What Is Asthma?
Asthma is a chronic, long-term disease of the airways, the tubes that carry air into our lungs. It causes inflammation and narrowing of the bronchial tubes that leads to airflow limitation.
The airways of our lungs are surrounded by muscles and contain mucus glands. These muscles are normally relaxed but if you have asthma, they are often sensitive and inflamed. When people with asthma encounter triggers, these muscles react by tightening even more, the lining of the airways swell and the airways can fill up with mucus.
living with asthma
can be a real challenge!
- Shortness of breath
- Difficulty breathing
- Chest tightness or pain
- Fatigue
- Coughing
- Wheezing
- Trouble sleeping
- Dependency on medication
- Anxiety
- Reduced quality of life
Have you been told there is no cure for asthma?
Have you lost your hope to regain your full health?
Have you suffered enough?
Is Asthma An Incurable Disease
Or A Reaction To Over-breathing?
Breathing Center Programs Can Help You End Your Suffering!
In 1952, K.P. Buteyko, MD made a groundbreaking discovery: over-breathing is a major factor for the development of asthma and breathing difficulties. Of course, this theoretical assertion appears counter-intuitive for most asthmatics who believe that they experience excessive mucus, cough, and asthma attacks due to their inability to breathe in enough air. However, almost 60 years of scientific research and clinical data proves that asthmatics consume 2-20 times more air than a healthy person.
Dr. Buteyko believed that by reducing air consumption via Buteyko Breathing techniques, conditions essential for the development of asthma disappear. As a result, asthma symptoms become reduced or eliminated. The work of the Buteyko Clinic in Moscow, Russia as well as the Buteyko Breathing Center has confirmed this conclusion in practice. Indeed, Buteyko Breathing Method is effective and often life-saving for adults and children suffering from asthma.
To understand this natural, holistic asthma treatment of improving breathing and why it improves asthma, please read Breathe To Heal book or the articles below.
Asthma: The Conventional Treatment Versus The Buteyko Method
All over the world, millions of people suffer from asthma. Medical and scientific organizations continue to try to find a cure. However, the number of asthmatics continues to grow. This article is an attempt to understand what might be causing this situation.
A conversation between A.E. Novozhilov MD, the Medical Director of Clinica Buteyko in Moscow, and Sasha Yakovleva, co-founder of the Buteyko Breathing Center
Sasha Yakovleva
A.E. Novozhilov MD
Read The New York Times article Explore Our Other Comprehensive
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Buteyko Students Share Their
Personal Stories
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Read full storyI want to express my sincerest gratitude for the hard work and dedication of Sasha Yakovleva at the Buteyko Breathing Center for the help she has given me to improve my breathing. I no longer consider myself an asthmatic. I was on inhaled steroids and albuterol and now I am free from any asthma control me
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Dear Sasha, I have learned nose breathing from you, and it has made a huge difference in managing my asthma and keeping it under control. Rather amazing since I am a long distance cyclist and have learned nose breathing on the bike, and it works. I am 84 years old; I gotRead full story
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Read full story
My 10-year-old daughter Julia had an anaphylactic reaction and was diagnosed at 5 years old with reactive airways and severe allergies. Over the past 5 years, we have been to countless doctors and have tried many treatments. Nothing was working. Julia was prescribed daily inhale
Buteyko Breathing Exercises For
Asthma And Breathing Difficulties
Asthmatics often use various breathing exercises in the hope that they will help to breathe better. Does it work?
Often it does not because any breathing exercise can improve or worsen a person’s respiration and overall health. People with breathing problems need to be especially careful in trying any breathing exercises for asthma. Buteyko Breathing exercises for asthma is the only type of breathing exercise that was created by medical doctors specifically to improve respiration and stop breathing difficulties. They are safe, effective and have no side effects.
Buteyko Breathing is holistic asthma treatment that helps to restore normal breathing without compromising the protective mechanism of bronchospasm. The Buteyko Method reduces or stops over-breathing, the main cause of asthma, and consequently, breathing problems such as excessive mucus, wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and suffocation attacks also weaken or stop. If over-breathing is present, these symptoms are needed as compensatory reactions for hyperventilation; they help to keep over-breathing, which can be lethal, under control. If there is no over-breathing, especially mouth breathing, these tools of homeostasis are not needed anymore and as a result, asthmatics become symptom-free. Buteyko breathing techniques for asthma stop over-breathing.
Shakeh Khayat
Buteyko Center's Student
Buteyko Method Changes Lives
When I signed up for the 8-week course of Level 1 of the Buteyko Method, I set the intention for radical change. I wasn’t sure exactly how this change would show up during the work but I was sensing a big shift ahead. One element which I was expecting would surely be part of the materials, was a toolbag of exercises and tricks to help me evolve out of my lifelong struggle with asthma. Not only did I receive a huge tool bag of tricks and methods but also a renewed sense of life and living.
