Breathe Correctly for Optimum Health and So Your Blood Doesn't "Lose its Fizz"

Dr. Corinne Weaver : Nov 30, 2017
DrCorinneWeaver.com

Here's the secret: it is not calendar years that are stealing your quality of life, it's built-up damage from stress, errant thinking, and lack of physical movement.

Everything we do affects our biology, be it eating, exercising, sleeping, or breathing. Now you may or not know this, but Olivia Newton-John is my aunt and she is a huge wellness advocate like my uncle, Amazon John Easterling. My uncle was the one who introduced me to natural herbal remedies. They travel around the world sharing their healing message with Olivia's music and my uncle, with his herbs. Today we are going to talk about physical breathing but next week I will share my favorite herbs and essential oils. (Photo: Dr. Corinne Weaver)

Physical breathing involves being actively aware of each breath! It also involves having a good standing "deep breathing" posture. Good posture strengthens the abdominal organs and increases circulation to them. We must encourage our kids to have good posture.

What's the big deal about breathing through your nose and not your mouth? Basically, it comes down to how our breathing affects the carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in our lungs and blood. It has very little to do with oxygen levels.

Proper CO2 levels (which regulate the healthy—and narrow—pH range of the blood) allow for the adequate release of oxygen to our tissues and brain. Throughout our lives, many of us have been given the vague impression that CO2 is bad for us. Quite the contrary! Without CO2, we wouldn't get the oxygen we need. Proper CO2 levels are what trigger our red blood cells to release the oxygen they carry.

Most of the CO2 that we use does not come from the air we breathe in—rather, our own bodies manufacture CO2 as a byproduct of our natural body processes. If our children aren't breathing correctly, then they are also not producing the proper levels of CO2 in their bodies that they critically need.

Consider an unopened can of soda. It's full of fizz. We've all experienced what happens when you leave an open can out for a while: when you come back later, the drink is flat. It has lost its fizz.

What's in a can of soda? Water, salt, sugar, coloring, and CO2 (hence the term "carbonated beverage").

Interestingly, blood contains the same main ingredients: water, salt, sugar, coloring (from the hemoglobin in our red blood cells), and CO2. What would happen if our blood lost its fizz?

The lungs store CO2. The brain is set to trigger breathing through the diaphragm as long as there are adequate carbon dioxide levels in the lungs—you will achieve and maintain the proper level of carbon dioxide if you breathe functionally. If carbon dioxide levels fall below a certain level of pressure, however, we start to experience imbalances that then become symptoms.

Functional adult breathing is 8-10 breaths per minute at rest, all taken in and out through the nose and not through the mouth. Functional breathing is also driven by the diaphragm, not by the upper chest. Most importantly, breathing should be silent—if breathing can be heard, it's not functional.

Knowing how many breaths your child takes while at rest can help you determine if they are breathing normally. A child who has a fever or who feels anxious breathes faster than normal.

• A newborn under 6 months of age takes 30-60 breaths per minute.
• A 6-month-old to 12-month-old child takes 24-30 breaths per minute.
• A child who is 1 to 5 years old takes 20-30 breaths per minute.
• A child who is 6 to 12 years old takes 12-20 breaths per minute.

Advantages of Nasal Breathing

Noses are made for breathing! Nasal breathing (as opposed to mouth breathing) increases circulation, boosts blood oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, slows the breathing rate, and improves overall lung volumes (1). (Photo: Creative Commons/via Pixabay)

Noses have a four-stage initial filtration system:

1. The hair filters out the particles in the air
2. The mucous contains an enzyme that kills viruses and bacteria
3. The sinuses warm and condition the air
4. Nitric oxide is produced and improves lung function

Before the air enters the lungs, it goes through two final filters that are outside of the nose: the adenoids and the tonsils.

This multi-part system is important because the lungs are very sensitive and, therefore, respond better to air that has gone through the four filtration stages of the nose rather than only going through the mouth. "The internal nose not only provides around 90% of the respiratory system air-conditioning requirement, but also recovers around 33% of exhaled heat and moisture (2)."

Close your mouth!

