Learn How to Breathe Peacefully During Traditional Festivities
Does Thanksgiving and other holidays improve your health or worsen it? From my experience of working with my clients, I learned that Thanksgiving (yes, this beautiful, warm, and wonderful holiday) often reduces CO2 levels in the lungs or our vitality. As a result, it can trigger various symptoms, for example, breathing difficulties, anxiety, and high blood pressure.
This inconvenient truth often hides behind beautiful images of a plentiful dinner table surrounded by a happy-looking family. During festivities, most people prefer to forget about problems that often accompany holidays, such as overspending, whether it comes to money or carbon dioxide. This approach becomes a foundation for future issues. Becoming aware of possible adverse scenarios and creating a realistic plan to avoid obstacles would be more pragmatic. I hope my pointers below will help you accomplish this and have a wonderful, health-problems-free Thanksgiving.
Watch out for the following hyperventilation triggers:
1. Heavy food. Turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy is a a good example.
2. Lots of animal products such as meat, poultry, and dairy.
3. Long periods of talking accompanied by excessive inhalations through the mouth. Warning: this creates a significant CO2 loss! More info.
4. Regular fitness routine often gets replaced by driving, watching movies, talking, and other elements of a sedentary lifestyle (one of the leading causes of CO2 deficit).
5. Interactions with family members can create stress and reactivate old emotional wounds.
Recommendations on how to prevent CO2 losses and generate plenty plenty of it:
1. This holiday is about gratitude. Stay in gratitude as much as possible. Instead of criticizing your friends and family, say “thank you” to them silently or aloud. Think how wonderful it is to have people who care about you. Just imagine how you would feel if you instantly lost them. Does this image help you appreciate the precious connections with imperfect people who are close to you?
2. Do as many Buteyko breathing exercises as possible (formal or informal).
3. Fast or eat as little as possible before the main Thanksgiving meal.
4. Go for long, quiet walks before sitting, eating, and talking.
5. Wear a Buteyko belt whenever possible.
6. Watch for chest breathing that triggers anxiety. If breathing makes your chest move, try switching to gentle belly breathing.
7. Practice nasal, invisible, healthy breathing – all the time!
– If Ashwagandha, St. John’s Wort, or other relaxing herbs help you, use them to protect yourself from over-breathing, triggered by stress.
– Remember: Thanksgiving represents a precious opportunity to express kindness. Dr. Buteyko considered kindness or altruism the primary remedy for over-breathing. To express kindness, we need others. Without people, you cannot express these feelings, which increases CO2. So, keep offering sincere thanks to everyone – this is an old “Buteyko technique” to boost health and vitality.
