The two pillars of the Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy are Dr's Steiner and Buteyko and it will be found by the Educator that the breathing pattern advocated is entirely natural albeit tending more to being hypoventilatory rather than hyperventilatory.
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1. Philosophy behind changing one's breathing.
2. Brief history of the basic components of the BBBT.
3. Who will bear the BBBT into the future?
4.The role of the Buteyko Based Breathing Educator.
5. Some details of John Wilson - Founder of the BBBT.
1. Philosophy behind changing one's breathing.
'Breathing is meant to be sub-conscious, except if one is unwell'*. The lungs are the only vital organ which have both manual and automatic controls, voluntary and involuntary. This is why Konstantin Buteyko called his method the Deliberate Voluntary Breathing Method DVBM. Any intermittent conscious interventions to the breathing pattern should be seen in this light.
This however only applies to adults. For children that are ill the therapy is mostly taught via games involving limb movement with the parents learning at the same time the concepts around which the games are designed.
*Rudolph Steiner
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2. Brief history of the basic components of the BBBT
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The Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy started in 2004 and is a combination of a number of fields of research over the last 100 years which complement each other sufficiently to make it possible to now offer a good understanding of how incorrect breathing can be a cause, and therefore corrected breathing a remedy, of many illnesses.
The BBBT works with:
- preferred breathing volumes (nearly always reduced) in order to optimize the processing of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitric oxide,
- the preferred locations in the head, thorax and abdomen for strengthening, or alternatively constraining, the breathing process,
- the best rhythms of breath and pulse for each individual,
- regularly performing prescribed breathing exercises in order to ensure any return to health, and
- assisting, as required, a gradual return to sub-conscious breathing once an ideal breathing pattern has been achieved.
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Interestingly there can be found a single common thread throughout all these fields of research, and that is the need for enhanced concentrations of retained, own-produced carbon dioxide which has become depleted as a result of over-breathing. This was at the centre of Dr Buteyko’s life's work. Discovered in 2000, nasal-sinus produced nitric oxide is also an important part of the BBBT therapy, however, again, with its proper use depending on adequate levels of carbon dioxide.
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An outline of the main fields of research which combine to form the BBBT is here presented chronologically:
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• Prof. B F Verigo (Russia 1860 - 1925). At the end of the 19th century Prof Verigo discovered that ‘As a result of a fall of carbon dioxide in the blood, the bond between oxygen and haemoglobin becomes stronger.’
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• •Christian Bohr (Denmark 1855 - 1911) first stated in 1904 that ’Haemoglobin's oxygen binding affinity is inversely related both to acidity and to the concentration of carbon dioxide’.
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Regarding the above two items, in his book Dr Buteyko states “This particular law, not very well known so far, underlies our discovery. As the Verigo law was left under wraps, the same discovery was made by a Swedish Scientist and named the Bohr Effect. Being unfamiliar with this law would have resulted in great difficulties in understanding and accepting the theory offered by us”
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• • Dr Konstantin Buteyko (Ukraine 1923 - 2003). Dr Buteyko's Breathing Method is predominantly concerned with the illnesses associated with carbon dioxide depletion in the body as a result of unrecognized chronic over-breathing together with the body’s defence mechanisms (so-called illnesses) against such depletion. Of immense value also is his breath-holding time technique for use as a guide to alveolar carbon dioxide concentrations.
​• Dr Rudolf Steiner (Austria/Germany 1861 - 1925)
(1) GA 346 'THE BOOK OF REVELATION’ Lecture 9 - ‘…Building the Old and the New Jerusalem’ Dornach 13th September 1924 para. 24.
‘What the human being needs for his system of metabolism and limbs is absorbed through an immensely delicate breathing process. Ordinary breathing is quite coarse by comparison. And what the human being does with oxygen – namely* producing carbon dioxide – is once again something more delicate than what happens, so that the foods passing through the stomach can supply the head. The transition takes place in the rhythmical human being.’
*The English word ‘namely’ in German is ‘nämlich’ which has the connotation ; to be exact. This can be stronger than the Oxford dictionary meaning of ‘namely’ which is ‘…that is to say ; in other words’.
(2) GA 221 Lecture 'The Invisible Man within us' February 11th 1923 para 11 'Our life would be much shorter if we absorbed more oxygen. The more the carbonic acid (water + carbon dioxide) formation process of the blood counters the absorption of oxygen in the breathing process, the longer our life will be'.
(3) GA 327 The Book 'Agriculture' Lecture 3 para 17 'Everywhere, in the animal and plant kingdoms, and also in the interior of the earth, the bridge between oxygen and carbon is provided by nitrogen'.
