Breathing for your Brain

Rolf Lohse Global has partnered with the world’s best respiratory and neurophysiologists to develop breath gas measuring products which increase IQ, reflex time, relaxation response, and heart wave variability function.

If you are not breathing properly then your brain is not working properly. Optimizing your breath dynamics has more impact on your emotions, health, and performance then any other factor period.

25% of all adults have a chronic ‘over-breathing pattern' which significantly effects both measurable IQ and fundamental body metabolism from heart rate to liver function. Under periods of stress, 80% of us drop into this self-destructive pattern. For most people, after the initial stress stimulus is gone, 60% of these poor habits linger much longer than necessary.

Historically, most breathing instructions have been counter-productive. Most people breathe too much, not too little. Taking deep breaths—the common suggestion from well-meaning therapists—is generally harmful and quickly lead to brain oxygen depletion (dizziness). Few therapists, or even physicians, understand respiratory physiology.

All body and brain chemistry is dependent on optimal breath-gas ratios—something difficult to understand or measure, until now. Each individual’s metabolism, health, and performance ‘need’ is different, 'cookie-cutter' instructions are usually incorrect—often completely opposite of the instructor’s good intensions.

There is no ideal 'mechanical breath prescription' unless you’re simultaneously adjusting to tiny changes in breath gas ratios observed on a Capnometer. (Even arbitrary breath 'counting' or 'exhalation' patterns are frequently counter-productive.)

The measurement of breath gases with a Capnometer (the exhaled ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen, a measurement easily taken at the nose) is the easiest and only definitive way to measure and re-train breath 'optimization.' Breathing regulates body chemistry through proper allocation of carbon dioxide (CO2). As any pulmonary physiologist knows, a blood-based CO2 ratio of 5% is critically fundamental to pH regulation—an essential condition of balanced physiology.

Tips about perfecting breathing behaviors

1. Breathing is a behavior. Although breathing involves multiple objectives, such as talking, relaxation, and meditation, the most fundamental objective is 'optimal chemical exchange,'—getting oxygen (and glucose) to your cells, tissues, organs, heart, and brain. This requires an optimal, and always shifting, rate and depth of breathing via your diaphragm [a brain-stem coordinated reflex mechanism regulated either unconsciously or consciously.]

   
   

2. You do not need to relax to achieve good respiration. Optimal breathing is important in all activities: working, playing, relaxing, running, sleeping, expressing emotions, and even fighting.

   
   

3. 'Over-breathing' may feel like 'under-breathing' because both lead to oxygen deficit (hypoxia): in both cases you may feel breathless, short of breath, and constricted.

   
   

4. 'Deep breathing' (under normal circumstances) does not necessarily help stress or anxiety. It is a 'cultural myth' that deep breathing is required for relaxation. 'Deep breathing' can actually be counterproductive to relaxation and may actually trigger anxiety. On the other hand, quiet, loose, diaphragmatic breathing is the key to both relaxation and good chemistry. Deep breathing often leads to 'over-breathing' producing chemical crash. Quiet, effortless, diaphragmatic breathing more likely triggers the chemically-dependent 'relaxation response' (activation of the Parasympathetic Nervous System). It’s better to tell someone to 'relax and loosen' their breathing, rather than tell them to 'breathe deep.']

   
   

5. Over breathing results in carbon dioxide deficiency. You can over-breathe by either breathing too fast or too deeply. Even really slow breathing (2-4 breaths per minute) can result in this deficiency if depth is exaggerated. The 'right amount' of carbon dioxide (5%) is essential to healthy chemistry. Under normal circumstances it plays the key role in pH regulation of blood and cerebrospinal fluid. The disruption of breath-based pH level may trigger all kinds of physical and mental symptoms including a decrease in performance and IQ.