subject: Cough Reflex Is Controlled By Breathing and Body Oxygen [print this page] Cough Reflex Is Controlled By Breathing and Body Oxygen
There is a simple physiological mechanism that explains why coughing detroys one's health and causes more coughing. It relates to changes in blood gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide content in the arterial blood), cell oxygenation, immune system suppression, and state of the cough receptors nerve cells. The crucial thing that controls all these processes is our automatic breathing pattern.
Breathing... Are there any advances in breathing techniques during recent years? During last 40 years over 120,000 asthmatics have learned the Buteyko breathing technique in Russia and became cough-free. The Buteyko breathing technique is officially approved by the Ministry of Health in Russia for treatment of bronchial asthma.It has been able to decrease signs in all six clinical trials, and coughing is the principal warning sign for asthma. Therefore, components of the Buteyko technique can benefit other cough-sufferers to eliminate their breathing problems.
The main target of the Buteyko respiration method is to make personal unconscious breathing pattern slower and lighter and raise O2 content in the body.
Does this breath therapy give good results for asthma? Here are the principal results of all six published western randomized controlled clinical trials of the Buteyko therapy:
- reliever medication intake lowered 4-10 times;
- steroids lowered twice;
- improved quality of life and less asthma symptoms after practicing some months of breathing exercises to eliminate their overbreathing, which lessens their oxygenation of tissues.
Millions of contemporary people promote a nave myth that carbon dioxide is a waste and toxic gas. They also believe that heavy involuntary breathing pattern (or chronic hyperventilation that is breathing more and/or faster than the normal breathing) enhances concentration of oxygen in the tissues.
Thousands of published medical publications have confirmed that hyperventilation REDUCES O2 level in the body. Besides, the gas we exhale, carbon dioxide executes innumerable significant functions for the human body, which include: regulation of stomach pH, stability of the nerve cells, sleep regulation, regulation of blood pH, synthesis of hormones, proteins, immune cells and other chemicals, bronchodilation (dilation of airways), release of O2 in capillaries (the Bohr effect), normal immunity, control of blood glucose, regulation of pulse, body weight monitoring and tens of other vital effects.
How coughing destroys your health
During our normal breathing, while resting, the air travels though the breathing passages at a velocity of about 5 miles per hour only. During your cough, the air travels out through the mouth at 70-110 miles/h. Coughing through the mouth produces an air pressure change that is sufficient to damage alveoli. Coughing is in particular hazardous for people with COPD, bronchitis, lung cancer, bronchopneumonia, asthma, cystic fibrosis, bronchiectasis and other pulmonary conditions with existing damage to the lungs. Next, during continual coughing, you breathing frequency is over 25 breaths in one min instead of normal 10 to 12. Your tidal volume for one cough is close to 1 liter of air instead of 500-600 ml. Do some calculations to prove that your pulmonary ventilation is a few times more than the tiny medical norm (6 liters/minute). Bouts of coughing result in irritable state of cough-receptors in the tracheobronchial tree/larynx due to hypocapnia (lack of CO2 ); possible over-production of mucus; damage or rupture of alveoli due to sudden air pressure changes; cellular hypoxia; chronic respiratory infections and inflammation due to suppression of the immune system; cell hypoxia in all vital organs; irritation of the constricted airways due to excessive mechanical friction and other pathological consequences due to hyperventilation.
Measure the level of O2 in the cells using a simple and easy test
After your exhalation, close both nostrils and count your anxiety-free breath holding time. Take note that the breath pattern immediately after the examination has to be identical to your respiratory pattern prior to the experiment: no anxiety in anyway after the test.
That tryout measures a pair of factors at the same time. To start with, the final result indicates oxygen content in the body. Besides, it reflects how large and deep the individual breathing pattern is.
Assuming that the automatic breathing pattern is normal, that person should be able to maintain the breath hold for about forty sec. If the person has around twenty seconds, that person breathes around two times the medical norm (which is 6 L of air in a single min). With regards to the sick people, their result is much less: most likely nearly fifteen seconds or less as a consequence of chronic hyperventilation.
Permanent solution to constant problem with coughing
As soon as your basal respiration pattern is so light that your concentration of oxygen in the body cells is above 25 s, you will not have troubles with prolonged coughing at all. You should slow down your deep and fast breathing in order to attain this goal.
Breathing retraining technique requires constant control of breath including:
- constant nasal breathing (hence, it is necessary then to seal your mouth with a surgical tape, if your mouth is usually dry in the morning
- prevention of sleeping on your back (we breathe about 2 times more air, when we sleep on our backs at night)
- physical exercise for (no less than 2 hours daily with only nose breathing, in and out, otherwise exercise is more or less useless for most, especially sick patients)
- and numerous other lifestyle-related parameters so that your unconscious breathing pattern is returned back to the medical norm.
