The interview above features Peter Litchfield, Ph.D., who is, in my view, one of the best breathing experts in the world. I’ve taken his breathing course, which gave me a deep appreciation for what he’s teaching. None of the breathing experts I’ve interviewed before compare to Litchfield when it comes to understanding respiratory physiology and its impact on your health.
Dysfunctional breathing habits are typically developed in response to some type of emotional trauma. The trauma gets embedded in your brain circuits, and when you encounter triggers, they activate specific breathing habits, some of which may significantly lower your carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration level.
The higher the CO2 concentration you can maintain while remaining within the biologically normal CO2 concentration range, the greater the likelihood that your breathing is supporting your health and performance.
Breathing techniques such as belly breathing, deep breathing and Buteyko breathing may not address breathing triggers or why you developed an inappropriate breathing habit in the first place. When you overventilate you get numerous physiological changes. As a result, overbreathing can trigger a wide variety of physical and psychological changes, which can be reversed by implementing breathing behavior analysis learning techniques.
Breathing behavior analysts help you become conscious of your breathing habits, what’s triggering them and how to resolve them. This is important, as improper breathing habits can unconsciously sabotage your health.
