Reduced Breathing Exercise Protocol with AYO BT+

由 admin | 4 月 26, 2023 | 6&6 breathing pattern, breathing exercises

Why Reduced Breathing?

Believe it or not, research shows that 90% of modern people over-breathe. Like over-eating, over-breathing or hyperventilation is detrimental to our health. Chronic over-breathing contributes to a number of chronic diseases, such as asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.

Then what is normal breathing? The key is the breathing volume in one minute or Minute Ventilation. The physiological norm is 6 liters for a 70 Kg adult at rest. As a typical example of over-breathing, asthmatics tend to breathe at twice the normal volume. In the 1950s of the last century, Dr. Buteyko discovered the link between hyperventilation and asthma, and the Buteyko Method developed after that has cured hundreds of thousands of asthmatics since.

The critical factor to achieve normal breathing is the CO2 level in our body, which most of us have a lower-than-normal level.

The goal of reduced breathing is to train the brain to adapt to higher CO2 concentrations during a sustained period of air hunger by reducing the amount of air to breathe so that, over time, the CO2 level in our body will be increased towards a normal level.

Nowadays, more and more people become aware of the benefits of Buteyko Reduced Breathing and practice the Method in an ever-increasing trend, among them from asthmatics to mental disorders and even elite athletes, just to name a few. However, there are a number of challenges to learning and practicing the Method. One is that there are limited qualified Buteyko Method practitioners, and the other is lacking an effective tool to assist the practice.

Practice Reduced Breathing with AYO BT+

Aimwell AYO BT+ is designed for breathing training and monitoring, in particular, to train reduced breathing using the diaphragm via the nose.

One of the difficulties to practice reduced breathing is how to control air hunger properly: doing too little or too much will not give good results.

For example, light air hunger is defined as 5 – 10% less than the normal breathing volume, however, human is not born to have the ability to sense it properly, and this is what AYO BT+ can do best: measuring breathing volumes along with a large number of breathing data.

Here are the protocols and guides for reduced breathing training with AYO BT+.
Basic Requirements When Training at Rest:

Diaphragmatic breathing via nose only.
Sit with back straight and the full body relaxed.
Breathe calmly and slowly focusing on each breath.

Reduced Breathing (RB) at Rest

Obtain an AYO BT+ Boost and open the App.
Condition the breath: Full body relaxed, breathe slowly and comfortably, observing each breath and aiming at a near-zero air hunger. Do this in the Breathing in Meditation featured exercise for 3-5 minutes, then stop the session and read the recorded MV as a baseline MV1.
Calculate the Reduced Breathing (RB) MV for a light air hunger: 90 – 95% of MV1.
Do a Control Pause (CP) test and record the value as CP1.
Perform RB for 3-5 minutes followed by a Breath-hold (0 – 10 s after the initial urge to breathe). Do this in Breathing in Meditation, and read the MV, Tidal Volume, and times for each breath as feedback to adjust the breathing towards the desired MV.
Repeat ‘5’ for a duration of 15-20 minutes and relax the diaphragm and the full body in every breath.
When time is up, read the recorded MV as MV2.
Calculate the actual RB % by MV2/MV1.
Do a normal and relaxed breath for 3-5 minutes.
Do a second CP test and record the value as CP2.

Tips for RB at Rest:

It is recommended to do the exercise 2 hours after a meal or on empty stomach and before sleep.
Try to control the breath rate between 5 – 7 breaths per minute, so that the breath control and monitoring can be narrowed down to Tidal Volume in every cycle and Minute Ventilation in every minute for the most time.
After the exercise, you should feel warmer than before the exercise, such as your hands and feet are warmer.
Your CP2 should be Longer than CP1, ideally longer than 5 seconds, and you should feel your desire to breathe is reduced.
If the CP2 is less than CP1, check your actual RB and see if it is too high or low, and if the duration of the session is too long or short. Adjust it accordingly in your next exercise to have a higher CP2.
Consider using the BTi setting from 0 to 2 to assist the RB.

