What is Functional Breathing?
Let’s start with Dyfunctional Breathing, a term used to describe a breathing pattern that may be detrimental to our health, wellness, performance and longevity (1). Evidence suggest that 60-80% of adults suffer from some form of dysfunctional breathing patterns (2,3).
Dysfunctional breathing patterns are linked to a decrease in movement efficiency (4) which can lead to increase in back pain and neck pain (5), increase in anxiety and the stress response through sympathetic nervous system activation (6), decrease in diffusion of oxygen to cells and tissue resulting in a suboptimal aerobic performance (7), negative impact on sleep (8), lack of ability to focus and concentrate (9), and even body composition issues (10).
What does dysfunctional breathing look or sounds like? It’s audible, shallow, eractic, fats and involves using the mouth to breath, these are just a few signs of dysfunctional breathing patterns (11).
With the growing evidence and research of how dysfunctional breathing impacts our health the ability to take control and become conscious of our breathing is accessible to us all.
Healthy breathing or Functional Breathing is described by Patrick McKeown as light, quiet, effortless and soft, breaths are through the nose, diaphragmatic, rhythmic with a gentle paus on the exhale (11). How many of us breath like this subconsciously?
We need to train our body and mind to become more of a functional breather so when we look at the three pillars of breathing, the biomechanics, the bio chemistry and the pyschophysiological (11) functional breathing becomes a natural and automated function.
The Oxygen Advantage method created by Patrick McKeown is a scientific, evidenced based approach to breathing which promotes functional breathing during our sleep and wake time to improve our health, wellness and performance and longevity (11).
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Patrick McKeown, The Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter You, Harper Collins, 2015