Tips to get you started

Breathing appropriately for any given situation can be a knack that you need to learn because the brain sometimes cannot tell the difference between seeing a real live bear in the forest and a real live bear on television.

Ordinarily breathing increases when the metabolism increases and decreases when the metaboliam decreases. When other factors, such as perceived fear or excitement increase the breathing unnecessarily it is important to aim to continue breathing through the nose. This helps to reduce hyperventilation and maintain good health. buteykosleep.com/breathing-basics/breathing-basics/the-importance-of-the-nose.html

Hyperventilation can still be done through the nose, simply by breathing faster than normal, or more strongly by using the upper chest muscles or with vigorous diaphragm breathing. buteykosleep.com/breathing-basics/hyperventilation.html Without being obsessive, learning to pay a little attention to the breathing every so often to make sure that it is behaving appropriately is a good step in the right direction of improving your health.

Instead of trying to reduce mucus in your nose by taking drugs, washing the self-cleaning delicate membranes, or by blowing as hard as you can; try blocking one nostril and blowing gently through the other.

When your nose is stuffy, use the nose-clearing exercise: buteykosleep.com/breathing-basics/breathing-basics/unblock-your-nose.html

Unless it is considered vitally important to your good health, do not try to remove mucus from your lungs by repeatedly coughing hard. Instead, try coughing gently with a closed mouth when you get an irritation in your airways. Normally cilia move the mucus blanket out of the lungs by around one centimetre a minute, and if you breathe through your nose, drink adequate water and eat sufficient salt, then the mucus will continue to move along this special travelator at the rate it is supposed to.

Do not over-eat, but eat moderate portions. Try to follow your appetite, rather than a set regime so that you are more in tune with what your body needs and when it needs it. Especially do not have a large meal within an hour of going to sleep.

Keep fit, but do not over-exercise. Our ancestors moved for hours every day, but most of this was done at a walking pace, rather than running.

Drink adequate amounts of water, and go easy on things like alcohol, caffeinated or sugary drinks. 

 

Try not to stress about nothing because often things have a way of resolving themselves without unnecessary agony. Avoiding things however, may only make them get out of hand, so perhaps try splitting a task into several smaller parts, and complete each of them, one after the other, to make the job seem less daunting.