On Breathing, Part 2: Find out how well you are breathing

This is the second part of the Dynamo blog interview with Dr Sergey Zinatulin on the subject of breathing and breath-training. In the first part of the interview, Dr Zinatulin explained the ways our breathing can affect our health in general. In this installment he describes a series of simple tests we can use in order to assess how well we are breathing and provide a reference point to determine the effectiveness of our breath training. 

 

Dr Sergey Zinatulin teaching his 'ABCs of breathing' program 

to the students of a school in Novosibirsk, Russia.

Dr Zinatulin, is there a simple way or a test we can easily perform to find out how well we are breathing?

 

We can assess our breathing at home by using a number of simple tests. Your readers can go ahead and try any of the following tests or all of them.  

 

First we can determine our type of breathing, which can be thoracic, mixed or diaphragmatic.  Sit comfortably, preferably with you back and neck supported, and note what happens to your torso when breathing in. In thoracic breathing, the chest goes upwards and ribs expand, during the inhalation. In mixed breathing, both the chest and the frontal abdominal expand while breathing in. In abdominal, or diaphragmatic, breathing, the frontal abdominal wall comes forward and the stomach swells, still the chest does not expand during the inhalation. As we mentioned earlier, when in a calm state, only diaphragmatic breathing is recommended. In healthy persons, diaphragm expansion during the inhalation act is 6-8 cm, while in physically trained people it can be up to 10 cm. 

 

The second assessment test you can perform is to determine the frequency of your breathing. Count the number of breathing cycles you perform in a minute in a state of rest. One breathing cycle consists of one inhalation and one exhalation. If you count 15 breathing motions and one inhalation, this would be 15.5 motions per minute. According to the Buteyko Table of Health zones, a healthy person should be performing somewhere around 8 breathing cycles per minute.

Another thing you can check is your breathing rhythm. Healthy people usually have a very rhythmical breathing in a calm state, but each with their own special characteristics. All you have to do is pay attention to your breathing, and follow the peaks and valleys of each cycle from inhalation to exhalation, paying attention to the points at which one phase changes into the other. Also note whether or not you make pauses during the two phases and if yes, before which part of breathing cycle.

These three parameters (type, frequency and rhythm) are what we could call ‘external characteristics’ of breathing, they give us a basic idea about its external, visible aspects. But breathing, just like an iceberg, has an invisible and actually more important part – it is the part of breathing that is happening inside the body, in our cells. This determines the quality of our breathing and state of our health.

There are three tests that are commonly used to evaluate the quality of our breathing. The first one is known as the Control Pause test, in which you measure the amount of time you can comfortably hold your breath after a calm exhalation. This is a rather sensitive test: you shut your nostrils with your fingers after you calmly exhale and then you hold until you feel the very first signs of air shortage. You should not hold your breath until you feel discomfort! At the end of the test you should be able to resume your breathing exactly like before, without taking a deep breath – if you do, it means that you held your breath longer than the test requires, so the measurement you will get will be inaccurate. Do not be surprised if your control pause is very short. Even athletes rarely do better than 30-40 seconds. According to KP Buteiko, the control pause for healthy adults is somewhere around 60 seconds. If a person has CP of 60 seconds, this person is considered to have a normal CO2 content.

The second test is known as Stange’s Test or breath-holding at the stage of a calm inhalation. Breathe in and out normally, then take another inhalation at about 80% of your maximum capacity and then hold your breath. Once again, do not hold your breath until you feel extreme discomfort. A good result for this test, indicating good health, would be 75±5,5 seconds for men, and 54±5,2 seconds for women.

The third test you can perform is Hench’s Test, or breath-holding at the stage of a calm exhalation. This is similar to the Control Pause test, but the difference is that, after a calm exhalation, you want to hold your breath for as long as you can, without of course going to extreme levels of discomfort. In general, a good result for this test would be 46,0±3,3 seconds for men,  and 32±4,0 seconds for women.

These tests show how tolerant our body is to hypercapnia (high level of CO2) and hypoxia (low level of O2). If a person suffers from disease, these parameters decrease. On the other side, through regular breath-training, these parameters can increase by 10-20 seconds, and that is why I believe that breathing exercises are essential to maintain excellent health. 

In the third part of this interview Dr Zinatulin will address the effect of breathing on brain performance and the immune function of our body and he will also discuss the possible benefits of breath training in cases of serious diseases, such as cancer.

For more information on Dr Zinatulin's work and the Frolov Respiration Training Device, please visit:
www.intellectbreathing.com 
www.vitaltkoncept.se