Medical practi
tioners suggest that chronic hyperventilation occurs when a person gets too much air or over-breathes. Often, they will say that sufferers will feel that they cannot get enough air, though they have the same oxygen saturation as a normally breathing person. Hyperventilation tends to be self-recurring in that when carbon dioxide levels fall before normal due to hyperventilation and respiratory alkalosis or high blood pH develops, symptoms worsen, causing the person to panic and breathe even faster, aggravating the condition. Modern medicine understands chronic hyperventilation to be psychological in nature and does not believe that it has an organic cause.
Others, however, particularly practitioners of natural and/or more eastern based medicine and philosophy, see chronic hyperventilation not as a symptom of a psychological disorder, but as the cause of organic problems within the body. In fact, some experts in eastern practices believe that all physical problems in the body can be traced to incorrect breathing patterns.
According to breathing expert Dennis Lewis, author of Breathe Into Being: Awakening to Who You Really Are, chronic hyperventilation is at the root of more than 200 different medical problems, including asthma, headaches, heart disease, sinusitis, high blood pressure, and much more. Lewis argues that when people can be retrained to breathe properly and at the correct rate, not only do these physical disorders cease, but people also suffer less anxiety and irritability.
Lewis claims that the negative emotions that we experience, such as worry, are most often the result of chronic hyperventilation. Though medical texts cite the rate of normal breathing while at rest at about 12 -17 breaths per minute, most people, argues Lewis, breathe much more quickly. He insists that it is this chronic hyperventilation that leads to anxiousness, apprehension, and general irritability. In fact, he suggests that even a rate of 12 to 17 may be faster than what is needed to maintain physical and emotional health.
Lewis explains that our bodies use carbon dioxide to process oxygen. Chronic hyperventilation leads to too much carbon dioxide being expelled from our bodies too quickly. This, in turn, causes arteries, including the artery that leads to the brain, to constrict, limiting the flow of blood throughout the body. In addition to causing physical problems and the already mentioned irritability or anxiousness, the lack of adequate blood flow and the subsequent lack of oxygen where our bodies need it causes us to be unfocused in our thinking and can result in obsessive thoughts and images.
Because chronic hyperventilation is so widespread, yet so under-diagnosed among the general public, those who have access to breathing specialists or centers should make an effort to consult with them to see if chronic hyperventilation could be the cause of any emotional or physical issues.
When you improve breathing, you improve your total health. The Buteyko Center http://www.breathingcenter.com offers a free breathing test online and a free Buteyko Health Evaluation report with our recommendations. The test will help you determine whether you suffer from chronic hyperventilation, and if so to what degree, and how that may be affecting the quality of your sleep, as well as recommendations for improvement.
