Warm up Cold Hands and Feet Naturally in 2-3 Min
Causes of Cold Hands and Feet
This breath exercise was used by over two hundred Soviet and Russian MDs who have been applying the Buteyko breathing self-oxygenation method as a tretemant and cure for some chronic diseases. They taught this breathing exercise to thousands of patients. The exercise helps, in over 90% cases, to warm up cold hands or cold feet naturally in about 2-3 min and quickly improve their signs of poor circulation. The night version of the same exercise and what causes cold feet and hands are described further below.
Practical steps
Sit down with your spine straight as a broom. Relax all your body muscles. Focus on your (heavy) breathing. What do you notice? If the sensations are very vague, take 2-3 deep inhalations and relax to exhale slowly. What do you notive or perceive in your nostrils, back of your throat, chest, and down near your stomach?
Next, instead of taking your usual quick and large inhalation, take a slightly smaller inhalation (about 5-10% less) and then immediately relax all body muscles, especially the upper chest and other breathing muscles. Take another (smaller) inhale and again completely relax.
With each breath, continue to take a small or reduced inhalation and then completely relax. You will soon experience light but comfortable air hunger. Your goal is to maintain this light air hunger for 2-3 minutes. For faster results, if you do not suffer from heart disease, hypertension, migraine, and panic attacks, you can make air hunger stronger and stronger. Your breathing (it is called reduced breathing) can be frequent during this exercise but this is normal. If you do this exercise correctly (you indeed breathe less), your hands and feet will be warm in less than 3 minutes. (For patients with advanced Raynoud disease, it may take longer time, up to 1-2 weeks, and more breath work, so that to improve circulation and body oxygenation, in order to normalize their automatic breathing pattern.)
How to do this exercise during sleep or at night
Lie on your left side or on chest and relax all your body muscles. Pinch the nose and follow the previous instructions for reduced breathing to get a quick relief.
Breathing and blood circulation
Our breathing pattern has profound effects on all systems of the human organism, the cardiovascular system and blood circulation included. About a century ago western doctors studied the science which was called "cardiorespiratory physiology". Why did they choose this name? This was because of the close connections between respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Yale University Professor Henderson (1873-1944) was an author of the first physiological textbooks and the father of cardiorespiratory physiology. In 1908, he published some of his research results in the American Journal of Physiology. The title of his atricle was Carbon dioxide as a factor in the regulation of the heart rate. Professor Henderson discoevered that when our breathing gets bigger and deeper (we breathe more than the norm), CO2 level in the blood falls below the norm, arteries and arterioles become constrict (CO2 is a vasodilator), and it is much more difficult for the heart muscle to pump the blood for the body. Moreover, forceful hyperventilation experiment done with the use of suction and exhaust pumps killed all dogs in less than 30 minutes due to ... coronary arteries spasm (heart failure). In his article, he wrote, “... we were enabled to regulate the heart to any desired rate from 40 or fewer up to 200 or more beats per min. The method was very simple. It depended on the manipulation of the hand bellows with which artificial respiration was administered. As the pulmonary ventilation increased or diminished, the heart rate was correspondingly accelerated or retarded” (p.127, Henderson, 1908). Obviously, heavy breathing produced CO2 deficiency in the arterial blood, spasm or constriction of blood vessels, very high heart rate (up to 200 beats per min), and death of all his animals.
Even slight unnoticed overbreathing constricts blood vessels in humans since the effect is dose-dependent. First, consider some practical evidence.
Experiment. When you get a small bleeding cut or bleeding due to some other causes, you can deliberately hyperventilate and see if that helps to stop the bleeding. It should happen. As an alternative, do comfortable breath holding and breathe less so that to accumulate CO2 in the body. What would occur with your bleeding? (It should increase.) Now you know what you can do after dental surgeries, brain traumas, and other accidents involving severe bleeding. It is normal for affected humans and other animals to breathe heavier in such conditions of physical and mental stress. Hence, hyperventilation or overbreathing can be life-saving in cases of severe bleeding.
Deliberate hyperventilation and the brain
Experiment. Take about 100 deep and fast breaths through the mouth, and you can easily pass out or faint . This happens due to ... lack of oxygen and poor perfusion or blood supply for the brain. Why? This is again because CO2 is a vasodilator (dilator of blood vessels).
Dozens of professional research studies confirmed this effect. This is a recent graph related to brain circulation.
Professor Newton (University of Southern California Medical Center) wrote, “…cerebral blood flow decreases 2 percent for every mm Hg decrease in CO2” (Newton, 2004). Note that less than 10% of modern people have normal breathing parameters (see this graph with results of 24 medical publications). It is not a surprise, that so many health problems (related to poor circulation and low blood-oxygen supply) are very common these days. Low cell oxygenation is the key factor for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, COPD, and many other health conditions.
Here is a YouTube
Video clip with a similar breathing
exercise: Cure and Treatment of a Heart Attack (Buteyko Breathing
Exercise). Click on the image on the right side to view this video in a
new window.
What causes cold hands and feet?
If breathing more constricts arteries and arterioles, then breathing less should dilate them. Therefore, you need to learn how to breathe less and slow down or normalize your breathing pattern because chronic problems with cold hands and fedet exist only when we overbreathe. Now you know what causes cold feet an hands.
Check your breathing, circulation, and body oxygenation with a simple DIY test
Measure your stress-free breath holding time after your usual exhalation. This test defines tissue oxygen and circulation in seconds. After your usual exhale, pinch the nose and stop bretahing but only till the first stress. (No discomfort at all during and after the test and no pushing yourself for better numbers.) When you complete the test and release the nose, you should breathe as before the test.
Cure or Treatment of Cold Hands and Feet
People with cold hands and feet usually less than 20 s of oxygen in cells. In severe cases, breath holding time result can be below 10 seconds. The normal result is from 40 to 60 s. Here is the paradox of breath: those, who breathe heavy, have less O2 in their tissues. If you normalize your breath and your breath holding time will be about 40-60 s (a lot of oxygen in the body and great blood supply to extremities and all vital organs), and your chronic problems with signs of poor circulation and cold hands and feet will naturally disappear.
References
Henderson Y, Acapnia and shock. - I. Carbon dioxide as a factor in the regulation of the heart rate, Am J of Physiol 1908, 21: p. 126-156.
Newton E, Hyperventilation Syndrome, 2004 June 17; Topic 270, p. 1-7 (www.emedicine.com).