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By Dr. Artour Rakhimov, Buteyko breathing teacher and educator

All available western medical evidence indicates that mildly, not critically, sick people breathe 24/7 about 2-4 times more air than the physiological norms (which is 4-6 liters per minute). Consider this table from my book for practitioners:

 

Disease	Minute ventilation (± standard deviation)	Number of patients	Reference (click here)
Chronic heart failure1	15 (±4) l/min	22	Dimopoulou et al, 2001
Chronic heart failure1	16 (±2) l/min	11	Johnson et al, 2000
Chronic heart failure1	14 (±4) l/min	88	Clark et al, 1995
Diabetes	10-20 l/min	28	Tantucci et al, 1997
Asthma	15 l/min	8	Johnson et al, 1995
Asthma	14.1 (±5.7) l/min	39	Simon et al, 1998
Asthma	12 l/min	101	McFadden & Lyons, 1968
COPD2	12.2 (±1.9) l/min	10	Sinderby et al, 2001
Hyperthyroidism	14.9 (±0.6) l/min	42	Kahaly, 1998
Cystic fibrosis3	10.4 (±1.4) l/min3	10	Bell et al, 1996
Epilepsy4	7.88 l/min4	12	Esquivel et al, 1991

Table 1.1 Minute ventilation of patients with different health problems.
(from the book: Normal breathing: the key to vital health by Dr. Artour Rakhimov

Note that none of these or other studies showed or proved that there are sick people with these and many other conditions who breathe normally. All these people breathe too much.

If you observe the breathing of sick people, you will notice that their breathing is usually visible (likely chest and belly movements) and audible (possible panting, wheezing, sighing, yawning, sneezing, coughing, deep inhalations or exhalations). The mouth may be open.

For sick people, the durations of inhalations and exhalations, breathing rate, amount of air inhaled per breath and other parameters are very individual. Many sick people can have the following parameters of the breathing cycle (see the Figure below): inhalation (about 1.5-2 s), exhalation (1.5-2 s), no automatic pause; the depth of inhalation is about 700-1,000 ml; breathing rate is about 15-20 times per minute.

 

Hence, all evidence and experience show that sick people, with many common health problems, have heavy and deep breathing.

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