The Science of Inhaling

I'm going to tell you something that you most likely are going to disagree with. This changes nothing. You are still wrong. I know that you, good reader must be thinking, I'm open minded, I have a fair grasp of self awareness, I'm not defensive. You are right. Nor, should I say, am I trying to "rattle your cage" or unseat some deep truth that you've held on to. I'm just saying that you're breathing wrong, it's shortening your life and happiness, it's feeding into your anxiety, depression, your sleep, and a wide variety of other things.

It's not your fault, you were not taught, you were not trained, we as a whole did not think about it. I'm going to offer my thoughts on how we got here, the evidence on why what I'm saying matters, and why a good breath routine is more important than your diet and your gym membership combined.

Let's start with metrics. So much of science is determined by what is measured and then the conclusions that can be drawn from how those metrics are changed during different stimuli. Health conclusions like this have widely been accepted as good markers for rating where one's health is. Blood pressure, cholesterol, etc, have been shown historically to lead to certain health outcomes. Heart attacks, strokes, anxiety, depression, etc. The treatment of these of these has often remained unchanged as well, but that is a rant meant for another time.

Let's just take the breath as an example. Ask your search engine/AI companion how many gases are present in the blood stream. You'll most likely get the answer I got, 2 MAIN gases, Oxygen, mostly bound to hemoglobin, and Carbon Dioxide. This however, is not the whole truth, Nitrogen is present as well. More on that in a moment.

Let's go through the basics, every time you take a breath, a few magical things happen. As we currently understand it, when you breath in, your diaphragm contracts and moves downward, the ribcage expanse and the increased volume in the chest cavity decreases the pressure inside the lungs, creating a vacuum and sucking the "air" in. The "air" as we are to define is are made up of 2 different elements 21% Oxygen, and 78% Nitrogen.

Let's pause here. remember that whole thing about there only being 2 main gases in the blood? Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide? Are we wondering how the minority gases in our air, the thing we breath, make up the majority of the chemical interactions in our blood stream? I found that a bit head scratching as well.

But let's glaze over that for now, as what you probably had in your head was the process of aerobic metabolism, as that was what I had come to understand as breathing. After the vacuum of your lungs fills, the air reaches the alveoli (small air sacs with capillaries) the thin walls allow the blood to absorb oxygen through the process of diffusion.

The high pressure of that oxygen getting pushed from your lungs (via alveoli capillaries) helps the move the blood across the alveolar membrane and into the blood, at the same time that high/low pressure mix is pushing the blood with CO2 in it and is exchanged with the oxygen rich blood and the CO2 is exhaled.

When the oxygen has been sucked in via vacuum to your lungs, pushed through through pressure into your blood, it binds with hemoglobin, a protein that is specifically designed to transport oxygen. This acts as the "oxygen delivery system" that delivers oxygen to your tissues. However, your body or your tissue groups all require different oxygen needs and levels. This is where your body's delivery system kicks in.

Your cells are always active, oxygen is the fuel they use to produce energy, of which CO2 is one of the primary bi-products. The need of the cells is determined by the levels of certain things: CO2, hydrogen ions, pH, and temperature. Think of these like gauges, when the CO2, hydrogen ions, and temp are running high and the pH is running low, the tissue sends a signal to the hemoglobin to release oxygen into the tissue.

This is because when hemoglobin comes around high CO2 levels and low pH levels, it loses it's interest in oxygen, causing it to be unloaded into the tissue. This is called the Bohr effect. This is the first thing to keep in mind when we say your are breathing wrong.

Not every condition for every cell is the same at all times. The needs of your body change constantly and that Bohr effect is in constant fluctuation as those needs change. The body is constantly adjusting how tightly hemoglobin holds oxygen, or at what threshold the body deems appropriate to allocate resources to tissues.

CO2 also plays a function on it's creation and it's way out. CO2 is transported in and through the body in several forms, but most is transported as a bicarbonate. Inside the red blood cells, an enzyme called carbonic anhydrase rapidly facilitates the reaction from CO2 to it's bicarbonate form (HCO3 for you nerds). Some also binds directly to hemoglobin, forming carbaminohemoglobin (which is kind of irrelevant, but sounds really cool) and a smaller amount still is dissolved in plasma.

When you exhale, the diaphragm once again relaxes and the elastic tissues of the lungs relax, pushing the air back out with gravity. The crazy thing is, you don't use all the oxygen you inhale. Not even close. But this is not about how inefficient your lungs are, how your body is not doing it right, or about how through some mystical practice we can "unlock vast, hidden potential", not even close.

This is about me pointing out through science, that there is a lot that goes into our breath, a lot that happens every time we breath, and that for most of us, this has been an unconscious process for most of out adult lives.

Now, let's break down the 2 ways we can influence our breath. We can breathe faster or we can breathe slower. In general, breathing slower can influence autonomic regulation, such as our sympathetic and parasympathetic responses.

This, along with body positioning and posture serve as an unconscious but very powerful mechanism that your body regulates your mood and responses.

So, if breathing is a complex system of pressure changes, pH changes, and re-supplying all your tissues with oxygen, why don’t we treat it more like a trainable skill that can lead to positive health outcomes like diet and exercise?

What if the benifical part of running is the off gassing of CO2? What is training your diaphragm? How does that look and how does increasing your lung capacity help even if your body doesn’t use ALL the oxygen?

I personally feel like intentional breathing is the next huge personal health leap forward. There is so much we have yet to fully study and understand. Most doctors that you go to only measure lung health in a few, specific ways. Oxygen and CO2 are all that’s measured. When was the last time a doctor took your lung volume? Or did they just listen with a stethoscope for wheezing?

It has become my passion to find out more about our breath, our bodies, and the many ways we can gently influence positive changes through breathe and breathing patterns. This is not a new concept.

The term “respiratory neuroplasticity” has been around since 2003, defined in a paper by Mitchell and Johnson as “a persistent change in the neural control system (morphology and/or function) based on prior experience.”

This is the science we follow in our training and our teaching. For me, it has led to amazing results and I wish to share this experience, knowledge and hope with more people looking to improve their day to day lives in ways that medication and therapy or traditional treatments have not helped as much, as an addition to supplement your well being.

Think about it: you dedicate time to work out, eat right, make good daily habits, etc. Why don’t we dedicate the same time and energy into training and improving a process that happens without us noticing it most of the time, and has a huge impact on our health.

Remember, believe in yourself and believe in the power of breathe. We breathe because we are alive, and because we are alive, we can breathe. Be well, breathe deep. Hope to connect with you all soon.

Will Boyle, Chief Breath Officer, Boyle Breath Works