In a person who breathes heavily through an uncovered mouth, we often see three immediate problems:

1. Lower CO2 in the lungs
2. Lower CO2 in the blood
3. Restricted O2 low to the brain and other tissues

Low CO2 Levels Are a Problem

Low CO2 levels cause the blood pH to rise toward its alkaline limit, at which point an alert is sent to the brain. We need to control the rate and depth at which we breathe by means of physical breathing. This is done using the diaphragm. If we don't use the diaphragm as the primary muscle of breathing, we will have problems maintaining the correct carbon dioxide level within our lungs—when we breathe through our mouths, we use our upper chest to breathe and we don't use the diaphragm correctly.

By directly controlling our diaphragm with physical breathing, the brain tries to limit the amount of CO2 that we lose. In short, if your child breathes correctly, they will restore balance to their body and will be able to change the way they feel.

What to do now? Close your mouth, open your nose, and breathe in health!

Accumulated Stress

Here's the secret: it is not calendar years that are stealing your quality of life, it's built-up damage from stress, errant thinking, and lack of physical movement.

We can all relate to this—everything starts when we're kids, but we don't notice it. Stress and the repercussions of stress just keep building up. Then suddenly, one day you "wake up" and begin to see and feel the results.

While you can't change your calendar age, you can resist or even reverse years of stress damage if you're not too late. The sooner you start, the better your results will be! This is why I love starting with kids—if I can start with them, I can really change our world's health. It's all about learning science-based secrets for ageless living and shattering the perpetual myths that cloud your vision.

It's gut-wrenching for me to see a new patient walk into my wellness clinic who is too far gone for me to help them reverse their pain and ravaged health. In some cases, sadly, too much damage has been done for too long. Now you know why I love seeing parents act to improve their kids' health early on! A lot of times, the parents don't want their kids to suffer like they did. (Photo: Creative Commons/via Pixabay)

Seeing a mom or dad fight for their kid's health makes me want to be the best doctor I can be. It takes a mom and or dad to believe that their child can get well before health can happen. Parents who fight for their children and who are willing to work hard with our program and with their children on a daily basis see results. Don't give up! Listen and act. Are you ready to take action today?

Go to www.physicalbreathing.com for more information.

I hope my column speaks to you and you can wake up each morning with a purpose. What I do every day is a calling, and I give God the glory for allowing his gifts to work through me. I do believe in miracles, because I get to see them every day! If you would like to contact me with your health concerns email me directly at Dr@drcorinneweaver.com. For more information you can go to www.DrCorinneWeaver.com.

Keep Breathing,
Dr. Corinne

References:
1. Swift, Campbell, McKown 1988 Oronasal obstruction, lung volumes, and arterial oxygenation. Lancet 1, 73-75
2. Elad, Wolf, Keck 2008 Air-conditioning in the human nasal cavity. Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology 163. 121-127

Dr. Corinne Weaver is a compassionate upper cervical chiropractor, educator, motivational speaker, mother of three, and internationally bestselling author. In 2004, she founded the Upper Cervical Wellness Center in Indian Trail, North Carolina. Over the last 13 years, she has helped thousands of clients restore their brain to-body function. When she was 10 years old, she lost her own health as the result of a bike accident that led to having asthma and allergy issues that she thought she would always have to endure. Then, after her first upper cervical adjustment at age 21, her health began to improve thanks to upper cervical care and natural herbal remedies. This enabled her to create a drug-free wellness lifestyle for herself and her family, and she also enthusiastically discovered her calling to help children heal naturally.

Dr. Weaver was recently named one of Charlotte Magazine's "Top Doctors" in 2016 and is now a number-one internationally bestselling author to two books: Learning How to Breathe and No More Meds.

Upper Cervical Wellness Center is known for finding the root cause of health concerns through lifestyle changes, diagnostic testing, nutraceutical supplementation, and correction of subluxation (as opposed to just medicating the symptoms). The practice offers cutting-edge technological care at its state-of-the-art facility, including laser-aligned upper cervical X-rays, bioimpedance analysis (measures body composition), digital thermography (locates thermal abnormalities characterized by skin inflammation), and complete nutritional blood analysis, which is focused on disease prevention.