Is there such a thing as a ‘wrong’ way to breathe? People ask me all the time about the “wrong” ways to breathe. And some breathing coaches even tell me what the wrong way to breathe is.
This is a pretty nuanced topic, and there’s a lot to it. But I would love to share with you a little inquiry, a few different ways to think about it, so you can come up with your own answer.
Follow along and enjoy! 🙂
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is there a wrong way to breathe and if
there is
what is it and how do we move ourselves
towards the
right way to breathe what up humans my
name is kasper at casper’s focus and i
would love to share with you a little
inquiry
into this question that i get all the
time not only do i get this question all
the time of people
asking me what is the wrong way to
breathe am i breathing wrong
how should i breathe for the right way
but there’s also a lot of people
telling me this is the wrong way to
breathe that’s the wrong way to breathe
but this is the right way to breathe
and these people don’t even always agree
there seem to be a lot of people who
are very highly convinced that they know
about what is the right way to breathe
and that they should tell people that
that is the right way to breathe
now of course this is a pretty nuanced
topic but there’s a lot to it and i’d
love to share with you
this little inquiry a few different ways
to think about it so you can also kind
of come up with your own answer
now if you ask a general breathing coach
about the right or the wrong way of
breathing then usually they come up with
a little list right they have
the right way to breathe and then they
have
the wrong way to breathe and then
on this list they say well it should be
nasal all right we should breathe
through the nose because
the nose is a filter which is amazing it
does all this filtering
and that the mouth doesn’t do that the
mouth doesn’t do filtering
and it doesn’t add nitric oxide and it
doesn’t uh air condition
it so you know mouth breathing has all
these disadvantages
in relation to nasal breathing all right
pretty good then of course
also our breathing should be slow if we
breathe
slowly as a base rate it means that we
are very good at taking
up oxygen and that we have a good co2
tolerance where
not every change in breath or change in
state will
make us breathe faster right away right
and then on the wrong side of course
that is hyperventilation or chronic
hyperventilation
and um this is usually how
that is kind of portrayed so slow
breathing is good and
hyperventilation is wrong and then we
also have of course the diaphragm
diaphragm diaphragmatic breathing which
is usually explained as
belly breathing which i understand it’s
a kind of good first way to introduce it
to people who’ve never heard about it
because
of course as you breathe in your
diaphragm moves down and it flattens out
slightly which
needs to and it needs to have some space
there to move which means it moves away
the organs in the abdominal cavity and
the belly moves out which is of course
great but it’s not about a uh in out
forward backward type of movement
actually proper diaphragmatic breathing
is happening all the way in expansion of
this abdominal cavity but also
it moves the lower ribs horizontally
so diaphragm breathing of course is
optimal breathing in most cases because
the diaphragm is our main breathing
muscle
and then over here we usually say that
or usually it is said at chest
and even neck breathing is the
wrong way to breathe uh
that type of breathing where you have
all kinds of muscles working
that are not breathing muscles and then
people go oh that’s wrong
and that’s right and there’s a few other
things too but this is usually usually
the the three big topic areas that
people tend to argue
in and with and for and against when
they talk about right or wrong breathing
now of course a lot of that is
um is true right so in most cases nasal
breathing slow breathing diaphragmatic
breathing
are the preferred ways to breathe
because they match the state that you’re
in and this is really where i want to
make a point where
if we think in terms of right and wrong
then we’re actually not helping
ourselves change the state and
improve our breathing to where we want
it to be so in my previous video
i talked about this concept that there
is a state of mind and body
so state of being and that state of
being
triggers a state of breath right so if
you can read the breath if you can
understand the breath if you can see how
the breath moves
and especially how these factors that i
just discussed
change and shift and what are the
factors that make these
factors change for example that make you
go from nasal to mouth breathing
if you understand those then you can
understand something about
this state that this person is in but if
you would then say
that this breath is wrong right if we
say oh
you’re breathing like this which means
that you’re breathing wrong you’re not
doing it right
then you’re also saying that that state
is wrong and this is really where i want
to make the point
my opinion that there is no wrong way to
breathe there is no
wrong way there’s no inherently wrong
way to breathe okay
because that would be to say that
there are wrong states you could also
look at it kind of the other way around
where you say that the
breath
supports a demand of the body
it’s basically the same thing but if you
think about a state a state
demands a certain amount of energy it
demands a certain type of
muscular function it demands a certain
type of biochemistry of neurochemistry
right so
every state that you’re in every
situation that you’re in
in life requires something of your
biology
so there is a demand in that moment so
if you’re just resting
and you’re relaxed on the sofa and
you’re chilling and there’s nothing
really going on in life
there’s not a high energy demand right
but there’s still a demand there’s a
demand for you
to be in a calm parasympathetic state
then if a worrying a troubling text
message comes in
or somebody comes in the door says oh my
god i need your help please follow me
right now
then of course there’s a different
demand you need to change state you need
more energy you need to activate you
need to be more alert you need to
have more sympathetic tone so there is a
certain demand
of you in that moment and then of course
the breath
is the factor that allows you to produce
the energy
to supply for that demand so
breath is simply supplying the demand so
if you would say that there is a wrong
wrong way to breathe then you would say
