Chapter 14 Diamond Breath: The Breath of Buddhas Devapat Ecstasy means to come out - from all shells and all defenses, from all egos and all comforts, all death-like walls. To be in ecstasy means to go out, to be free. (Osho) The Japanese Buddha sits in ecstasy, showing us with his big

Physiologically correct breathing not only ensures normal lung function, but also, thanks to the respiratory movements of the diaphragm, as already mentioned, improves and facilitates the activity of the heart, and activates blood circulation in the abdominal organs.

Meanwhile, many people breathe incorrectly - too quickly and superficially, and sometimes unconsciously hold their breath, disrupting its rhythm and reducing ventilation of the lungs.

Thus, shallow breathing causes harm to both healthy and even more so sick people. It is not economical, since during inhalation the air remains in the lungs for a short time and this has a bad effect on the absorption of oxygen by the blood. A significant part of the lung volume is filled with non-renewable air.

With shallow breathing, the volume of inhaled air does not exceed 300 ml, whereas under normal conditions it is on average, as already noted, 500 ml.

But maybe the small volume of inhalation is compensated by the increased frequency of respiratory movements? Let's imagine two people who inhale the same amount of air over the course of a minute, but one of them takes 10 breaths per minute, each with a volume of 600 ml of air, and the other takes 20 breaths per minute, with a volume of 300 ml. Thus, the minute volume of breathing for both is the same and equal to 6 liters. The volume of air contained in the airways, i.e. in the so-called dead space (trachea, bronchi) and not involved in exchange with blood gases, is approximately 140 ml. Therefore, with an inhalation depth of 300 ml, 160 ml of air will reach the pulmonary alveoli, and in 20 breaths this will be 3.2 liters. If the volume of one breath is 600 ml, 460 ml of air will reach the alveoli, and within 1 minute - 4.6 liters. Thus, it is absolutely clear that rare, but deeper breathing is much more effective than shallow and frequent breathing.

Shallow breathing may become habitual as a result various reasons. One of them is a sedentary lifestyle, often due to the characteristics of the profession (sitting at a desk, work that requires standing in one place for a long time, etc.), the other is incorrect posture (habit long time sit hunched over and bring your shoulders forward). This often leads, especially at a young age, to compression of organs chest and insufficient ventilation of the lungs.

Enough common reasons shallow breathing are obesity, constant fullness of the stomach, enlarged liver, bloating of the intestines, which limit the movements of the diaphragm and reduce the volume of the chest during inhalation.

Shallow breathing may be one of the reasons for insufficient oxygen supply to the body. This leads to a decrease in the body's natural nonspecific resistance. Respiratory failure may occur due to chronic diseases lungs and bronchi, as well as intercostal muscles, since patients are deprived of the ability to produce normal respiratory movements for some time.

In elderly and elderly people, shallow breathing may be associated with decreased mobility of the chest due to ossification of the costal cartilages and weakening of the respiratory muscles. And despite the fact that they develop compensatory adaptations (these include increased breathing and some others) that maintain adequate ventilation of the lungs, the oxygen tension in the blood decreases due to age-related changes in the lung tissue itself, a decrease in its elasticity, an irreversible expansion of the alveoli. All this prevents the transition of oxygen from the lungs to the blood and impairs the oxygen supply to the body.

Lack of oxygen in tissues and cells (hypoxia) in some cases may be a consequence of circulatory disorders and blood composition. The cause of tissue hypoxia can be a decrease in the number of functioning capillaries, slowdown and frequent stoppages of capillary blood flow, etc.

Observations in the clinic have established that people suffering from cardiovascular diseases have coronary disease hearts, hypertension etc.), respiratory failure, accompanied by a decrease in the amount of oxygen in the blood, is combined with an increased content of cholesterol and protein-fat complexes (lipoproteins). From this it was concluded that the lack of oxygen in the body plays a role in the development of atherosclerosis. This conclusion was confirmed in the experiment. It turned out that the amount of oxygen in the tissues and organs of patients with atherosclerosis was significantly lower than normal.

The habit of breathing through your mouth is harmful to your health. It entails restriction of respiratory movements of the chest, disturbance of the breathing rhythm, and insufficient ventilation of the lungs. Difficulty in nasal breathing, associated with certain pathological processes in the nose and nasopharynx, especially common in children, sometimes leads to serious disorders of mental and physical development. Children with adenoid growths in the nasopharynx, which impede nasal breathing, develop general weakness, pallor, decreased resistance to infections, sometimes impaired mental development. With a prolonged absence of nasal breathing, children experience underdevelopment of the chest and its muscles.