Reduced Breathing (RB) in Low or Medium Intensity Workouts

Find out a baseline:

Choose a targeted workout.
Obtain an AYO BT+ Boost or Essential.
Fit the E module on the Left side of the mask only and open the App
Fit the BTi and adjust it to the maximum setting.
Record the breathing using the Real-time screen.
Start the workout until the desired duration is reached.
Stop recording and use the MV recorded as a baseline MV1.

RB Workout:

Obtain an AYO BT+ Boost or Essential.
Fit the E module on the Left side of the mask only and open the App.
Fit the BTi and adjust it to a low setting, such as Setting 3.
Set your desired RB, for Light Air Hunger, 90-95% of MV1, Moderate Air Hunger 70-80% of MV1, and Strong Air Hunger 40-50% MV1.
Start the RB workout and record the breathing using the Real-time screen or GPS Enabled Exercise for running, cycling, or walking.
Read the MV every minute or the Tidal Volume often as feedback to adjust your breathing towards your RB target.
When the workout is finished, save the data, and read the MV.
Calculate the actual RB % by MV2/MV1.
Read Power of Breath and Work of Breath, and compared them with previous results for breathing efficiency improvement.

Tips for RB at Workouts:

Diaphragmatic breathing via nose only.
Relax the diaphragm, especially when the urge to breathe is heavier.
At the end of each relaxed exhalation, further extend it by pressing the belly inward briefly, especially when the urge to breathe is heavier, so that the breath rate is not increased too much when the breathing urge is high.
Breath-hold can be added during the RB every few minutes to enhance air hunger and CO2 tolerance.
The Breath-hold can be variable, such as starting from 5 s, then 10 s, then 5 s, then no Breath-hold.
Within 30 minutes of rest after the RB session, you should feel your breath is very calm and effortless. If you notice your breathing is still a bit tired, the air hunger during the RB may be too high or the period of RB a bit too long. Adjust the RB and its duration accordingly.
To avoid overtraining, limit the session with moderate air hunger to 30 minutes, and strong air hunger to 20 minutes.

Reduced Breathing Target at Rest:

Breath Rate: 5 – 7 Breaths per minute for maximum Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
Minute Ventilation (MV): 6L for 70 kg athletes. For 100 Kg athletes, the MV can be calculated proportionally: 100/70 * 6 = 8.6L
Control Pause (CP): 40 seconds.

Note:

The process toward the MV and CP targets should be gradual.
For CP, aim to achieve 30 s first, then 35 s, then 40 s.
It is recommended to have a minimum total RB training time of 1 hour each day, which could consist of 3 – 4 short sessions spreading out over a day. If you are an active person, Ideally, one of them is in low to mid-intensity workouts with a light to moderate air hunger.

A Game-changer for Practicing Buteyko Reduced Breathing

由 admin | 3 月 31, 2023 | Reduced Breathing/ Normalised breathing

What is Buteyko Method?

Buteyko Method is a type of breathing technique that Russian Doctor Konstantin Buteyko developed in the mid-20th century. The technique is based on the premise that breathing patterns and CO2 levels in the body play a significant role in various health conditions, including respiratory problems, asthma, and sleep disorders, just to list a few.

Buteyko Method has been successfully learned by many, and tens of thousands of respiratory patients have been treated and cured after learning and practicing this science-based breathing technique.

Difficulties We Are Facing

Learning of Buteyko Method, however, is not without challenges and difficulties.

If you have been practicing Buteyko Method, you will know that Reduced Breathing is one of the key parts of the training in addition to Breath-hold.

To practice the Reduced Breathing of Buteyko Method normally requires generating a light air hunger.

There are various interpretations of what “light air hunger” means.

In the book “Advanced Buteyko Breathing Exercises” by Dr. Artour Rakhimov, he suggests the following:

If your CP is less than 20s, it is 5-10% less than your normal inhalation.
If your CP is above 20s, the breathing is likely to have short automatic pauses.

Note: CP means Control Pause, a way to measure breath-hold time by Buteyko.

In the book “Breathing to Heal” by Sasha Yakovleva, she says:

“Try to decrease the volume of breathing by imagining that your airflow becomes a little diminished”.

All of the described ways to achieve “air hunger” are either vague or hard to follow correctly in practice:

“5-10% less than your normal inhalation’ – is not something a normal person can sense or feel correctly.
“short automatic pauses” – how short?
“imagining that your airflow becomes a little diminished” – what “a little” is a little? That is the question only up to you to interpret.

