Robert Litman

The Breathable Body

Topic: Breathing and the Illusion of Physical Reality

Breath and Body are inseparable. We are born with the ability to breathe naturally, but as the years go by, we are taught other ways of drawing air into our body in ways that are not in harmony with the body in nature. At The Breathable Body, we explore the complexity of breathing with a view to simplifying it, returning to a state of harmony and balance, making choices that enhance health and provide energy and health in all aspects of our being

A breathable body is one that is responsive to the movement of breathing. Gaining awareness of breathing and the processes that impede it is central to a program of complete health. The cycle of breathing is a process, and understanding this process can quite literally change your life.

Following the tenets of the Continuum Movement and the Buteyko Breathing Method, we teach our clients the skills to enable them to regulate bodily levels of carbon dioxide, which plays a critical role in depriving the body of oxygen. Our training provides insight into the breathing difficulties people so often encounter in work, sports, and other endeavors, and we provide special programs for learning to control asthma, snoring, sleep apnea, anxiety, and panic attacks through awareness and by restoring healthy breathing rhythms.

Show Highlights:

-Being in a such a deep relaxation state that demand for oxygen is low reduces the need to breathe.

-Western medicine standard is 18 breaths/minute. Buteyko – 8 to 12 breaths/minute. Yoga – 4 to 6 breaths/minute.

-The more tension in the body, the more ATP is needed to provide cells with oxygen.

-Breathing (oxygen) is nourishment. The body should stay healthy if it’s nourished.

-Presence (being present) is the current popular meme. If we feel threatened, we go into fight or flight. First evolutionary response was to freeze, to play dead, as a survival tactic. Now we have imagined fears, and they feel like anxiety. Next evolutionary step is presence, to turn attention back to what is here right now.

-Keep your mouth shut. The nose is for breathing, the mouth is for eating. Every time you open your mouth for breathing, you are in flight or fight. Anxiety is a sign to breathe through your nose.

-With mouth breathing, the jaw shifts backwards. Chronic mouth breathing changes the facial shape.

-Children that breathe through their nose press their tongue against the upper palate. Tongue pressure keeps the jaw wide. Orofascial myofunction – keeping swallowing and the face in right proportions.

-Native Americans gently pushed the lips of their babies together to remind them to breathe through their nose.

-Buteyko method is effective for helping people with sleep apnea and snoring. Book recommendation: “Close Your Mouth” by Patrick McKeown.

-When we breathe in, we are being manifested by the breath. It brings us life. When we exhale, we are dissolving and softening. Cutting exhalation short doesn’t let the body relax.

-“Radiance Sutras” – book about the spirit of breath.

-Carbon dioxide is regulator of the distribution of oxygen. Want to be able to hold breath at the end of an exhale for 40-60 seconds.

-Bohr Effect – when carbon dioxide is low, oxygen distribution slows down. Carbon dioxide is low when using the mouth for breathing.

-Robert’s website has a 35 minute video on the relationship between breathing and anxiety.

-How to wake the body up with the breath. Breathing wakes up feelings, and holding the breath means you don’t feel the feelings. Every breath is a cycle of life

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Robert Litman on Buteko Breathing, Consciousness, Emotions and Growth, April 13, 2017