Physiologically correct nasal breathing is an essential condition for maintaining health. In view of the importance of this issue, we will dwell on it in more detail.

The nasal cavity regulates the humidity and temperature of the air entering the body. So, in cold weather, the temperature of the outside air in the nasal passages increases, with high temperature external environment, depending on the degree of its humidity, more or less significant heat transfer occurs due to evaporation from the mucous membrane of the nose and nasopharynx.

If the inhaled air is too dry, then, passing through the nose, it is moistened due to the secretion of fluid from the goblet cells of the mucous membrane and numerous glands.

In the nasal cavity, the air flow is freed from various impurities contained in the atmosphere. There are special points in the nose where dust particles and microbes are constantly “captured”.

Quite large particles, larger than 50 microns in size, are retained in the nasal cavity. Particles of smaller diameter (from 30 to 50 microns) penetrate into the trachea, even more fine particles(10-30 microns) reach large and medium bronchi, particles with a diameter of 3-10 microns enter the smallest bronchi (bronchioles), and, finally, the smallest ones (1-3 microns) reach the alveoli. Therefore, the smaller the dust particles, the deeper they can penetrate the respiratory tract.

Dust that enters the bronchi is retained by the mucus covering their surface and is expelled out within about an hour. The mucus covering the surface of the nasal cavity and bronchi acts as a constantly renewed mobile filter and is an important barrier that protects the body from the effects of microbes, dust and gases that enter the respiratory tract.

This barrier is especially important for residents of large cities, since the concentration of dust particles in urban air is very high. Large amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, as well as dust and ash (millions of tons per year) are released into the atmosphere of cities. An average of 10-12 thousand liters of air passes through the lungs during the day, and if the respiratory tract did not have the ability to self-clean, they would be completely clogged within several days.

In addition to tracheobronchial mucus, other mechanisms also take part in cleaning the bronchi and lungs from foreign particles. For example, the movement of air during exhalation facilitates the removal of particles. This mechanism is especially intense during forced exhalation and coughing.

Substances secreted by the nasal mucosa, as well as specific antibodies in the nasal cavity, are of great importance for the implementation of the antimicrobial barrier function of the nasopharynx and bronchi. Therefore healthy people As a rule, pathogenic microorganisms do not penetrate into the trachea and bronchi. The small number of microbes that do get there are quickly removed thanks to a peculiar protective device - the ciliated epithelium that lines the surface of the respiratory tract, starting from the nose to the smallest bronchioles.

On the free surface of the epithelial cells, facing the lumen of the respiratory tract, there is a large number of constantly oscillating (ciliating) hairs - cilia. All cilia on the epithelial cells of the respiratory tract are closely linked to each other. Their movements are coordinated and resemble a grain field agitated by the wind. Despite their small size, ciliated hairs can move relatively large particles weighing 5-10 mg.

If the integrity of the ciliated epithelium is damaged due to injury or medicinal substances, entering directly into the respiratory tract, foreign particles and bacteria in damaged areas are not removed. In these places, the resistance of the mucous membrane to infection sharply decreases, creating conditions for the disease. The mucus secreted by goblet cells forms plugs that block the lumen of the bronchi. This may lead to inflammatory processes in unventilated areas of the lungs.

Respiratory tract diseases often arise as a result of damage to the mucous membrane by foreign impurities in the inhaled air. Tobacco smoke has a particularly harmful effect on the bronchi and lungs. It contains many toxic substances, the most famous of which is nicotine. In addition, tobacco smoke has a harmful effect on the respiratory system: it worsens the conditions for clearing the respiratory tract of foreign particles and bacteria, as it delays the movement of mucus in the bronchi and trachea. So, in non-smokers, the speed of mucus movement is 10-20 mm per 1 min, while in smokers it is less than 3 mm per 1 min. This disrupts the removal of foreign particles and microbes and creates conditions for infection of the respiratory tract.

Tobacco smoke has a very significant negative effect on alveolar macrophages. It inhibits their movement, capture and digestion of bacteria (i.e., inhibits phagocytosis). The toxicity of tobacco smoke is also expressed in direct damage to the structure of macrophages, a change in the properties of their secretion, which not only ceases to protect the lung tissue from harmful effects, but also begins to promote the development pathological processes in the lungs. This explains the occurrence of emphysema and pneumosclerosis in long-term smokers. Heavy smoking significantly worsens the course of acute diseases respiratory organs and contributes to their transition to chronic inflammatory processes.

