Help For
ASTHMA, HAYFEVER, ALLERGIES
Do you ever worry about how you would manage if you couldn’t get your asthma medication?
Does the thought of walking through a field of grass or wildflowers make your nose start to itch? Do you get wheezy after patting a cat or when exposed to a dusty environment?
Whether you live with a wheeze, itchiness, constant cough or breath shortness, there is a natural method to reduce and even eliminate your symptoms.
The Buteyko breathing method has helped thousands of people of all ages in New Zealand alone, including Breathe Free clinic owner, Felicity, to manage their asthma naturally after attending a course run by a qualified practitioner. *
* Breathe Free Clinic advises clients to consult with their doctor before making any changes to prescribed medication or sleep aids and wherever possible will liaise with their doctor to help achieve the best possible control of your asthma.
SNORING, SLEEP APNOEA & INSOMNIA
Many studies indicate that lack of sleep and poor sleep quality can seriously affect your overall health from weight gain to diminished cognitive function long term.
If you are a snorer or you live with one, you know how disruptive this is to a good night’s sleep let alone the health consequences.
Snoring often leads to sleep apnoea (when breathing stops temporarily) which has been shown to increase your risk of a stroke, heart attack and early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Breathing retraining offers a natural way for you and your household to enjoy a full night’s sleep without the need for devices or appliances.
Overwhelmed, Stressed and Anxious
Is your nervous system in overload, running on overdrive, often tired, often in pain? Learn how you can turn this around.
When in overwhelm and stressed, it is difficult to think clearly in order to look after yourself in the best way you can.
You may even be aware that your breathing alters – with breath-holds, a lot of sighing and yawning, or unusual breathlessness and breathing fast.
What many are unaware of is how breathing poorly causes stress and can actually bring on a panic attack as a result of lack of oxygen to the brain and heart, and other biomechanical factors.
Why is that?
CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, HEADACHES, MIGRAINES, MASK WEARING
CHRONIC FATIGUE
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is one of those challenging non-communicable diseases that is often difficult to treat. The causal factors are not always easy to pinpoint because they are often multifactorial and variable and will therefore be different for each sufferer.
‘When breathing is dysfunctional, it is maladaptive i.e. it is NOT adapting appropriately to meet the needs of the individual nor responding to changes in the internal and external environment.’ Adapted from a 2018 conference address by osteopath Rosalba Courtney.
This can happen for a number of reasons such as using the wrong muscles for breathing, mouth breathing most of the time, an irregular breathing pattern or rhythm or breathing more than is healthy whether at rest or during activity.
As a result the body has to work harder, will be more stressed and likely in sympathetic dominance (when the nervous system is in fight or flight mode) most of the time.
If this continues over time it takes its toll on the body, for example taxing the adrenals and the heart by elevating blood pressure and effecting our immune function. Poor sleep, insomnia, lower pain thresholds and fatigue can all be symptoms of disordered breathing.
Breathing well is a vital support system that is often overlooked in CFS and other chronic long-term illnesses.
HEADACHES and MIGRAINES
CO2 is a natural vasodilator – when we hyperventilate our airways and blood vessels constrict. One symptom can be a throbbing headache and at worst, a migraine.
When you learn to breathe well you can ease this constriction.
MASK WEARING
Is it possible to Learn to Love the Mask?
At least in the short term?!
Learn why mask wearing is difficult when you are not breathing optimally in the first place and why masks can potentially improve your mental state once you have retrained and improved your baseline breathing.
Are YOU OVER-BREATHING without even realising it? BOOK NOW FOR AN ASSESSMENT
NASAL CONGESTION, SINUSITIS, CHRONIC COUGH
NASAL CONGESTION
There is now more awareness that we should be nose breathing most of the time. However what if your nose is blocked!? It can be really annoying.
A blocked or congested nose can occur as a result of:
- Irritation
- Dehydration
- Infection
- Inflammation (sinusitis)
- Constriction of smooth muscle lining the nasal passages
- Nasal obstruction such as that caused by a deviated septum (crooked midline cartilage and bone) or polyps
SINUSITIS
Sinusitis is the inflammation or swelling of the tissue lining the sinuses. Sinuses are hollow spaces, usually filled with air, within the bones between your eyes, behind your cheekbones, and in your forehead.
When healthy, the sinuses make thin (watery) mucus, which keeps the inside of your nose moist and is drained by small channels that link the sinuses. That, in turn, helps to remove and protect against dust, allergens and pollutants.
When your breathing is healthy, nasal breathing will be comfortable and easy.
However when your nose and sinuses are frequently blocked, it is likely that your breathing will also be dysfunctional. If you get an infection when you are already congested a lot of the time, then it makes it even harder to nose breathe and you have the potential for lingering infection.
The good news is that when you learn to breathe correctly with the Breathe Free Clinic programme, you can reduce airway irritation and inflammation or constriction without the need for nasal sprays.
By retraining how you breathe, you normalise your breathing rate and volume helping to relieve nasal congestion.
Click below to receive a FREE lesson on how to unblock your nose naturally.
CHRONIC COUGH
- Coughing draws cold, dry, unfiltered air into the airways.
- A greater volume of air being inhaled regularly, or with a coughing fit itself, causes a loss of carbon dioxide.
- Mouth breathing bypasses your natural nose filters, so more allergens and pollutants are inhaled increasing irritation and mucous production.
- Loss of carbon dioxide causes the airways to constrict as smooth muscle goes into spasm.
- Coughing irritates and dries mucous membranes increasing mucous production.
