Create the Need for Air - Buteyko Clinic International

To normalise your breathing volume, you need to practice special exercises to relax your body. This is done by bringing relaxation to your body and silently encouraging your breathing to decrease to the point where you feel a hunger for air. With a sustained shortage of air, the breathing centre is reset to direct more calm and gentle breathing. The more you keep your breathing quiet, the more this becomes your permanent way to breathe.

Hunger for air is wanting or needing air. It is a feeling of breathlessness, similar to what you would experience if you go for a walk. It can also be described as feeling slightly suffocated. Ideally, you have a tolerable need for air. The need for air should be the same as what you experience during your control pause. If you reduce your breathing too much, the air shortage is no longer tolerable and your breathing muscles jerk and heave. When the breathing muscles jerk, it is better for you to distract yourself for about thirty seconds and then resume gentle, reduced breathing through relaxation.

Initially, you will be able to tolerate a shortage of air for a short period, maybe fifteen seconds or so, until the tummy jerks. However, with practise and as your control pause increases, it is far easier to maintain a gentle air shortage over a number of minutes.

Begin by following and feeling your breathing for a minute or so. Keep one hand on your tummy and one on your chest. Feel the breath enter your body via your nostrils and feel the breath move your tummy and chest. To improve your awareness, spend a number of minutes feeling the slightly cooler air entering your nose and the slightly warmer air leaving your nose.

Encourage the area around your chest and tummy to relax. When you have a good awareness of your breathing, start to silently tell yourself to “relax your chest,” and “relax your tummy,” for your “breathing to reduce,” to “slow down,” and “to quiet.” In addition to mental encouragement to relax, bring inner relaxation to the area around his chest and tummy. Allow your breathing to reduce to the point that you feel a tolerable need for air. Try to sustain this feeling for a few minutes

Small breath in, relaxed breath out

By encouraging your body, chest, and tummy to relax, breathing automatically goes quieter. This alone can create a need for air. If it does not, then encourage your breathing to become quieter and more still. Encourage your breathing to slow down and relax. Encourage your breathing to reduce though mental commands and through inner relaxation. But don’t tense your breathing muscles to create the need for air.

Addressing chronic overbreathing not only stops snoring and sleep apnoea. It is also a wonderful way to eliminate insomnia; another very common sleep-related disorder. Insomnia simply means that you find it very difficult to fall asleep. For example, your mind may be thinking too much while you lie down at night and you may need an hour or two before you drop off.