My background has much exploration in yoga, meditation, and self-development, so as we began the work I was quickly comforted knowing that some of the groundwork I had been laying was going to be my catapult into the Buteyko Method. With the attentive, intuitive, and gentle guidance of Jesse, my breathing coach, I first learned the basics of relaxing my diaphragm and paying attention to my breath. Jesse helped me raise my awareness around my movements through daily life and how my breath was always attempting to ‘catch up’ to my actions. This raised awareness coupled with the breathing techniques of nose breathing caused me to shift how I have been living. I began to honour each breath and let my breath be my guide as opposed to my actions guiding my breath. The daily meditations and chanting of mantras helped me to strengthen by Control Pause and…Read More 
Tame Asthma Naturally With Buteyko
Listen to Sasha Yakovleva, Advanced Buteyko Specialist, explaining why and how the Buteyko Breathing method helps to reduce or stop breathing difficulties. She also demonstrates Buteyko breathing exercises.
Sasha: Asthmatics who have applied the Buteyko Breathing Method often say, I cured my asthma! Nevertheless, from a doctor’s perspective, this statement is incorrect. As a medical doctor, could you please explain why conventional medicine considers asthma to be an incurable disease?
Dr. Novozhilov: From the perspective of conventional medicine, asthma is triggered by chronic allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes. As a result of this, a person with asthma experiences a reversible airflow obstruction, which means that his or her air passages narrow from time to time. This is normally accompanied by bronchospasm, edema and extra mucus, causing asthmatics to struggle with shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness, coughing and suffocation attacks.When this allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes becomes more active, the airways become narrower, and as a result asthma symptoms become stronger and appear more frequently. When allergic inflammation quiets down to almost nothing, asthmatics forget about their disease as if they never had it.Unfortunately, allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes never stops. It lies in ambush, waiting for an opportunity to become active again. Sooner or later this happens, as a result of a person coming in contact with allergens, viruses, pollutants, or even simply cold air. Then the intensity of the inflammation starts increasing again, the air passages become smaller, and consequently, the asthmatic starts experiencing shortness of breath, coughing and other symptoms.When this happens, doctors normally prescribe steroid-based medications, since no other type of medication is capable of reducing allergic inflammation in the bronchial tubes. So steroids tame asthma, and an asthmatic is given another chance to forget about his or her disease – until allergic inflammation kicks in again.
Sasha: So, to stop asthma completely, it is necessary to stop the allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes. Is it possible to achieve this goal by applying medication?
Dr. Novozhilov: As of today, there is no medication capable of achieving this goal. Moreover, even a possibility of creating this medication is not feasible since doctors still don’t know the main cause of allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes, and don’t fully understand the mechanisms of its development.Since doctors have no means of eliminating allergic inflammation, they have to label asthma an incurable disease. The only thing they can do is to control asthma by reducing or preventing its symptoms with various drugs, including steroids.
Sasha: Would you explain how the work of K.P. Buteyko, MD differs from the conventional medical outlook on asthma? What is its theoretical basis of this natural treatment for asthma?
Dr. Novozhilov: Doctor Buteyko proved that a deficiency of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the lungs must be present in order for allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes to appear or to flare up. It is not difficult to verify this scientific hypothesis by observing asthmatics who apply the Buteyko Breathing Method. When asthmatics start correcting the CO2 deficiency in their lungs, the allergic inflammation of the bronchial tubes quiets down proportionally, and consequently, the narrowing of the air passages reduces and occurs less frequently. When the concentration of CO2 becomes stable at the level of the medical norm, allergic inflammation of the lungs disappears completely, and together with it, all asthma symptoms.
Sasha: Do all asthmatics experience shortage of CO2 in the lungs? Is their CO2 level always below the medical norm?
Dr. Novozhilov: Yes. If a person has been diagnosed with asthma, the level of CO2 in his or her lungs is always below the norm.
Sasha: And why is that?
Dr. Novozhilov: The loss of CO2 is a result of excessive breathing, which is always present in case of asthma. It is easy to notice that asthmatics are mouth-breathers; their breathing is heavy, often noisy, possibly accompanied by obvious movements of the shoulders, chest or abdominal area. Even visually, this breathing does not look healthy! Doctors call it hyperventilation of the lungs. Hyperventilation causes asthmatics to lose CO2, and this is what creates the deficiency. Doctor Buteyko was the first in the history of health and healing to suggest using a gradual reduction of breathing as a natural asthma remedy. When breathing becomes quiet and gentle, hyperventilation is reduced or eradicated. As a result, the level of CO2 in the lungs increases, and eventually becomes normal.