Even Dr. Buteyko thought that generating the right amount of light air hunger was the most difficult to learn from his described method as below:

Decrease
The depth
Of breathing
By relaxation of the diaphragm
Till slight shortage of air (Buteyko, 1991)

Furthermore, in Buteyko Method, the main metric to test how you breathe is via CP measurement. This is a simple and accurate way to measure how well the body gets oxygenation, provided that it is measured correctly. However, as many of us experienced, the CP can be affected by many factors, making it vary from time to time. This is perhaps one of the main difficulties in practicing Buteyko Breathing.

In addition, CP is an indirect and non-Realtime way to guide your breathing exercises, for example, it can not be used directly as a metric during Reduced Breathing training, and it can only be used as a body CO2 tolerance or oxygen level monitor before and after each breathing exercise.

How Do We Solve the Issues?

All the issues mentioned above related to Reduced Breathing can be rooted in the fact that there are no tools that are readily available to measure breathing data, in particular, breathing volume.

As Reduced Breathing simply means to reduce breathing volume following Buteyko Method, it is no brainer to say that we need a device to measure the volume we breathe in order to practice reduced breathing, so that we know how much air we breathe, and how much air we need to reduce during breathing exercises.

Over more than half a century until now, people who practiced Buteyko reduced breathing have had to use gut feel and guessing to guide the exercise. It is understandable that in the era of Buteyko, there weren’t breathing measurement devices that ordinary people can get access easily.

Aimwell’s Solution to Solve the Issues

You may wonder: are there any easy ways to measure breathing nowadays at all, like measuring a heart rate? And is there an alternative or equivalent way to complement CP? The answer is YES.

The good news is that, with Aimwell AYO BT+, breathing volume can be measured directly.

Further, we recommend a new metric that can clearly and accurately define air hunger in Reduced Breathing based on CP, that is Minute Ventilation (MV) – a metric for breathing volume in one minute.

Relationship between CP and MV:

CP is, in most cases, related to MV. Thus, once the CP is known, the corresponding MV can be correlatedly defined.

To define a level of air hunger, a reduced MV as a breathing target can be derived by adding a predetermined period to the CP measured.

If you breathe at a certain MV with just near zero air hunger, the MV can be correlated back to CP. This can be used as an alternative to CP measurement.

Further, we can also define the target MV based on the level of air hunger. For example, if we define the following:

No air hunger as No RB: MV corresponding to your CP.

Light air hunger as RB1: 10% less of MV corresponding to your CP.

Moderate Air Hunger as RB2: 25% less of MV corresponding to your CP.

Strong Air Hunger as RB3: 50% less of MV corresponding to your CP.

Then we can have the following target MVs forNo RB, RB1, RB2, RB3 in relation to your CPs:

Note: for body weights other than 70Kg, the corresponding MVs can be proportionally calculated.

Final Words

By using MV as Reduced Breathing training metric, it removes the difficulties when it comes to practicing a level of air hunger accurately. It also provides an alternative way to find out your CP. This is a game-changer for practicing Buteyko Reduced Breathing, as it can help achieve more effective Reduced Breathing exercises that promise an easier and quicker journey in your endeavor to normalize your breathing.

So if you have a hard time making progress in your Buteyko Breathing training, wait no further to acquire this great Australian invention AYO BT+ to help you out.

What is Buteyko Breathing?

由 admin | 3 月 29, 2023 | Reduced Breathing/ Normalised breathing

Buteyko Breathing is a type of breathing technique that Russian Doctor Konstantin Buteyko developed in the mid-20th century. The technique is based on the premise that breathing patterns play a significant role in various health conditions, including respiratory problems, asthma, and sleep disorders.

The Buteyko Breathing method involves reducing the air inhaled and exhaled during breathing, which is believed to minimise hyperventilation or overbreathing. By controlling the rate, depth, and duration of breathing, practitioners of the Buteyko method can improve the balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen in their bodies, leading to various health benefits.

The Buteyko Breathing method consists of a series of exercises designed to help reduce breathing volume, including controlled breathing exercises, breathing through the nose with the diaphragm, and reducing talk time. The activities are usually done in a specific sequence and can be done anywhere, at any time.

