1-C. How to Introduce the Buteyko Method to Friends and Relatives

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- Updated on August 13, 2020

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1-C. How to Introduce the Buteyko Method to Friends and Relatives 1By Dr. Artour Rakhimov, Alternative Health Educator and Author


- Medically Reviewed by Naziliya Rakhimova, MD

Learning the Buteyko method by modules

It is natural that when you begin practicing the Buteyko method, changes in your health and energy levels may heighten others’ curiosity. If they ask, “What is this Buteyko technique? Why does it work?” please speak about the importance of OXYGEN. Any breathing retraining technique, if it’s valuable, must lead to a gradual increase in cell-level oxygenation. This is what breathing is for. It’s also the reason why we do the Control Pause (CP) test: to determine body oxygen levels.

If you start speaking about CO2 effects, the dangers of hyperventilation, and the importance of breathing less, many listeners may assume that the Buteyko method decreases oxygen in the body. The common myth “If you breathe less, you get less oxygen,” is still prevalent in the world; and still, most believe that breathing a lot can help resolve cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic fatigue, and many other conditions. Indeed, today’s “healthy products” market offers oxygenated drinks and snacks, oxygen tanks, and even hyperbaric oxygen chambers. In the long run, all these products are useless, since people who suffer physically tend to hyperventilate through the chest. (Generally speaking, for someone with a poor breathing pattern, pure O2 does more harm than good, but can save lives in extreme cases.)

So unless you’re talking to someone who’s open to alternative therapies, prevent misunderstanding by reiterating the simple scientific and practical fact: the Buteyko method improves body oxygenation.

This YouTube video “Oxygen for breathing retraining” — first published by Dr. Artour Rakhimov on the BPSN (Buteyko Practitioner Support Network) Forum in 2008, and later applied online and in books — introduces enthusiasts to the most effective and accurate way to promote the Buteyko method.

You can read an edited except of this message below from the Buteyko.Space website, or read it in its original entirety here: “The Buteyko method and improved body oxygen.”

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If you want to explain to others the Buteyko method or your breathing exercises, tell them that you want to improve body oxygenation through better breathing day and night, 24/7. You may even ask them a simple question: How should we breathe for maximum body oxygenation? Be tactful and respectful. Let your relatives and friends express their views. Everyone, conscious of it or not, wants to have more oxygen in cells of the brain, heart, and other muscles, tissues, and organs. It’s a topic worth discussing and civilly debating.

If they suggest that we breathe deeply with frequent big breaths for better oxygenation, discuss the effects of voluntary hyperventilation. Why can we faint or pass out after about 1 to 2 minutes of heavy breathing? You may also mention Yale Professor Yandell Henderson’s scientific experiments in which anaesthetized dogs, forced to hyperventilate through mechanical means, quickly died (Henderson, “Carbon dioxide as a factor in the regulation of heart rate,” Acapnia and Shock, 1908.) The better your theoretical understanding of the Buteyko Method, the more you will be able to convey knowledge about how breathing patterns affect oxygen.

Finally, you may suggest that they watch two of my introductory videos, available on the home page of this website. These clips, about 15 minutes long, are about oxygenation, stress-free BHT test, and breathing patterns.

If your relatives and friends do not express interest and enthusiasm, but you are still passionate about getting them involved, the best thing to do, is for you to radically transform your own health. By achieving a CP above 60 (5 hours of sleep or less), through study and practice of the educational materials on normalbreathing.com (developed by a Russian-born, Moscow University Physics Ph.D. and Honors graduate who has translated Russian medical studies and tested amazing effects of breathing retraining on hundreds of his students), you can be a wonderful ambassador for the importance of proper oxygenation and breathing. When people are curious about your vital health and how you have so much energy, that’s when you can go into further details.

In fact, Dr. Buteyko and other Russian MDs found that if a person has less than 60 seconds CP, they are poor promoters of the real Buteyko method.

First change yourself, and only then look to change the world!

Spanish version of this page: Aprendiendo Buteyko: interacciones con la gente alrededor.

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