What are your experiences with the Buteyko method?

[imtyerd]

I've been reading about the Buteyko method and how it improves the oxygen at a cellular level and supposedly cures a bunch of diseases.

 

I know there is different types of breathing, but I want to know specifically about peoples experiences with Buteyko.

 

Thanks

[cheya]

My experience with his method was very short because Buteyko is HARD! Effective, but HARD!

 

I got interested in this breathing stuff after having altitude sickness in Peru, knowing I wanted to go back, and better figure out the breathing thing. Altitude sickness is the same issue, breathing out all your CO2, which is exactly what people would tell you to do down there! "Breathe more." NO! Breathe less!

 

There are some more pleasant alternatives that focus on the same thing. 

Google "Carl Stough" (His book is "Dr. Breath"), who has a MUCH easier path to the same goal (basically stopping over breathing and preserving carbon dioxide) although he doesn't talk about it that way.

His book tells a way fun story. He was a church choir director who ended up trying to help emphysema patients just breathe a little better, and, not having been told that emphysema is incurable, ended up curing some of them! He went on to breath-coach US athletes in the high altitude olympics in Mexico City, enabling some of them to surpass their previous records without using any supplementary oxygen!

 

Anyway there's another approach that looks even easier than Stough's, which I have not tried, but which I believe will work…. besides breathing into a paper bag or taping your mouth shut at night   . It uses a breathing resistance tool. Here's one version, ignore the "weight loss" part. It'll probably do that, but not the major point.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Breathslim-Revolutionary-Breathing-Weight-Device/dp/B003VSCLR8

 

As you can see, I love this topic, and will be interested to hear your experience if you go hard core Buteyko! Yikes!

[cheya]

I know you want to talk about Buteyko, and I apologize for adding one more tidbit about Stough's method of accomplishing a similar result (stopping over-breathing), but this old TDB thread on Stough maybe better explains what the two methods have in common.

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/9379-dr-breath/?hl=stough

 

 

[imtyerd]

I've been practising the method for about 2 weeks now. I don't want to speak too soon or jinx it but I think I'm already starting to see some serious benefits.

 

I had a BIG problem with wet dreams, and since I started buteyko, they just stopped. 2 weeks without a wetdream for me is a MASSIVE deal. 

 

The weights that I'm lifting in the gym, somehow seem lighter too. I can push myself a lot more. 

 

My control pause can get up to 30 seconds but only if I kind of push it to the limit which some people say defeats the purpose of the method because you end up breathing deeply a couple times to settle down again.

 

I've clamped down on the mouth breathing big time. Could be the source of all my problems.

[cheya]

Hi imtyerd,

Two weeks! I'm impressed! I didn't last 2 days….

Do you know what your breath rate was when you started?

Has it changed?

[imtyerd]

It was bad before but I think I still breathe a lot more than normal. Could take a while before it returns to a rate of a healthy adult.

 

I don't know what this means but the past two weeks I've been really giddy. Sometimes it's for no reason. 

 

Sleeping like a baby as well

 

Do you have asthma?

 

I had asthma as a kid, I think thats when I started with the bad habit of mouth breathing.

Edited May 18, 2016 by imtyerd

[cheya]

No asthma here, but my breath rate has always been very low, conserving CO2,  but apparently due to low CO2 to start with, not induced by breathing too fast, just how I am.  But I really disliked the feeling of holding that controlled pause!  Stough's method of extending the exhale was a welcome alternative for me. But if you like the challenge, Buteyko's method is probably the more direct route to the goal. And it definitely sounds like it's working for you! That's great!

[RigdzinTrinley]

I did it for some time, helped me with allergies and all sorts of other things.

 

at one point my lama did give me a specific meditation and breathing technique to do, which is actually very similar to this method. Both work very well in my experience - the one my lama gave me has a magical blessing that I project on it so it is even more beneficial

 

I give the buteyko method a 10 out of 10 star rating

Edited May 18, 2016 by RigdzinTrinley

[imtyerd]

I did it for some time, helped me with allergies and all sorts of other things.

 

What sorts of other things and why did you stop?

