Buteyko Breathing is a therapeutic intervention based on a set of principles/goals. The first and arguably most important is the establishment of full-time nasal breathing during both wakefulness and sleep. It was created by Constantin Buteyko who was a Ukranian doctor who studied and worked in Russia. He was an investigative and enquiring personality who needed to understand how and why disease occurred in the human body. He was initially driven to find answers for his own ill health and as he discovered solutions, he set his mind to using them on his patients and sharing this in the wider me ..read more

You may have noticed all the talk recently about the Vagus Nerve. So what is it, how does it work and why is it so important when it comes to breathing? The Vagus Nerve arises in the brain and and travels extensively throughout the body. Essentially it is responsible for nerve impulses to all the major organs in the body. Therefore it supplies the respiratory system which is of course concerned with breathing! We now know that the Vagus Nerve influences not only physical health but mental health and also cognition. At a rudimentary level, the tone of the Vagus Nerve is a reflection of the stat ..read more

Anxiety is something which can just creep up on you. When you’re under heavy attack (real or perceived), illness or serious insecurity, it’s impossible not to react. In these situations, fear is the driver and we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t react. Anxiety is often our reaction to fear. We know that anxiety is becoming more common in our modern living and that it’s experienced by 30% of women and 20% of men. Whilst we may feel powerless, there is one thing is over which we do have control. That one and very powerful thing is the breath. We can control the way we breathe! When we’re anxious o ..read more

A lot of people think that they’ve tried everything to improve their sleep but – it is what it is and it probably won’t get much better than this… Well, that’s how I used to think. I tried everything and I mean everything! One winter many years ago after reading a book about circadian rhythms and going to bed when the sun goes down – I tried that. Well, I certainly did feel rested, but it really didn’t work well going to bed at 6pm every night! So, then I started reading books about sleep. After each book I thought – yes, this is the answer! But of course, it wasn’t, which is why I read so man ..read more

Dysfunctional breathing is generally not something that happens overnight. It’s the result of a series of poor breathing habits which develop over time. Perhaps as a child you had recurrent tonsillitis and had your tonsils surgically removed. Before surgery you had likely become a “mouth breather”. Following surgery when you could easily have returned to nasal breathing, nobody knew the importance of telling your parents about this. So you continued to breathe through your mouth and hence your breathing became dysfunctional .Dysfunctional breathing “begets” dysfunctional breathing and if you c ..read more

When we play sport, whether it’s in a team or on our own, how we breathe before during and afterwards is vital for performance. I’m not just referring to the importance of warming up muscles – we all understand how important that is! How often do we think about including breathing exercises in the warm up and what’s special about them? More importantly, what’s the correct technique? What can you do to enhance your performance as you play? The key is to optimize oxygen delivery to the tissues and there are targeted ways to do this. By increasing oxygen delivery and paying attention to the biome ..read more

Yesterday I ran a webinar for a very talented group of people. They were young students who attended, along with their parents, to learn more about why Healthy Breathing is so important for the maintenance and optimization of the singing voice. Like any education I present on the topic of breathing, the first priority is to explain to people what Healthy Breathing looks like. It’s really important to set the foundation for learning about breathing with this information because put simply – most people don’t really know what comprises Healthy Breathing! We tend to think our breathing is fine un ..read more

We all need a good night’s sleep! There’s so much information out there about how to stop snoring – from buying devices to changing bedrooms! It can be hard to know where to begin. But it’s really quite simple. It all starts with the breath… Fast hard breathing during the day translates into fast hard breathing during sleep and this creates the turbulence which is snoring. If you’re a noisy breather, you’re also more likely to be a snorer. Try quietening your breath, so quiet that the person next to you can’t hear you breathe. That’s what we should be aiming for, one breath at a time! Noise, p ..read more