Breathing exercise for constipation relief
This exercise was used by over 200 Soviet and Russian doctors who have been practicing the Buteyko breathing method. They taught it to many thousands of people. (I translated many Russian medical papers.) This breathing exercise helps to eliminate constipation within 1-3 minutes.
Practical actions
After your usual exhalation pinch the nose and hold your breath only until the first discomfort or stress. Keep the mouth closed all the time. Your breath hold will be less than 20 s. (You are hyperventilating and the body has too small amount of oxygen in tissues!) Immediately release your nose when you get first signs of air hunger. Now your goal is to maintain or preserve this level of air hunger for a few minutes and be totally relaxed. This is the key: breathe less and relax all your muscles. How?
Instead of your usual large inhalation after the breath hold, take a slightly smaller inhalation (about 20-30% less than before) and then immediately relax all muscles, especially upper chest and all other breathing muscles. Take another (smaller) inhalation and again completely relax. With each breath, take the same small or reduced inhalation and then completely relax. The breathing is frequent during this reduced or shallow breathing but this is OK. If you constipation is persistent, try to breathe even less. Gradually increasing air hunger: suffocate yourself! Over 80% people, by following these instructions, are to bring constipation relief in 1-3 minutes.
Breathing and constipation
First of all, heavy breathing reduces body oxygenation and GI organs. This simple fact is easy to check. You already measured your stress-free breath holding time after exhalation. The test is very sensitive to body oxygen content. Remember to exhale and hold your breath only till the first stress or discomfort. When you finish the test and release your nose, you should be able to breathe as before the test. Normal breath holding time is about 40-60 s. People with constipation and other GI problems have about 20 s of oxygen or even less. This is the paradox of breathing: those people, who breathe heavy at rest, have less oxygen in tissues.
Second, CO2, the gas we exhale, is relaxant of all smooth muscles, muscles of the digestive tract included. When your breathing is large, as in all people with chronic constipation, all smooth muscles are in the state of spasm.
Hence, during reduced breathing you improve perfusion (or blood supply) of all digestive organs and release the spasm. This results in easy and natural bowel movement.
Finally, if you retrain or normalize your breathing pattern permanently, your body oxygenation will be improved. When you can comfortably hold your breath for 30 or more seconds 24/7, your constipation and many other negative symptoms will disappear. This clinical observation is based on experience of thousands of Soviet and Russian patients who learned the Buteyko breathing method. The therapy was developed by Soviet physiologist Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, MD. In the 1960s he led the scientific project for the first Soviet space missions and studied interactions among breathing, air composition, body oxygenation, and various diseases. The Buteyko method is approved by Russian Ministry of Health for treatment of asthma and heart disease, but many other chronic diseases, like bronchitis, cancer, diabetes, chronic fatigue, insomnia, and arthritis, are possible only in conditions of chronic tissue hypoxia.