Breathing is one of the primal characteristics of any life. Breathing is vital for speech, singing, crying, laughing etc. A little imbalance in breathing can affect all these processes. It should be noted that apart from alternative medicines that treat breathing, certain practice like yoga, tai chi and qi gong are of major importance as they also lay emphasis on breathing and various breathing exercises. Some truths of certain practices might appear contradictory, but the fact remains that most of these practices lay emphasis of relaxation breathing exercises, anxiety and meditation breathing exercises. The ones that emphasie forced breathing often cause distortioins in breathing mechanics and need to be addressed quite carefully by an experienced teacher..

While performing and practicing any kind of calming, deep breathing exercises, perfect balance between the oxygen intake and the carbon-di-oxide released should be maintained unless the person has been peoperly trained to do otherwise. Any disorder or interruption in this regard can invite physical warning signs.

There are numerous ways and therapies by which the breathing problems can be resolved.or worsened. Some of the popular kinds are yoga and pranayama, Buteylko method, or inspiratory muscle trainings. Fledenkrais method, Alexaneder and natural breathing therapy are the safest but any others may help but also hinder.  The Buteylko method is gaining popularity on account of various asthma and stress management techniques and exercises. People with respiratory disorders also may benefit or not. There are oxygen therapy treatments and different exercises associated with oxygen therapy treatments that are useful or helpful in alleviating many health challenges?

Most of the asthmatic clients seek therapists help to know about the causes of their breathing problems. They inquire about certain breathing exercises that could be useful for them in lowering high blood pressure and curing high blood pressure and to what extent their problems could be resolved. They often ask " Is there any other way by which blood pressure could be controlled?".  Simple emotive reactions like crying and laughing can lead to an asthma attack. Why does this happen to me?  they ask?  It is largely but not completely due to the uncontrolled sudden rush of air into the upper portions of the lungs and also related with psycho-psychology?

The truth is that simple emotive reactions can trigger asthmatic attacks that present as shortness of breath and wheezing. The unrestrained swift air enters the lungs, which puts the person's respiratory system under tremendous high chest air pressure resulting in a constricted or lessenned abilty to access in the lower lobes of the lungs and a high propenmsity towards shortness of breath or SOB. It may also have to do with human psychology and what some call monkey brain or excessive thoughts arising and causing physical constrictions or distortions of breathing patterns.  It is mostly physiology (the body's reactions to the emotions/psychology) via the high chest dominant or distorted breathing patterns that cause this vaso constriction and shortness of breath. Basically you can have your thoughts and emotions without your thoughts and emotions having you.

At the physiological level, equilibrium has to be maintained in inhaling and exhaling. Both the oxygen and the carbon-di-oxide must be present in appropriate pressures (millimeters of mercury) in the blood. Involuntary breathing is controlled by the respiratory centre that lies in the brain. It collects the oxygen and the carbon-di-oxide levels in blood and hopefully delivers the rate and the depth of breathing that has to take place. One can contral this balance much more than most realize. But the way we go about this control can set up restrictive breathing patterns that may feel like better breathing than before but still be limiting to the potential for optimal breathing, for life.

When we see breathing exercises and programs in today’s context we see that many forms that have been developed in recent times are amalgamations or fusions of two or more parental forms, They have been designed and customized to meet individual needs.  The Buteyko method is one of the most popular forms of alternate therapy giving notable results when it comes to asthmatic treatment. It is opined that most of the asthmatics hyperventilate which is the root cause of asthma. Hyperventilation can worsen the situation. It lays emphasis on simplistic breathing approaches by putting a stop (control pause) to breathing altogether and never from the mouth. It teaches to take small breathes with regular pauses in between the breaths. Here the practices that are done can appear contradictory to yoga breathing exercises, where emphasis is laid in taking longer and deeper breaths.  The common thread that runs in most of these programs is breathing exercises for stress, meditation relaxation technique and other calming, stress relief techniques. These approachs can be momumentally helpful; or in contradiction to one another and harmful or limiting to long term aging and vitality. .

Breathing techniques need to be discussed and more precisely the process by which the breathing could be normalized.  Most people suffer with wrong notions of usefulness of deep breathing when combined with deep respiratory exercises. While certain long breaths may be good to relax the body, doing it frequently may well  change the breathing patterns in incorrect ways. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Similar is the case with overeating and with high intake of proteins. Particularly animal proteins can lead to dominant changes in acid alkaline balance that breathing attmpts to maintain but is made to work harder due to excessive acid forming proteins..This causes increases in the oxygen cost of breathing.  Other factors like narcotics, contact with certain chemicals and prescriptn drugs and excess physical labor can trigger irregular breathing. 

One of the most prominent questions that is asked that "am I breathing properly?."  Most breathe too shallowly or high chest. This causes what is called hyuperventilation or overbreathing but the over breathing definition infers that breathing less is better than breathing more. Breath is life.. I counsel to breathe life to the fullest. The iseeu is HOW we breathe, how much.  Some breathing development exercies we teach will allow this seeming contradiction.  Gradually by putting these concepts into practice, asthmatics can learn to regain back their normal breathing.