Patrick McKeown recommends nasal breathing with a longer exhale, roughly a 1:1.5 ratio, to activate relaxation. He suggests reducing breath volume to create mild air hunger as a training stimulus. Signs of dysfunctional breathing include mouth breathing, upper-chest breathing, and a breath-hold time under 25 seconds.
Questions this video answers
About 1 : 1.5 (longer exhalation).
Inhale 2–3 seconds, exhale 3–4 seconds, with a natural pause of ~3 seconds.
Less than 25 seconds.
Chapters
So during rest, the ratio of the breath in to the breath out should be about 1 to 1.5. So during rest, we always should have a longer and prolonged exhalation, and that's what help activates the parasympathetic response or the body's relaxation response number two. You could be breathing in for, say, two to three seconds, breathing out for three to four seconds with a natural pause of, say, three seconds. But I wouldn't time the breath per se, because many people will make a mistake in that they will time their breathing, but they're not taking into consideration the volume of air that they are breathing. The rule of thumb is if you look down at your breathing, it should be difficult to see your breathing as master. Chris Pai, he's a master of qigong, he said there are three levels to breathing. He said the first level is that the person next to you does not hear you breathe. The second level is that you do not hear your breathing. And the third level is that you do not feel your breathing. Now, you have to note that he's not taking people to. He's not telling people to take full breaths. He's not telling them to breathe hard because obviously he understands that light breathing is beneficial. And in some of the martial arts, especially from the Eastern world, where people were very in tune with meditation and focused inwards, as opposed to what we see in the Western world with martial arts and with MMA fighting, for example, by bringing the attention inwards, they were very in tune with their breath. And during competition, points would be deducted if the judges seen them gassing out. So how you breathe during rest will determine how you breathe during physical exercise. Many individuals, if they have dysfunctional breathing and dysfunctional breathing, will be typically, breathing is a little bit faster using the upper chest. Breathing is a little bit more noticeable if it's through the mouth, if it's irregular breathing, and also if their Bolt score or breath hold time is less than 25 seconds. So how you breathe during rest determines how you breathe during physical exercise. So to give you some practice, I think it's worth experimenting with the breath. For example, any of your listeners, can we help decongest your nose? Did you know that you can open up your nose by simply holding your breath? Now, you can also relieve constipation. So there's a few other things that we can be doing through the breath that people can apply and see does it work?
That's so good. So if I'm trying to breathe deep with my diaphragm, use my diaphragm to breathe? Yes, but simultaneously not breathe in too much or over breathe or have, like, feel myself really breathing even. It's like a big diaphragm breath. How do I hold those two at the same time?
So what we'll do is we'll concentrate on the biochemistry first. So if you have one hand on your chest, one hand on your tummy, and I need you to have the mouth closed too, breathing in and out through your nose, and just tune into your breath. So for everybody to tune into their breathing and really concentrate on your breathing and use this as a measure of your concentration. And don't worry about how you are breathing. All you're doing now at the moment is just you're focusing on the breath. So you're taking a breath into the body, and now you're having an exhalation and really focus on your breathing. So you're having a prolonged and relaxed exhalation now to take a very soft, gentle breath in. And what I would like you to do is. Now you're breathing in. Now, what I would like you to do is gently slow down the speed of air so that we see less movement. And the objective is, with this one, don't worry about breathing too much with the diaphragm. The whole aspect here is to reduce breathing volume. So just focus with this one, gently slowing down the speed of the air to the point that you feel light air hunger. So the objective is to breathe less air into your body now than what you were breathing before you started. When you breathe less air, carbon dioxide increases in the blood, and it's carbon dioxide that gives you the sensation of air hunger. Now, the air hunger shouldn't be stressful, it should be tolerable. So, Michael, you're gently slowing down the breath. You're taking a soft, gentle breath in. So there's your exhalation. Now you're taking an inhalation. It was a little bit faster. Now you're having a prolonged exhalation. Don't worry about trying to do it perfect. Because the thing about breathing is it's like telling somebody to try and relax. So we just have to allow it to happen. So the main thing here is don't care what happens. So you're just tuning into your breathing and you're just gently softening it and slowing it down. Now you're doing it correctly in terms of a biochemical point of view. If you feel a slight air hunger. So can you reduce and slow down your breathing to the point of air hunger? And for your listeners Then when you're slowing down your breathing to the point of air hunger, check if there's any change to the temperature of your fingers internally, not just because you have your hands against your body. Is there any change to the temperature of the body? Is there any change to the saliva in the mouth? Is there any change to your mental state? In other words, do you become more alert, less alert, or the same? So keep gently slowing down the breath to the point of a tolerable feeling that you would like to take in a bigger breath. Don't hold the breath, don't freeze your breathing. The way to do it is just simply focus on the airflow coming into the nose and focus on the airflow as it leaves your nose and gently soften and slow down your breathing. Do you feel their hunger there, by the way? Would you like to take in a bigger breath? Well, that's it. And you shouldn't have unpleasant side effects. So for people starting off, I'd say kind of go easy enough with it and gently build it up. So that would be aspect. So I see one of the comments there in terms of somebody with asthma. So somebody with asthma, somebody with panic disorder, somebody with anxiety, you have to go a little bit easier. But it's the best thing that you can do because the feeling of suffocation feeds back into your symptoms. And you can imagine somebody with an asthma attack for many years, they're having a history of asthma or somebody with a history of panic disorder. They can have a very strong sensitivity to the gas carbon dioxide. And what we are doing here is deliberately reducing the volume of breathing. As a result, carbon dioxide increases in the blood because it doesn't leave the blood so readily through the lungs. And as carbon dioxide increases in the blood, you feel air hunger. So it's not because our oxygen levels are dropping, but it's because there's an accumulation of carbon dioxide. So that's a biochemical point of view. Now, if you go for a run with your mouth closed, you feel increased air hunger. But that's very helpful because that is going to get the body to make adaptations. And we can even talk, talk about the study in that. Very understudied. But now the science is beginning to catch up, which is good because it's kind of saying what we've been saying. Anyway, we knew it was happening and people would be looking for where's the evidence? Where's the evidence? Well, nobody bothered to study it because probably it was too boring and no money to be made from it. And you can't patent it. And you know, it's not commercially driven. So as a result, nobody was bothered. But now the science is starting to come up. Breathing is getting that bit harder.
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