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​• Prof.G.Hildebrandt (1922 – 2005). Regarding respiratory rhythms, Prof Hildebrandt reported in 1967 that the peak incidences in a relatively large group of people was a breath rate of ~18pm and a pulse rate of ~72pm. These two numbers give a quotient of 4:1 which, since it was observed in most people between 12 and 3 in the morning, can be used as a guide during breath re-patterning.
​Regardless of what an individuals subconscious breath rate may be at any time, during breath re-training the Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy recommends breath rates for adults at rest of ~14-18 per minute be tried. This is slightly faster than the textbook norm of 12 breaths per minute. These faster rates make the best use of anatomical dead space in further limiting alveolar ventilation.
• The Karolinska Institute (Sweden) in 2000 discovered that ‘ a lot of nitric oxide is normally formed in the sinuses (respiratory) of humans’ and later (in 2009) published that ‘Previous work has already described the biological significance of nasal breathing, which improved peripheral oxygenation by 5 –- 15% in healthy volunteers compared with oral breathing.’
• • Case Western University School of Medicine Cleveland 2015. Prof J Stamler MD. A new view of the respiratory cycle. . <medicalxpress.com Basis established for nitric oxide…> ‘The bottom line is that we have discovered the molecular basis of blood flow control in the respiratory cycle loop,’ Stamler said. ‘It's in the haemoglobin protein itself, which has the ability to deliver the nitric oxide together with oxygen. The simplified textbook view of two gases carried by haemoglobin is missing an essential element - nitric oxide - because blood flow to tissues is actually more important in most circumstances than how much oxygen is carried by haemoglobin. So the respiratory cycle is actually a three-gas system'.
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3. Who will bear the BBBT into the future?
Being a Buteyko Based Breathing Educator is usually an adjunct to one’s normal life’s work with healing*. If you are not a whole-health or well-being professional, you can still be certificated** as an Associate Educator. The main prerequisite for BBBT training is normally that any suffering the trainee has experienced themselves, or intimately witnessed in another, has been alleviated by the Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy. (*The word ‘healing’ must be understood here as Rudolf Steiner used the German word ‘heilen’ meaning ‘to heal (alternatively to cure)’ as used in the excerpt ‘Healing and the Breath’ in the Steiner folder of the online library. **‘Certificate of Completion The qualification given to Buteyko Based Breathing Educators and Associate Educators is based on the understanding that it is in reality largely achieved by the trainees themselves, supported by the trainer as in the following section b), and then finding their own way onwards).
The place and duration and of training can be arranged face to face in groups or on an individual or online basis.
With respect to the use of the Google Drive facility Dr Steiner’s following indication makes for an unusual situation with respect to the training and certification of Buteyko Based Breathing Educators and their field of work.
‘For this is a great secret, all the healing forces originate in the human breathing system...They do not reside in the other systems of the human organism: these other systems have themselves to be healed’.
It can only be a matter of conjecture as to how many human complaints might be helped by good breathing, but it may well be many hundreds, if not a thousand or so. Some examples; - ‘Prof Buteyko conceived and utilized the theory that hyperventilation is the cause of some 150 medical conditions’ (Dr P J Ameison’s book ‘Every breath you take’). Also, Dr Buteyko’s book gives the results for 58 complaints with adults and 28 with children -In my (JW) work with the Buteyko breathing method covering the 1990’s, followed since 2004 by the Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy (BBBT), I have recorded working with some 200 complaints.
Due to this disparity between the large number of complaints that good breathing may benefit, and the more limited number of specific illnesses covered in the records, the way ahead for Educators of the Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy has to be somewhat different, and that is: Despite the efficacious and predominantly scientific basis of the records, something should always be left to the trainee, whereby they are able, as required, to give rise to thinking things out for themselves.
This perspective, in many ways, may be compared to Rudolf Steiners comment about his book Occult Science (GA124 lecture III Para 14) where, with respect to the size of what it was possible to publish in comparison to the whole field being addressed would ‘have to consist of fifty volumes at least, each of them as bulky as the present one’.
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Wounded Healers. With respect to Dr Buteyko, it can be noted: It is widely reported that the young Dr Buteyko had quite serious high blood pressure and, at the age of 29yrs, after recognizing his own habit of hyperventilation and reversing it in accordance with the breathing method he was developing at the time, was able to achieve normal levels, living an active life until the age of eighty. In Dr Buteyko’s book an article by Dr.S.S.Souliagen states ‘We consider it a serious mistake when a Doctor or Therapist starts to treat patients by the Buteyko Breathing Method if they have not first treated themselves.’
