Buteyko Breathing

The Buteyko Breathing Method is a series of exercises and teachings developed by Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, (1923-2003), a Russian Medical Doctor, to correct abnormal breathing patterns and restore health.  In his third year of medical school, Buteyko was given the assignment to study the breathing of people nearing death.  He observed that people who were dying breathed significantly deeper than those who were healthy.  Buteyko also noticed that when he asked healthy people to breathe deeply, they immediately exhibited a variety of detrimental symptoms. Applying these revelations with the Bohr Effect¹, Dr. Buteyko realized that deep/over-breathing (hyperventilating) caused decreased carbon dioxide levels, and consequently oxygen is unable to reach and sustain the organs and tissues of the body.   Symptoms such as shortness of breath, snoring, sleep apnea, sinus pain and infections, allergies, fatigue, anxiety, foggy thinking, etc. are common for people who hyperventilate.

Dr. Buteyko successfully treated thousands of people with his Breathing Method, and attributed many of our “civilisation-induced diseases” to chronic over-breathing.  To see if the Buteyko Breathing Method can help you, click here: “I don’t hyperventilate, do I?”

Dr. Glass began studying the Buteyko Breathing Method after experiencing severe asthma attacks.  Now asthma-free, she enjoys kayaking, walking, gardening, and other outdoor activities.  Dr. Glass decided to become a teacher of the Buteyko Breathing Method to provide her clients with the enhancement of health that she continues to experience. She is especially fond of the Buteyko technique as an exemplary manifestation of the Naturopathic principle that calls ND’s to identify and treat the root cause of disease.

¹Bohr Effect: Coined in 1904 by Danish physiologist Christian Bohr, the Bohr Effect states that when carbon dioxide levels are low, hemoglobin has a strong affinity to oxygen – i.e., it holds onto the oxygen, refusing to release it to the parts of the body that need it to function properly.