- Continued coughing also dries out the mucous making it sticky and harder to dislodge. Coughing tends to intensify and worsen in order to try to dislodge the stickier mucous.
SO … Coughing begets coughing!
At the Breathe Free Clinic you will learn how to breathe well in order to calm the respiratory system and reduce or eliminate chronic coughing altogether. Even when you have an infection you can reduce your need to cough significantly by learning a few helpful breathing tips.
OPTIMAL BREATHING FOR COMMUNICATORS: PUBLIC SPEAKERS, TEACHERS, PERFORMERS
Gain confidence and reduce symptoms common amongst public presenters and teachers such as a constant sore throat, post nasal drip and coughing.
No matter how often you’ve done it before, presenting to a group or acting in front of an audience can be daunting for many.
Breathing often alters – it might speed up and you may notice your heart rate also speeding up. You might catch yourself holding your breath, feeling sweaty, on edge or even running out of puff.
None of this helps the presentation or performance. In fact, it can cause you to lose your place, forget your lines and prevent clear thinking.
Singers generally know how important breathing is to their performance, however don’t always have the right information to breathe well before, during and after their performance.
By knowing how to breathe well through retraining with activities of daily living, you can increase your energy levels, perform at your best and improve your ability to recover more rapidly after a speaking or performance engagement.
There is an art to speaking and breathing well. Any job that requires you to talk a lot during the day such as teaching and lecturing can cause you to over-breathe. If this is habitual it can lead to a number of symptoms such as a dry mouth, chronic cough or post nasal drip.
INFERTILITY, HORMONE CHANGES IN WOMEN AND BREATHING
Men and women breathe differently!
For women, did you know that your breathing alters during your menstrual cycle in response to hormonal changes?
The same is true during pregnancy and menopause.
Breathing well is beneficial in moderating these hormone changes.
Whilst studies are needed to understand this more fully, it is helpful for women to know when both retraining and noticing any irregularities to their breathing.
FERTILITY AND BREATHING
Fertility is effected by a number of factors some of which are clear and others which are difficult to identify.
What is understood is that poor sleep is causal in infertility (referenced in full article ) and stress is a likely contributor to infertility just as infertility can cause stress. So far, talking therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are usually recommended for those suffering from panic attacks, anxiety and infertility.
What we know at the Breathe Free Clinic is that breathing well will also support your body to be at its best by helping to calm the body, improving sleep and stress levels, circulation and oxygen delivery around the body.
It makes sense therefore that breathing functionally will at least be an indirect if not direct influence on fertility.
INFLAMMATION, REDUCED COGNITIVE ABILITY & EPILEPSY
INFLAMMATION
Did you know that learning to breathe well offers you a natural pathway to reduce inflammation?
Inflammation is one of the ways the body responds to stress as a defence mechanism in order to neutralise pathogens or repair injured tissues for example.
When stress is prolonged or severe, it can set off a chain of reactions in the body including overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), also known as the fight or flight response.
This overactivation has been implicated in causing chronic low grade inflammation.
If you can get the body to switch off the SNS and instead turn on the parasympathetic pathway (PNS), i.e. your rest and digest mode, then you will have a natural way to help reduce inflammation.
Breathing well can do just this because it helps to activate the vagus nerve which is the main component of the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system.
REDUCED COGNITIVE ABILITY
Correct breathing exercises have a direct impact on the way the brain works. It does this in several different ways:
- When the body is at rest, the brain consumes around 20% of the body’s total oxygen supply – it is a big oxygen muncher!
Breathing well helps to optimise delivery of and release of oxygen to the brain. It does this by helping you to balance your blood carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen levels. Correct blood CO2 levels are more important than many people realise in assisting both vasodilation (widening of blood vessels) and in efficiently delivering oxygen to the brain, heart and other muscles of the body. - Breathing well can also improve memory function and both reduce stress and the effects of stress through the lowering of cortisol levels and calming of the body.
- Correct breathing also helps to improve brain agility and the ability to learn through correcting dysfunctional breathing patterns and optimising gas exchange which impacts the information processing areas of the brain.
EPILEPSY
Simply put, epilepsy occurs when the electrical signals in the brain get disrupted, causing seizures, sometimes loss of awareness, changes to sensations or unusual behaviour.
Anyone can develop epilepsy. Epilepsy affects both males and females of all races, ethnic backgrounds and ages and can be the result of genetic makeup, brain injury, trauma or a stroke. The cause is not always known.
Of note is the fact that levels of blood carbon dioxide and oxygen found in people who experience chronic hyperventilation is similar to that in a person experiencing disturbance or an epileptic seizure.
It is now believed that breathing exercises can help reduce the frequency and severity of seizures.
When a breathing assessment is carried out at the Breathe Free Clinic, a number of parameters are measured such as your breathing rate, blood carbon dioxide and oxygen levels as well as assessing how you are breathing biomechanically and more.
It has been recognized that seizures can negatively alter these breathing parameters, in which case it is useful to have a check-up to assess your breathing health and learn whether retraining would be warranted.
SPORTING PERFORMANCE
Did you know that breathing poorly with exercise acts as a limiter to your improvement and performance?
Can you nose breathe and exercise?
Do you suffer from shortness of breath with light to medium levels of exercise?
You cannot perform at your best unless you learn to breathe efficiently.
Do you want to improve your chances of reaching your peak, recover faster, reduce breathlessness, pain and cramping?
Learn whether your breathing is limiting your performance with a Breathing Assessment at the Breathe Free Clinic.