that there is such a thing as a wrong
state
now this type of breathing that we have
just marked as
wrong we usually see this in people who
are for example
anxious
or stressed right chronically stressed
so if you are anxious or stressed then
you will start
most people if you’re especially if
you’re chronically stressed you will
start to
have more mouth breathing you will start
to breathe a little bit faster so you
get chronic hyperventilation
and you start to use more and more of
your chest and your neck breathing
and that means that this
state of anxiety right the state of
anxiety
is leading to the breath of anxiety
now if we just look at that breath as a
as a uh you know as a breathing coach or
as somebody who’s read a book about
breathing or whatever you go like huh
you’re breathing wrong you’re doing that
wrong then you’re actually saying okay
that means that
this state is wrong because the breath
is really only filling in
the demand that the state puts
on your biology now a lot of people
suffer from anxiety and a lot of people
suffer
from stress does that mean that stress
and anxiety are bad
things are they wrong should they not be
there
well and there is really the big point
here every single state that you can
experience every emotion you can
experience everything that you can
experience
in yourself is there because it has been
selected
by millions and millions of years of
evolution
right if you are in that scenario
sitting on the sofa and you’re chilling
and you’re fine
and somebody walks in and goes oh my god
there’s something wrong there’s a fire
there’s an accident come help
and you don’t have stress you don’t have
this physiological ability to be like
whoa okay boom senses pop open
heart rate goes up breathing goes faster
cortisol is released
you get all this energy you get this
jolt this temporary
superpowers by your internal doping you
know this biochemistry
that gives you this boost of energy
enough awareness
and you’re like all right let’s do this
if you wouldn’t have that and if your
ancestors wouldn’t have had that
imagine like your hunter-gatherer
ancestors like cavemen and women
chilling in the cave
whatever making robe like doing whatever
cavemen are doing
and then you know your body walks in is
like whoa the bear is attacking the
village we need to go
and then you’re like yeah it’s cool bro
i’m just i don’t want to breathe wrong
like i don’t want to be one of your
hyperventilating mouth breathing chest
breathing
weirdos like you just go do go be
anxious go be stressed i’m just going to
chill
if your ancestors did that you wouldn’t
be around right that’s what’s called
natural selection so every single state
that you have
is there to provide a vital function
for your survival which means that every
type of breathing that comes with that
state is just
a strategy for supplying
the demand of that state that promotes
survival
including anxiety including stress
including sadness including grief
including anger including rage including
all of these different states
so to conclude is there a wrong way to
breathe
no there is not is there a wrong state
no there is not what we actually
do have a lot of times is that we
are stuck in a state that is an
undesired state
we are in a state that we do not want to
be in and then that state is of course
supported and sustained by the breath
so if you go through a phase of intense
stress of intense anxiety
and you’ve you know you’ve had a lot of
high demands on your life and you’ve had
all this stress
and after a few months of that you know
the stressor disappears you know
whatever your
you reach your deadline or your job
clears up you
your relationship ends or changes or
whatever whatever is causing you stress
the period of stress ends then we should
also of course
shift out of the stressful state and
come to a different state
that is more equipped to
help us live the life that we want to
live right if there is a
very intense situation stress will help
us live the life that we need to live in
that moment
it will support us it is there for us
it even gives us superpowers temporarily
however
if that situation is gone we need to
move to a different state that is more
matched with what we want to do with
what we want to experience
so then we find a lot of people who are
coming out of this state of stress but
they haven’t
changed their state they are internally
still experiencing this unwanted and
this
undesired state of being like stress or
anxiety
and that is when people start to suffer
and then you could say well
right now all you literally need to do
is sit on the sofa and chill
and be happy about life and be mindful
and just be present
however you are still breathing through
your mouth
you’re still breathing too fast you’re
breathing 25 times per minute
and you’re still using your neck and
your chest to breathe and then actually
we have this mismatch
where the state of breath or the desired
state that we want
doesn’t match the state of breath
anymore so what we then need to do
is adapt the state of breath to start
supporting the state of being
that we want to be in and
can you then call that wrong well no
it’s still just a sign
it’s still just a you know almost like a
reading i read somebody’s breath
somebody comes to me
for breath coaching or for tips or
whatever and this is also what i teach
my coaches
we look at the breath and we read the
breath and you go like huh you’re
breathing this way
and then people go is it wrong is that
wrong am i doing it
is that bad and we’re like well no it’s
not bad at all
do you want to feel this way and they go
like no i don’t want to feel this way at
all so it must be bad
well not really you just don’t want to
feel this way so
then we also shouldn’t breathe this way
so let’s change our breathing
for a different feeling and then
whenever you do want to feel this way
you can breathe like that again
and so this way we start to include
every single breathing pattern into our
practice and into our understanding that
we can
always shift to different states by
shifting to different types of breathing
so i hope that answers the question for
you
the question of is there a wrong way to
breathe and i also hope that you can
start to learn
to catch yourself in the moment when
your state of breathing
doesn’t match the state that you would
like to be in now if you enjoy this
stuff please
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i’ll be posting twice a week about
concepts just like this
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casper’s focus
thank you for joining and i hope to see
you very soon