Breathing Remedies

asthma anxiety sleep fatigue

  • BREATHING
    • Breathing Assessment and Buteyko course
    • How I help – About Buteyko breathing
    • Symptoms of Disordered Breathing
  • POSTURE
    • Postural alignment therapy (Egoscue): conditions treated
  • FAQ
  • Success Stories
    • Asthma allergies sinusitis
    • Anxiety panic stress
    • Snoring sleep apnoea insomnia
    • ME/CFS
    • Dysfunctional Breathing
  • CONTACT

Frequently asked questions

  1. What conditions can the Buteyko Method be used for?
  2. Is there any evidence that Buteyko actually works?
  3. What will I need to do?
  4. What will my doctor think?
  5. The more I breathe the better for me, as I am getting more oxygen. Is this correct?
  6. Does it matter if you breathe through the nose or the mouth?
  7. My condition is severe, will the Buteyko method help me?
  8. Is Buteyko a cure for asthma?
  9. Will the Buteyko method improve my sporting performance?
  10. I sing regularly so I know how to breathe don’t I?
  11. I do breathing exercises in yoga class so I have breathing covered don’t I?
  12. I take deep breaths when I am stressed, the more the better to get out the CO2 isn’t it?
  13. Do I have to exercise?
  14. You are supposed to expand the whole rib cage for efficient breathing aren’t you?
  15. I know you should not move the upper chest excessively, I use my diaphragm to push out my belly, belly breathing is correct isn’t it?
  16. Should I breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth?
  17. How will Buteyko breathing change my life?

What conditions can the Buteyko Method be used for?

Buteyko breathing can be used to successfully treat a range of conditions, including:

  • Allergies
  • Asthma
  • Panic Attacks
  • High Blood Pressure
  • Snoring
  • Migraines
  • Hyperactivity
  • ME/chronic Fatigue
  • Eczema
  • Sleep Apnoea
  • Sleeping Disorders
  • Rhinitis
  • Sinusitis
  • Emphysema

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Is there any evidence that Buteyko actually works?

Yes, there have been many randomised controlled studies looking at Buteyko breathing for asthma. Buteyko breathing has been listed in the BTS/SIGN Guideline on the Management of Asthma since 2008. There is some published data on sleep apnoea too.


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What will I need to do?

You will learn breathing exercises and simple tips to help you to improve the way you breathe. Nasal breathing is promoted and lifestyle changes recommended. The exercises take about 10 minutes and need to repeated several times a day. They involve normalising breathing rate and volume and optimizing biomechanics, so how you breathe and how much you breathe. The Buteyko exercises should be practised until the new way of breathing eventually become automatic. This usually takes from 1 to 3 months and then can be tapered off.  Most people notice an improvement in their symptoms within a week or so.


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What will my doctor think?

Buteyko breathing can be used alongside conventional drug management of asthma. The BTS/SIGN Guideline on the Management of Asthma mentions Buteyko breathing as a breathing normalisation technique. Doctors and asthma nurses should be familiar with this guideline and it should guide their practice. Tell your doctor that you are taking the course so that he/she may monitor your progress. Most doctors are pleased to see their patients’ reliance on drugs of any kind reduced or diminished. You are advised not to alter medications without the consent of a registered physician


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The more I breathe the better for me, as I am getting more oxygen. Is this correct?

No. If you breathe more air than ideal, you will actually get less oxygen into the body cells, not more. When you breathe too much, your CO2 levels drop and this means oxygen sticks to the haemoglobin in the blood (Bohr effect) and cannot be utilised by the body where it is needed.


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Does it matter if you breathe through the nose or the mouth?

Yes, nasal breathing is best; air is warmed, humidified and filtered. When you breathe out through your nose water can be reabsorbed so you dehydrate less. Nitric oxide is produced in the sinuses and if you breathe in through the nose this can destroy microbes in the air, and when it gets into the lungs the NO helps oxygen transfer into the bloodstream.

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My condition is severe, will the Buteyko method help me?

Often, the more severe the problem the more dramatic the improvement.

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Is Buteyko a cure for asthma?

Buteyko is conditional cure for asthma. The majority of people who practice the method regularly are able to change their breathing pattern and thus experience no symptoms. Some people use the method as a substitute of their reliever medication. If you get back to old bad breathing habits, the asthma is likely to return.