[RigdzinTrinley]

shortness of breath for example, better sleep

 

I stopped because my lama gave me another breathing technique to do, which is similar and has a very strong effect on me, so I felt I just drop the russian doctors method and follow my masters instructions

Edited May 21, 2016 by RigdzinTrinley

[blue eyed snake]

Hi Rigdzin,

 

is that breathing technique you learned transferable via words? and are you allowed to teach it to someone else?

 

after this winter of being so ill my breathing can definitely use some help, I've earlier in my life used a technique which was helpful but also forced. I do not really like to start with that again, so your comment sparked my interest

 

Bes

[RigdzinTrinley]

I don't feel like sharing it BES, it was between both of us you know he gave me these instructions after I told him certain experiences I had during a longer retreat/pilgrimage

 

so I don't know if it would make sense to tell you these same exact instructions?

 

I give you a more general package

 

anyway this much I can say from my own understanding, and that is also in line with this thread here - we usually breath way to much, based on that our prana gets too "speedy" and moves into strange channels.

 

f.e.: a lot of worry will result in faster breathing patterns (faster breathing patterns will result in worry and anxiety) - that will cause the "heart-prana" to move upwards, into shoulders, jaw, neck and upper-back, shouldn't be there at all but from fast breathing and a lot of worry (these are very much connected) it went there and one is tense in these areas - feeling "worked up", "carrying the world" etc.

 

jawning helps there f.e., put your head back a little and jaaaaaawn couple of times (fake it till you make it), if your eyes become wet all the better - thats an outer sign that the energies move again (if we talk about too much worry, anxiety etc) - while jawning say "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" from deep within the "speech-box"

 

also "jiggling" is great - like I think thelerner said in your thread? just shake your body gently, bobbing around for 15minutes + once in a while say "AAAAAHHH" and also sigh very gently as if you hug your inner organs with the sound "aaaahhh" and "mmmmmmhhhh".... and jawn if you feel like it, let your body hang loose while you "jiggle" after some time just rest - feel how all the fluids in your cells are happily vibrating with "aliveness"

 

these simple exercises will take the misguided pranas home - you know that is how children go back into harmony... they jiggle while waiting for mom and dad to be finally ready with their shopping in this boring ass and smelly cheese-shop

 

and then just in general reduce your breathing, breath less - do it gently, slowly and don't force it. focus on staying empty after the out breath

 

you know if you go towards samadhi - breath is very little and subtle, so mirror that in day to day life - breath less and relax into "not-breathing"

 

in short: relax, thats the key

 

My heart-lama has exactly two answers for almost any question and problem that comes up in practice: either he says

1) relax or

2) you really do not understand the dharma.... (I think the second one comes from not relaxing, and the first one comes from - not relaxing)

 

the lineage I follow, Dzogchen or the clear light Great Perfection is sometimes also called "complete relaxation and ease" - means you got it once all tension of body, speech and mind are released - and what is left is reality as it is or suchness

 

in one sadhana I use for daily practice, it says that this course body will be liberated into basic space - means that our body is actually unobstructed openess (how emptiness can be understood in a more practice oriented sense) - we just squeeze it and form it with our thoughts into this or that thing, in actuality there is just open space, nothing to cling to

 

when we move away from that open space - we don't feel too well (at least that is my experience, when I "try to make something out of it" - I put effort and hence stray from reality as it is)

 

hope at least some if will be of benefit

 

I hope you feel more vibrant and alive soon BES

Edited May 21, 2016 by RigdzinTrinley

[blue eyed snake]

I don't feel like sharing it BES, it was between both of us you know he gave me these instructions after I told him certain experiences I had during a longer retreat/pilgrimage

 

I suspected that, they were instructions for you at the where you were at the time

 

 

so I don't know if it would make sense to tell you these same exact instructions?

 

I give you a more general package

 

thank you for your elaborate reply, it's useful. This illness of mine is like a mountain, it has many sides, the more sides I can see and climb, the better my changes on recovery.

 

My breath is not too fast really, maybe a regular doctor would even find it slow. But I know something has changed for the worse. But i am very quickly short of breath, I know that this has a connection with this endorfine thingie that i wrote about elsewhere, but there are always more ways to skin a hare

 

I hope you feel more vibrant and alive soon BES

 

so do I