What is Asthma and Bronchitis?
As you’ve might heard from your doctor or read on the internet, chronic Asthma and Bronchitis, have no cure. You have learned you’ll have to live with these chronic conditions for the rest of your life, relying on prescription medication to alleviate your symptoms.
Millions of adults in the US suffer from chronic respiratory symptoms. Bronchitis runs in 4% of the adult population and Asthma runs in 8%. Most of them use either inhalers, nebulizers or stronger prescription medication. Most of them are frustrated and in pain, yet, they accept their condition with hopelessness, hoping mainly that their symptoms will not exacerbate.
The truth of the matter, you can reverse your condition naturally, with no drugs, with no pain.
Over-Breathing/Hyperventilation
Asthma and Bronchitis are mainly developed as a result of over-breathing/hyperventilation. How over-breathing can lead to a shortness of breath? It sounds surprising, but if we understand the dynamics of the respiratory system, we might see how more breathing leads to less breathing, which is the major symptom of Asthma and Bronchitis.
A normal pace of breathing is 12 cycles a minute of inhalation/exhalation. Each inhalation contains 22% of Oxygen and 0.04% of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). When under physical exertion, this pace will increase and under deep relaxation it can decrease a bit.
The body gets all the needed oxygen through this regular breathing and if Oxygen is short, the brain commands the respiratory system to bring more air in. There are two major reasons why the body will feel short in the Oxygen supply: 1. Physical Over-Exertion 2. Anxiety.
In over-breathing, we tend to inhale more through the mouth and not from the nostrils. The opening of the mouth is much larger than the opening of the nostrils, so, much more air will be pumped in from the mouth. On one hand it’s a good short-term solution but on the other hand, the following exhale releases unused Oxygen, and worse than that, it releases too much CO2.
From breath to breath, the size of the inhale becomes equal to the size of the exhale, and after a while, the volume of the exhale becomes bigger than the volume of the inhale. A deficit in Oxygen takes effect, and the brain commands more and more to bring in more Oxygen and the pace of the breathing increases but still, it cannot close the gap between the inhalation and the exhalation and at a certain point the body gets distressed, feeling the gradual lack of Oxygen, and Asthma/Bronchitis attack takes place.
The Role of CO2 in Healthy Breathing
When exhaling, the major part of the exhaled air is CO2 that was accumulated through the entire body, from every cell and it’s discharged as an un-needed waste.
Yet, little is known about the crucial role of CO2 in keeping healthy breathing throughout the body. The body is consisted of about 50 trillions of cells. Each cell needs Oxygen. Each Oxygen molecule, rides on the back of a red blood cell which is travelling along the body and reaches the designated cell for the Oxygen delivery. The delivery can happen only if there is a presence of CO2 molecule next to the cell. This presence of CO2, enables the red blood cell to unload the Oxygen into the designated cell and download the discharged waste CO2 from the cell.
Evidently, there are two CO2 molecules present at the location; One helps to unload the Oxygen into the cell and the other is the discharged waste CO2 from the cell, needed to be evacuated on the back of this red blood cell.
An absence of CO2 at the location, will prevent the occurrence of this process; the Oxygen molecule will remain glued to the surface of the red blood cell and will travel back to the lung area and eventually will be expelled out by an exhalation.
The less the presence of CO2 molecules in the body, the less Oxygen is delivered to the body and the larger the overall deficit of Oxygen. The result is an incremental increase in breathing pace, eventually resulting in Asthma/Bronchitis attack.
Physical Exertion
Under the influence of increased physical exertion, we breathe faster, through our mouth consuming large amounts of oxygen in an effort to supply our body’s need for more Oxygen.
Running, fast walking, swimming, bicycling, weight-lifting and many more physical activities, can be carried on when the Oxygen supply meets the demands. Over-breathing is the necessary mechanism the body uses for that purpose.
At the end of the physical activity, the need for extra supply of Oxygen drops down and the pace of breathing goes back to normal and the over-breathing stops, and there is no worry of Asthma/Bronchitis attack.
Anxiety and Panic Attacks
When Anxiety attack happens, mainly, Panic Attack, the pace of breathing increases sharply. The associated fear sensation creates an illusion that the person’s survival is at stake. The person wants to run away, to save himself, but there is nothing in the reality to escape from. When this situation is repeating itself time and time again the body-mind become stressed.
In this condition, the body cannot tell the difference if he’s running literally or he needs to escape. The end result is an increase in the pace of breathing, the person needs more and more Oxygen, and breathe mostly from the mouse, and engages himself with over-breathing. The longer the panic attack, the higher the frequency of its occurrence, the body will adjust to over-breathing behavior as a new normal and the possibility for Asthma/Bronchitis attack is growing.
Treating Asthma/Bronchitis
In order to reverse the chronic condition of Asthma/Bronchitis, we have to treat simultaneously the respiratory system and treat the Anxiety.
On the physical level of the respiratory system, there are 3 requirements:
Reduce Oxygen intake (hypoxia)
Increase CO2 intake (hypercapnia)
Strengthen the respiratory system’s muscles (mainly the Diaphragm)
Since the main issue of the Asthma/Bronchitis sufferer is over-breathing, he needs to learn how to reduce the volume of the air intake. One has to learn to breathe mostly from the nose with closed mouth as much as possible. At the same time, there is a need to increase the level of CO2 presence in the blood stream. All these can be achieved by using a proven breathing protocol for a period of time. Such protocol will increase the strength of the Diaphragm muscle that regularly enables a normal breathing functioning of the lungs.
On the emotional level, Anxiety is the nemesis in cases of Asthma/Bronchitis attacks. The sufferer needs to engage in an efficient therapy (IPEC Therapy) in order to reduce to overall anxiety, to get a better management on the emotional process in the person’s life.
When engaging simultaneously in re-training of the respiratory system and reducing anxiety there is a high probability to reverse the incidence of Asthma/Bronchitis attacks.
If you suffer from asthma & bronchitis, we can help.
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