 

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Will the Buteyko method improve my sporting performance?

Yes, as optimum breathing is necessary for optimum physical performance.

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I sing regularly so I know how to breathe don’t I?

Not necessarily, it is possible to hyperventilate with excessive mouth breathing while singing. Again it depends what you are doing for the rest of the time.

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I do breathing exercises in yoga class so I have breathing covered don’t I?

Not necessarily, it depends how breathing is taught as some yoga and pilates teachers actually promote hyperventilation. Even if they understand good breathing, this may only be “on the mat” and not for the rest of the 24 hours a day. Buteyko can be very different to the breathing exercises taught in hospital wards, Pilates, yoga, martial arts, singing and fitness classes or when using a breathing-exercise gadget. The aim is to restore physiologically normal breathing 24/7

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I take deep breaths when I am stressed, the more the better to get out the CO2 isn’t it?

No, you can overbreathe or hyperventilate, causing CO2 to be blown off and levels in the body to drop. As with all things you need a balance of blood gasses; too little CO2 means the body tissues will get too little oxygen.

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Do I have to exercise?

No, you won’t be asked to do strenuous workouts. The breathing exercises are not physically taxing, and mostly are done sitting comfortably in a chair. However, increasing your fitness with regular walking will help better breathing. You will learn how to incorporate correct breathing into any physical activity.

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You are supposed to expand the whole rib cage for efficient breathing aren’t you?

No, only when exercising vigorously when the accessory muscles come into play. Good breathing is low, quiet and invisible and efficient.

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I know you should not move the upper chest excessively, I use my diaphragm to push out my belly, belly breathing is correct isn’t it?

Not just the belly which is the point of least resistance. There should be lower rib expansion all the way round, and especially at the back.

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Should I breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth?

No, in and out of the nose, there are many reasons, but one is dehydration when you breathe out through the mouth. The nose efficiently reabsorbs water on the outbreath.

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How will Buteyko breathing change my life?

 

Correct breathing is essential to good health. Buteyko breathing aims to normalise the breathing and balance blood gases for more efficient delivery of oxygen to all the cells of the body. If you are an asthmatic, a Buteyko breathing course will give you a better understanding of what causes asthma and how the drugs work, as well as the ability to reduce your dependency on drugs. It is likely to reduce your need for medication and improve your quality of life- see success stories. (Medications are only reduced with your doctor’s agreement)

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About me, Buteyko breathing educator

Janet Winter breathing and posture educator (Buteyko and Egoscue)

Dr Janet Winter (PhD)

Hello, I am Janet,  a  Breathing educator (Buteyko), and Posture specialist (Egoscue).

I help people recover from asthma, allergies, sinusitis, anxiety, sleep problems, headaches, IBS chronic fatigue (ME/CFS) and more, by improving their dysfunctional breathing.

Listen to a client’s (Suzy Glaskie, functional medicine health coach at Peppermint Wellness) 15 minute podcast on how Buteyko helped her.

I teach natural health control with no drugs, gadgets or manipulation. You can sign up to my newsletter here.

Phone me 01663 743055 (Dr Janet Winter) or contact me here.

What I do

Breathing education gently retrains a disordered breathing pattern and helps people naturally recover from breathing-related health problems.

The Buteyko Method relieves asthma symptoms, and has been listed in the UK Asthma Guideline since 2008.
I am a member of the Buteyko Breathing Educators Association and am fully insured.

I am also a qualified postural alignment specialist (PAS) Egoscue method. Good posture is essential for good breathing and proper function in general.

My background

I was involved in healthcare/biomedical research for 30 years although previously in a very different role: before training as a Breathing educator, I spent 20 years in drug discovery looking for new painkillers for a major pharmaceutical company based in a London Institute.
I worked as a neuroscientist and cell biologist, directing a team of bench scientists. (So I am not a medical doctor but I have a PhD in Neuroscience) I authored or co-authored more than 50 journal articles and reviews on my research.  My professional profile can be seen here on LINKEDIN.

Why I became a breathing educator

If you are reading this because you have CFS/ME, I know what you are going through. I know what it is like to hold onto a job by my fingernails, worried about how we would feed the family if I lost my job, come home and eat and sleep and spend my weekend recovering.

