Upside down breathing and mouth taping

After a lifetime of meditating - or just over half a lifetime - I realised that I had been breathing upside down... Up into my chest with the rising of my breath and this had been the focus of my meditation... Not that that really mattered on the meditation front, but on the health front it really did!

It was only when I came to tackle my hereditary asthma with the Buteyko method that I realised that one of the major contributary factors to this debilitating condition is wrong breathing...

Slow, shallow breaths into the abdomen, with the belly rising on the inhale and falling on the exhale...that is the way to breathe. Taking deep breaths is not that good for as it messes up the carbon dioxide/oxygen balance in your system.

The real key to my breath discovery was the use of microporous tape to tape my mouth shut at night. This was a necessary part of the Buteyko regime... And it was a life-changer for me. I had been an habitual mouth-breather - another no no for asthma sufferers. I always had a runny nose... and I had seasonal hayfever to boot.

Well, along with the Buteyko exercises, the taping changed all that and brought up a lot of deep-rooted emotional stuff that I needed to deal with...