Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

At best, Breathing+ can offer a deeper view into the secrets of our most basic biological function. At worst, breathing this way can provoke heavy sweats, nausea, and exhaustion.

But something else happens when we practice these techniques willingly, when we consciously push our bodies into these states for a few minutes, or hours, a day. In some cases, they can radically transform lives. Collectively, I’m calling these potent techniques Breathing+, because they build on the foundation of practices I described earlier in th

SEVEN Chew

They discovered that the optimum amount of air we should take in at rest per minute is 5.5 liters. The optimum breathing rate is about 5.5 breaths per minute. That’s 5.5-second inhales and 5.5-second exhales. This is the perfect breath.

The takeaway is that hypoventilation works. It helps train the body to do more with less. But that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant.

How many breaths we took per minute was less important to Buteyko, as long as we were breathing no more than about six liters per minute at rest.

The techniques were many and they varied, but the purpose of each was to train patients to always breathe as closely as possible to their metabolic needs, which almost always meant taking in less air.

call Voluntary Elimination of Deep Breathing.

Did it matter if we breathed at a rate of six or five seconds, or were a half second off? It did not, as long as the breaths were in the range of 5.5.