I had no social life. I was lucky to quickly get to a consultant who diagnosed me with candidiasis, and anti-fungals and a yeast and sugar-free diet helped a lot, but not enough.

I felt I had been “written off” and had nothing to offer. I was a mum, partner and employee with massively reduced physical and mental output compared with previously.
For me (after trying many different avenues, cranial osteopathy, chiropractic, mercury amalgam filling removal and more – I became a “fat-folder patient”).

How I got sick

I suspected my symptoms were “stress related” but they did not ease when I left my stressful job and moved out of London to the countryside.

Looking back on my history I can clearly see my own physical and emotional stresses accumulating, from a very traumatic bereavement, on-going work and family stresses, then a really bad summer respiratory infection and cough that was not shifted by two different antibiotics (but they probably contributed to unbalancing my gut flora, hence the fungal overgrowth/candidiasis).

A cough seems to be one of the best ways to mess up your breathing pattern, and many of my clients tell me “I was fine until I had that cough/chest infection, and I never really got my health back!!”

The breathing centre in the brain gets to think that big volume breathing is normal and unless you know about it, it is sometimes hard to recover. Luckily you CAN retrain your breathing by doing a series of gentle exercises and making some life style changes, and you CAN have hope of better health.

My recovery

Changing my breathing back to a more normal pattern really helped me. It was a big missing piece of my health puzzle, and one I had frankly never considered. One definition of stress is “anything that makes you breathe more”. And I know now that breathing too much can actually deplete the body of oxygen. And stress can be emotional or physical.

So that is why I do what I do and why I am passionate about it; I found a way to improve my chronic fatigue by better breathing and I trained as a breathing educator so I could help others with this devastating disease. There is so little help out there for them (you?).

Then chronic backache made good breathing impossible, and I discovered postural alignment therapy (Egoscue) to help with that. And I am still amazed at the progress I am making -it’s wonderful to have decreased pain and increased function when I had accepted decline at my age was inevitable. It’s not!


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Recent Posts

  • Facemasks against coronavirus; tips
  • How to breathe for immune health: self help for Coronavirus protection
  • Breathing quotes; why it might be worth learning to breathe well…
  • Is yoga breathing damaging your health?
  • The importance of nasal breathing: 11 reasons to breathe through your nose
  • ME/CFS, POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), joint hypermobility, teenagers and anxiety
  • Smiling and snoring; humming, posture and sinusitis.
  • Posture and breathing
  • Records of three better breathing success stories
  • The microbiome in asthma and ME/CFS
  • Self-compassion to reduce the stress response in ME/CFS/SEID
  • Is ME/CFS/SEID linked to disordered breathing/overbreathing/hyperventilation?
  • A new name “systemic exertion intolerance disease” (SEID) for ME/CFS?
  • Self-improvement is a big job. Breath retraining requires personal discipline and effort.
  • ME/CFS/fibromyalgia/anxiety: are you stuck in fight or flight?
  • How did we get a disordered breathing pattern/hyperventilation in the first place?
  • Better breathing enhances sports performance
  • How hyperventilation harms: part 3 hyperventilation can unbalance the blood gases and reduce transfer of oxygen from the blood to the organs and tissues that need it.
  • How hyperventilation harms: part 2 hyperventilation can narrow the blood vessels and reduce blood and oxygen supply.
  • How hyperventilation harms: part 1 hyperventilation can narrow the airways.
  • Five health benefits of breathing with your diaphragm
  • Three more good reasons to breathe through your nose and not your mouth.
  • I know how to breathe or I would be dead wouldn’t I? –5 Interesting responses I have had when I tell people that I am a breathing educator!
  • My Blog Tour – meet Viviann, Gillian and Nicola – all three have inspired me
  • The disease of deep breathing? Three dysfunctional breathing patterns; have you got one?
  • ME/CFS/fibromyalgia? You are not broken: Never give up hope, I recovered, so can you.
  • Unhealthy breathing patterns and low oxygen: link with ME/CFS and fibromyalgia?
  • Five ways that chronic cough can damage your health; and how better breathing helps
  • Do you ever feel out of breath or dizzy or exhausted after only minimal exercise? How are you breathing?
  • Seven reasons why you should always breathe through your nose

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Tags

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Asthma allergies sinusitis

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Snoring sleep apnoea insomnia

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