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About Buteyko

What is the Buteyko Breathing Method?

The Buteyko Breathing Method or more simply the Buteyko Method is a drug-free complementary therapy for controlling the symptoms of asthma and other breathing related disorders. It involves very specific breathing exercises and techniques used to reduce over-breathing, together with some dietary and lifestyle changes. The Buteyko Method has no known side effects, and does not require ever-increasing medication intake to control your asthma. The Buteyko Method is based on the work of Professor Konstantin Buteyko who pioneered the therapy (please see History page for more information).

Basic concepts

The Buteyko Method turns conventional medicine on its head as it is based on the premise that asthma and other breathing related disorders result from chronic over-breathing and the loss of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the body.  The technical term for over-breathing is hyperventilation. Hyperventilation commonly occurs without you being aware of it happening. However, if you observe your breathing pattern when you experience breathing difficulties, you may notice the rate of your breathing, and sometimes the depth, has increased. Asthmatics are invariably mouth breathers and hyperventilate as a result. What the Buteyko Method can do for you is teach you how to relax and normalise your breathing, thereby reducing your asthma symptoms and the need for rescue medication.

Normal breathing (12 breaths or 4 to 6 litres of air per minute) results in 98% oxygen saturation. Breathing more than this internationally recognised amount cannot increase your oxygen uptake but will deplete CO2 levels in your body. This is important since CO2 is not merely a waste gas as many people mistakenly believe. CO2 when lost in abnormal quantities alters the whole body chemistry, and directly or indirectly affects every system in the body. In a healthy person, CO2 forms about 6.5% of each cell, and if it falls below 3% we die. When levels drop too far, haemoglobin, which transports oxygen through the blood to the muscles and vital organs, cannot do its task efficiently. The tissues, starved of oxygen, become irritable and the airwaves go into spasm or swell - leading to breathlessness and wheezing. The Buteyko Method retains more CO2 in the body and thus opens up the airways - and is therefore a natural bronchodilator.

How do you learn it?

The Buteyko Method is taught in workshops consisting of five sessions of two hours each. You are taught how to retrain your breathing to enable you to breathe correctly when sleeping, exercising, speaking, eating and performing all daily activities. None of this is arduous but it does require commitment and effort from you. Benefits arrive quickly and you will almost certainly experience an improvement in your condition within the first five days of practising the exercises. The breathing exercises are tailored to your individual condition and medical history. You are encouraged to attend follow up classes for as long as it is necessary or desirable.

Benefits

You can expect:

These expected benefits are conditional on you following the Buteyko Method programme as taught, and using your medication as your condition demands. For the Buteyko Method to succeed, you must want to control your condition and improve your quality of life. You must be willing to follow the programme and do the breathing exercises the programme requires you to do. Without the exercises you will not control your condition.

Clinical trials have indicated that asthmatics using the Buteyko Method reduced their use of reliever medication on average by 85% to 90%, and their steroid usage by 49% to 50%.

Who can be helped?

The Buteyko Method is suitable for children from 5 years of age and adults of any age. It is effective for people with all types and degrees of severity of asthma, as well as people with other respiratory disorders such as chronic cough, emphysema, COAD, COPD, sinusitis, hay fever, snoring and sleep apnoea. Other conditions such as anxiety, migraine and allergies can also be helped by the Buteyko Method, as Professor Buteyko identified a connection between dysfunctional breathing and over 200 diseases during his research work in Russia. The Buteyko Method is not suitable for people unwilling to practice the breathing exercises as they are taught, and who are initially unwilling to take time and responsibility for controlling their asthma.

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