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By Dr. Artour Rakhimov, Buteyko breathing teacher and educator

Breathing education
Part 8-A. Quality of life and breathing: what is the link?
Breathing and sleep (duration and quality of sleep are connected with breathing)

Click on the picture (on the right side) to watch the video clip "Breathing and quality of life" (it will open in a new window).

Why do we need sleep? Our understanding of sleep is very limited and incomplete. Common sense tells us that we need it to provide rest for the brain and muscles. We know that deep breathing makes the brain over-excited and muscles tense. Hence, CO2 deficiency can affect the quality of our sleep due to these effects. Here are some general practical observations about breathing and the quality of sleep.

A person with normal breathing (about 60 s CP):
- falls asleep in less than 1 minute;
- sleeps for about 4-5 hours and it can stay in the same position the whole night;
- does not remember dreams and does not have nightmares;
- awakes feeling refreshed and full of energy and vigor with a morning CP of about 60 or more seconds.

When the CP is about 15-25 s (as is common for people today), a person:
- may need more time to fall asleep (up to 5-30 minutes or more);
- can sleep up to 7-9 hours and in different positions;
- can remember dreams and may have nightmares;
- wakes up feeling tired, often with about 10 seconds CP due to morning hyperventilation.
Why? During the previous day and night, this individual has had chronically low tissue O2 and CO2 stores. The muscles were tense, instead of naturally relaxed, and the brain hypoxic and over-excited, instead of calm. Even during sleep, the brain, due to hyperventilation, remained abnormally excited (remember “spontaneous and asynchronous firing of cortical neurons”?) and hypoxic.

Consider severely sick, terminally ill or hospitalized patients with a typical CP of about 5-10 s or even less. These people:
- may need even more time to fall asleep (up to 30 minutes or more);
- can sleep up to 12-15 hours tossing and turning in bed;
- can remember many dreams and often have nightmares;
- awaken feeling tired and sluggish.
Their quality of sleep is often miserable. Why? Because these people, due to severe chronic hyperventilation, have critically low oxygenation and CO2 values. They are chronically very tense and over-excited. Their muscles and brain need much more time to rest and relax. However, this is difficult or impossible, since O2 and CO2 stores are critically low, during the night as well.

Some people (Professor Buteyko, some Russian Buteyko doctors, Western Buteyko practitioners and students, and hatha yoga masters) have/had very light breathing (about 3 l/min for ventilation) with 2-3 minutes CP. Such people need only about 2 hours of sleep during the night. Why? High CO2 concentrations keep the muscles relaxed and the brain calm throughout the day and night. Normally these people do not need much sleep at all, since they are resting even while they work! (See right.)

Note that there are people who may have only 5-10 s CP and have no problems or complaints about sleep. Occasionally, some people may have 30-35 s CP and still be concerned or unhappy about their quality of sleep. However, all these cases are exceptions rather than the rule. It can be of important practical and scientific value to find out the exact biochemical, neurological and psychological links between breathing and quality of sleep. Why do most people have problems with sleep when they breathe more? Why some people are less affected?

Be observant. If you know the CPs of your friends and relatives, investigate, if possible, whether this general correlation between the CP and quality of sleep is correct for them. Also, check, if it works for you on different days (your CP and sleep quality can vary from day to day due to diseases, infections, exercise, stress, etc.).

Warning. Remember that CP measurements are done until the first desire to breathe. Your health and quality of sleep would not be better if you push yourself to get higher numbers. In fact, if you later gasp for air, your breathing can become even worse. It is how you breathe twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week that matter.

Questions. Who would survive longer in the jungle or wild forests, or in other natural conditions:
those who have 15-20 s second CPs and need to sleep up to 7-9 hours (with tossing, snoring, wheezing, panting)
or those with 2-3 min CP, who need only 2 hours of noiseless sleep in the same body position?
(Note that conditions in the wild normally imply the presence of ever hungry predators.) What were the CPs of primitive people? What can be said about their health, and their physical and psychological well-being? Is there a case for saying that primitive people did not suffer from many modern diseases?

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