From Rudolf Steiner Schmidt Number: S-2060 Lecture 6:
‘If a Being is to awaken certain feelings in mankind the conditions of his earthly incarnation must be such that his body too is able to endure whatever is the object of his mission... A Being whose mission it is to proclaim the possibility of the healing of pain and release from suffering must himself taste the very depths of suffering in order to find the right words applicable to it in the human sense.’
From the doc ‘COPD-Patient results’ in the Illnesses folder of the Google my-drive site for trainees one can see that the medical history of the Author of the BBBT (J Wilson) is consistent with the above.
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4.The role of the Buteyko Based Breathing Educator.
After attending a presentation of the Buteyko Based Breathing Therapy in 2017, a leading Respiratory Physician in Europe commented that ‘Everything you said today is the opposite of what we have been taught’. This is the reason why it is necessary at this time to have the 'within' Medical Science as a whole-health professional, or 'without' - as an Associate with the same training. This ‘opposite’ may be understood when one takes the central aim of gold standard asthma medications, which is to make breathing easier by ‘maximal reversal of airway inflammation and obstruction’ using ‘reliever’ and ‘preventer’ medications, and compares it with the comments below from the two central pillars of the BBBT philosophy, Dr’s Buteyko and Steiner: Dr Buteyko said that ‘The more you breathe the sooner you die, the less you breathe the longer you live’ ‘Rudolf Steiner made a very special remark in his lecture to Doctors when speaking about the sphere of life in connection with the lung. He said the overpowering forces must be continually hemmed in, and what is hemmed in is the power of mercury*’. Karl Koenig’s lecture 11 from ‘Earth and Man’ called ‘The Lung’ Oct 31st 1938, discussion section para 9.’
(*Mercurial can best be understood here by the synonym ‘expansive’ which means ‘able or tending to expand’, particularly with reference to the capacity of the lungs where the normal resting tidal volume (~500ml) is only a small fraction of total lung capacity (~6,000ml).
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5. Details of John G Wilson D.O.B. 01/08/1941 Teacher of the Buteyko-Based Breathing Therapy (BBBT)
1956 Diagnosed with asthma
1993 Attended a Buteyko Breathing Course with A Stalmanski in Melbourne.
1997 Together with Jocelyn Wilson became a Buteyko Breathing Practitioner
1999 Diagnosed with moderate OAD/Asthma.
2000 Buteyko Practitioner for the Monash University/Alfred Hospital Randomised Controlled Trial of the Buteyko Breathing Method for Asthma.
2003 Integrated the work of Dr Buteyko with the findings of the Karolinska Institute Sweden on nasal-sinus nitric oxide to form the BBBT .
2003 < Courses held regularly in Schools, Clinics and Church halls throughout Australia / New Zealand.
2005/6 Held Courses for Doctors and Therapists in Dornach/Basle Switzerland at the Anthroposophic Medical Conferences.
2008 Integrated the breath and pulse rhythms from Chronobiology into BBBT.
2010 Introductory presentations given to Doctors at the Filderklinik Hospital near Stuttgart Germany with the view to running a trial for childhood asthma in Southern Germany in 2014.
2010/12 Together with Jocelyn Wilson (Buteyko Practitioner) taught 3 BBBT pre-pilot studies for children with asthma in Australian Schools.
2011 Presentation of BBBT to the BBEA Conference in Toronto Canada.
2014 Introduced BBBT to the Medizinisches Seminar in Bad Boll Germany.
2014 With Jocelyn Wilson, taught the BBBT childhood asthma trial with 32 children (app. by Tübingen University Ethics Committee) at the Filderklinik Hospital in Stuttgart for ARCIM – Academic Research in Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Published in 2020 – see - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2020.102582
2016 June 9-11th. Poster presentation of the results from the childhood asthma trial above at the International Congress for Integrative Health and Medicine in Stuttgart Germany.
2017 With Jocelyn, taught the BBBT Adult asthma Randomised Control Trial for ARCIM with 58 patients from the Stuttgart area. Published 2024 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40001-023-01634-1
2022 Basic training and certification of 18 staff at the Filderklinik Hospital in Stuttgart to be Buteyko Based Breathing Educators.
Member ANZRS Aust-NZ Society for Respiratory Science.
Member AAMA Australian Anthroposophic Medicine Association. Email -johnwilson4221@gmail.com www.buteykobasedbreathingtherapy.com
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