Breathing Evaluation Checklist

 BREATHING HABITS... Are yours good? OR, are they compromising your health and performance?

Statistics suggest that tens of millions of people worldwide suffer with the profound and misunderstood symptoms and deficits of learned dysfunctional breathing habits, in fact, between 10% and 25% of the U.S. population! Unfortunately, these habits are rarely identified by practitioners, their effects mistakenly attributed to other causes, and their resolutions prescriptive in nature where focus is on symptoms rather than on causes.

Everyone has breathing habits. When these habits are dysfunctional they can severely compromise health and performance. Most people, however, are rarely aware of the presence of these habits, their potentially serious effects (symptoms and deficits), and their interaction with other related and/or unrelated healthcare issues.

Dysfunctional breathing habits can profoundly and immediately alter physiology, leading to disturbed extracellular pH, deregulated electrolyte balance, compromised blood flow, unfriendly hemoglobin, compromised muscle function, autonomic nervous system disturbances, central nervous system deficits, and anatomical compromise or damage (e.g., misalignment of teeth).

These far-reaching physiological changes may directly trigger, exacerbate, perpetuate, and/or cause a wide variety of emotional (anxiety, anger), cognitive (attention, learning), behavioral (public speaking, test taking), and physical (pain, asthma) symptoms and deficits that may seriously affect you. These symptoms and deficits can be powerful, insidious, and debilitating, especially when you don’t know where they are coming from. This fact is nicely illustrated by surveys indicating that up to 60% of ambulance runs in major US cities are a result of acute symptoms triggered by dysfunctional breathing habits.

Physical symptoms may include inability to focus, nausea, headache (reduced cerebral glucose) dizziness (reduced cerebral oxygen), tingling, numbness, blurred vision, muscle cramping, increased airway resistance, air hunger, cardiac changes, hyperarousal, and reduced pain threshold. Psychological changes may include (depending on the person) attention deficit, heightened emotionality (e.g., wanting to cry), anxiety, panic, disconnectedness, traumatic memories, learning impairment, changes in self-esteem, and even personality changes.

One important example of a dysfunctional habit is overbreathing, that is, breathing that leads to a carbon dioxide deficiency (hypocapnia) in extracellular body fluids, such as blood plasma. We need carbon dioxide (CO2) in our bodies to be healthy, not too much and not too little. When we have too little, we disturb the pH of blood plasma and it becomes too alkaline, that is, we suffer with respiratory alkalosis or hypocapnia. The consequence is symptoms and deficits, some short term and others long term, many that are subtle and others that are profound and unsettling.

The mechanics of breathing (muscles, like the diaphragm) normally operate in concert with breathing chemistry requirements (e.g., blood plasma pH, CO2, oxygen). This happens automatically in accordance with respiratory reflex mechanisms, but dysfunctional habits can easily get in the way, especially when you try to regulate the breathing yourself rather than simply allowing it.

Do you have any dysfunctional breathing habits? FIND OUT.
Healthcare providers are now getting involved. Dysfunctional breathing habits can often play a serious role in in the issues that they routinely address in their work. 

What can you do if you have a dysfunctional habit?