fire" or being able to sustain extreme energy output such as in singing opera or "high intensity" method acting.

The diaphragm (piston) can be redeveloped to in effect lengthen the stroke or "piston shaft", causing deeper and "easier" breathing. This often accompanies reactivating of key lung tissue heretofore thought impossible to rehabilitate. Effortless and easy are the keys, as deeper breathing will oxygenate, but it can also create excessive tension and oxygen cost and restrict increase in diaphragmatic excursion/development. Nutritional aspects factors may also be valuable in supporting and or accelerating all of this but the changes in mechanical function can happen in hours instead of days weeks or months.

Through very specific styles of bodywork, breathing coordination and exercise techniques, in just a few hours easier, smoother, deeper, more "correct" breathing - there IS a right way to breathe - can be achieved along with increased effortless blood oxygenation. Key postural dynamics and breathing coordination-oriented exercises will then invite the diaphragm to be worked in a way it will be encouraged to grow bigger/higher instead of shrinking and atrophying. In this way, when the stresses and postural challenges in life present themselves, breathing volume and reserve function is increased and maintained.

The diaphragm can be redeveloped to increase its rise up into the chest and consequently "squish the sponge" of the lung tissue to reactivate many alveoli. Criteria for measuring progress stems from specific feeling sense feedback from a patients’ breathing development sessions along with the strength and ease of their voice. Whether the breath is easier, fuller, deeper, effortless, greater, longer, wider; all are ways of measuring increased breathe ability. Key are the techniques, exercises, ergonomics, nutrition and attitudinal aspects that influence the way we breathe, or don’t breathe.

The medical doctor is especially encouraged to learn about breathing. What with the advent of combining Alternative and traditional medicine to create what will possibly end up being called Integral or CAM Complimentary Alternative Medicine, the physician will be in an excellent position to benefit from much needed insights in an rapidly evolving health professional field.  Educating the patient in disease prevention and optimum health will become a primary tool of the physician of the future. The Optimal Breathing workshops are inexpensive and communicated in simple terms  that lay people can as well understand.

As Walnut Creek California internist Dr. Len Saputo says "It seems prudent to me to explore these safe, non-invasive modalities, especially when the potential for a negative effect with selected approaches is zero. When conventional therapies have little or nothing to offer, searching for additional possibilities becomes our responsibility".

Michael Grant White, "The Breathing Coach"

Breathing Development Specialist

Author of Secrets of Optimal Natural Breathing; The Art and Science of Developing Healthy Respiration & Speech Without Drugs or Surgery.

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