Deciphering the Cause of Asthma

The cause of asthma has been attributed to a range of vile sources which include dust mites, dust mite droppings, dust, smoke, stress, exercise, atmospheric changes, food, odours, and many many more. What if all of these sources were totally irrelevant to the root cause of asthma? In, fact what if the source of asthma was nothing more complex then the way in which we breathe and react to our own body.

The most common people we see with Asthma is in children and they can be impacted by a number of variations with some displaying asthma symptoms of being "wheezy", having a cough or others just simply feel a sense of "restriction". Quite often children will, as I have heard some doctors say, "Miraculously grow out of it" or in technical terms, children often have a case of "spontaneous remission". Until now there has been no technical explanation as to how this occurs.

If fact, it is quite ridiculous to believe that a child would miraculously "Grow out of it" whilst still being in contact with some of the believed to be sources of asthma like dust mites, dust mite droppings, dust, smoke etc.

Essentially the root problem with Asthma is breathing and the belief that you can not breathe during an asthma attack. If the root of the problem with asthma is breathing then it makes sense from a scientific method to understand the process of breathing. There are two chemical elements we must have to breathe and they are both oxygen and carbon dioxide. The role of Carbon Dioxide in the breathing process is to regulate your breathing. When you produce more Carbon Dioxide your breathing will increase so that the level in your body stays about the same. When you produce less Carbon Dioxide your breathing will be less.

As eluded to earlier, normally Carbon Dioxide controls your breathing not your oxygen level. Oxygen levels will "over-ride" the breathing controls if the oxygen levels get too low for example if some one was strangling you.

What is the Cause of Asthma?

Within our brain there is a section called the "respiratory centre" which is essentially the control system for keeping our Carbon Dioxide levels at a safe level. Essentially you can imagine the "respiratory centre" like the thermostat of an air conditioner. If your respiratory centre, better known as the "breathostat" finds that the Carbon Dioxide level gets to high it will tell you to breathe more and if the Carbon Dioxide gets to low you will breathe less.

When your breathostat finds that your Carbon Dioxide level gets to low, then the amount of breathing that occurs is always much great than with a normal setting and this is where the problem begins. If the amount of Carbon Dioxide regulated within our body gets to low the reality is we can in fact die. On average you will find that most people will have an average 6.5 % concentration of Carbon Dioxide.

However in some people, it has been found that some people have the genetic ability to mount a defence against the loss of to much carbon dioxide and tries to trap the carbon dioxide in the body. The best defence the body does is to try to restrict the airflow by causing the airpipes to swell. As less air is able to pass through the wind pipe more carbon dioxide is trapped in. This is felt as the restriction or tightness of asthma.

The restriction forces you to trap more carbon dioxide and your breathostat warns you that you are not breathing enough. The result is that the person will try to get more air in. The problem is that the more air you try to force in, the worse your body will defend against this and your airpipes will close in defence.

During an asthma attack you are already breathing more than you need and the consequence is that your breathostat will be maladjusted. The more you breathe, even though it feels right, the worse your condition will become.

The secret to asthma is to learn how to normalize your breathing as soon as you can so that you avoid any further attacks. In less severe asthma attacks where an asthmatic remains calm and breathes less, often the attack will subside. Essentially, when the body has sufficient carbon dioxide trapped within the lungs, the asthmatic will move out of danger and the swelling will reduce and the airpipes open again.

In the past many asthmatics have been told that they have "hyper-responsive" airways but no one would be able to state why this condition has occurred nor could it be explained why it sometimes would go away and give you no symptoms.

Now it can easily be explained by looking at your breathing and your carbon dioxide levels. The Buteyko Breathing method helps teach you the skills to learn how to manage your breathing and your carbon dioxide levels.

If you are looking for an effective way to manage your asthma then check out the James Hooper Buteyko Breathing Method training kit. We also have available meditation music that you can use to help you manage your breathing.

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