In addition, tobacco smoke contains substances that promote the development of malignant tumors(carcinogens). Therefore, smokers develop cancerous tumors in respiratory tract develop much more often than in non-smokers.

If you are asked the question: how should you breathe correctly? – you will almost certainly answer – deeply. And you will be completely wrong, says Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko.

It is deep breathing that causes large quantity diseases and early mortality among people. The healer proved this with the assistance of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

What kind of breathing can be called deep? It turns out that the most common breathing is when we can see the movement of the chest or abdomen.

"Can't be! - you exclaim. “Do all people on Earth breathe incorrectly?” As proof, Konstantin Pavlovich suggests conducting the following experiment: take thirty deep breaths in thirty seconds - and you will feel weakness, sudden drowsiness, and slight dizziness.

It turns out that the destructive effect of deep breathing was discovered back in 1871 by the Dutch scientist De Costa, the disease was called “hyperventilation syndrome.”

In 1909, physiologist D. Henderson, conducting experiments on animals, proved that deep breathing is fatal to all organisms. The cause of death of the experimental animals was a deficiency of carbon dioxide, in which excess oxygen becomes toxic.

K. P. Buteyko believes that by mastering his technique, it is possible to defeat 150 of the most common diseases of the nervous system, lungs, blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, metabolism, which he believes is directly caused by deep breathing.

“We have established a general law: the deeper the breathing, the more seriously ill a person is and the faster death occurs. The shallower the breathing, the more healthy, resilient and durable a person is. In this case, carbon dioxide is important. She does everything. The more of it in the body, the healthier the person.”

The evidence for this theory is the following facts:

During the intrauterine development of a child, his blood contains 3–4 times less oxygen than after birth;

The cells of the brain, heart, and kidneys need an average of 7% carbon dioxide and 2% oxygen, while the air contains 230 times less carbon dioxide and 10 times more oxygen;

When newborn babies were placed in an oxygen chamber, they began to go blind;

Experiments carried out on rats showed that if they were placed in an oxygen chamber, they would go blind from fiber sclerosis;

Mice placed in an oxygen chamber die after 10–12 days;

The large number of long-livers in the mountains is explained by the lower percentage of oxygen in the air; thanks to the thin air, the climate in the mountains is considered healing.

Taking into account the above, K.P. Buteyko believes that deep breathing is especially harmful for newborns, therefore traditional tight swaddling of children is the key to their health. Perhaps the sharp decrease in immunity and the sharp increase in the incidence of illness in young children are due to the fact that modern medicine recommends immediately providing the child with maximum freedom of movement, which means providing destructive deep breathing.

Deep and frequent breathing leads to a decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the lungs, and therefore in the body, which causes alkalization of the internal environment. As a result, metabolism is disrupted, which leads to many diseases:

Allergic reactions;

I have a cold;

Salt deposits;

Development of tumors;

Nervous diseases (epilepsy, insomnia, migraines, sharp decline mental and physical disability, memory impairment);

Vein expansion;

Obesity, metabolic disorders;

Sexual disorders;

Complications during childbirth;

Inflammatory processes;

Viral diseases.

Symptoms of deep breathing according to K. P. Buteyko are “dizziness, weakness, headache, tinnitus, nervous tremors, fainting. This shows that deep breathing is a terrible poison.” At his lectures, the healer demonstrated how attacks of certain diseases can be caused and eliminated through breathing. The main provisions of the theory of K. P. Buteyko are as follows:

1. The human body protects itself from deep breathing. The first defensive reaction is spasms of smooth muscles (bronchi, blood vessels, intestines, urinary tract), they manifest themselves in asthmatic attacks, hypertension, constipation. As a result of the treatment of asthma, for example, the bronchi dilate and the level of carbon dioxide in the blood decreases, which leads to shock, collapse, and death. The next protective reaction is sclerosis of blood vessels and bronchi, that is, thickening of the walls of blood vessels to avoid loss of carbon dioxide. Cholesterol, covering the membranes of cells, blood vessels, and nerves, protects the body from the loss of carbon dioxide during deep breathing. Sputum secreted from the mucous membranes is also a protective reaction to the loss of carbon dioxide.

2. The body is able to build proteins from simple elements by adding its own carbon dioxide and absorbing it. In this case, a person has an aversion to proteins and natural vegetarianism appears.

3. Spasms and sclerosis of blood vessels and bronchi lead to less oxygen entering the body. This means that with deep breathing there is oxygen starvation and lack of carbon dioxide.

4. It is the increased content of carbon dioxide in the blood that makes it possible to cure most of the most common diseases. And this can be achieved through proper shallow breathing.