How Does the Buteyko Method Work?

The Buteyko method teaches individuals to control their breathing in a specific way to reduce the air volume inhaled and exhaled, this is also known as the minute volume. This reduction in breathing volume helps restore a healthy balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the body, which can lead to various health benefits.

The Buteyko method consists of a series of breathing exercises and techniques that aim to reduce breathing volume, including:

Controlled breathing exercises: This involves breathing in and out at a slower pace, focusing on breathing through the nose and reducing the volume of air inhaled and exhaled.
Breathing through the nose with the diaphragm: Diaphragmatic breathing through the nose is believed to be more efficient than chest breathing through the mouth , so the Buteyko method encourages individuals to use the diaphragm to breathe through their nose as much as possible.

By learning to control their breathing and restore a healthy balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen, individuals who practise the Buteyko method may be able to alleviate symptoms of various health problems, including asthma, sleep apnea, and anxiety.

What is Buteyko Good For?

Buteyko breathing teaches you how to reduce breathing, i.e., to reduce the air volume you breathe. The way to reduce the breathing volume during practice is to create a light air hunger. How ‘light’ is light is vague here, even Dr. Buteyko thought this was the most difficult to learn.

According to proponents of Buteyko Breathing, the technique can help to improve a range of health problems, including:

Asthma
Sleep apnea
慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）
Allergies
Hypertension
Anxiety
Panic attacks

Aimwell Breathing and the AYO BT+

If you practice the Buteyko breathing technique, AYO BT+ can be an excellent companion to enhance your practice. Thanks to its Minute Ventilation tracking, AYO BT+ can measure breathing volume and rate accurately, making practice Reduced Breathing much easier.

For the first time since the Buteyko Method was first introduced more than half a century ago, people can now have a tool to help practice Reduced Breathing effectively and accurately.

The breathing measurement from AYO BT+ can also help you measure your progress, provide data to your trainers or clinicians remotely, and even add your breathing status to the Apple Health App for tracking your overall health.

Here are some examples AYO BT+ monitors & measures:

Spirometry Testing
Realtime Breathing Waveforms
Breath Rate
Minute Ventilation
Tidal Volume
Peak Flow
Breath-hold Time
Power of Breath & Work of Breath

Along with Summary Reports for meditation and breathing exercises.

Manage Your Health with Breathing Data in Apple Health App

由 admin | 3 月 13, 2023 | Asthma Management

Apple Health App is increasingly becoming popular with many health-conscious people. This is because the App collects many types of health information in one place, which provides a more complete picture of how your overall health goes than a small fraction of health data would tell. The App was released by Apple in 2014 with the goal to provide users with easy-to-understand, meaningful insights so they can be empowered to live a healthier life.

The Apple Health App is a built-in app on your iPhone or iPad that lets you track your health and fitness data. It can be used to monitor the following:

Sleep quality
Steps taken each day
Heart rate (if you have an Apple Watch)
Active calories burned during exercise or movement throughout the day

Over the past 9 years, Apple has continued to improve it, with recently added features to track your medications, share your data with your doctors, see your sleep stages, etc.

One of the great features of the App is that it facilitates and encourages innovative third-party health and fitness apps to pass their sensed data to Apple Health.

Examples of data from third-party Apps include heart rate and walking steps, which many brands of sports watches are able to provide. Apart from many other types of health information, Apple Health App provides data types covering all five vital signs for human health:

Heart rate
Blood pressure
Body temperature
Breath rate
Spirometry

The top three are widely obtainable from many products worldwide, however, Apps with Breath Rate and Spirometry data are hardly available.

The Great news is that Aimwell AYO BT+ Breathing Measurement and Exerciser can do just that! A great innovation in breathing training and measurement, this Australian invention stands out from the rest in offering these vital data to Apple Health. Spirometry, in particular, is specifically important for asthma and COPD management.

The way to get the breathing data to Apple Health

Breath Rate:

This is done in the Breathing in Meditation session of the AYO BT+ App, where you are supposed to be in a resting and completely relaxed state. At the end of the session, a summary report will be generated, with an average Breath Rate calculated. Once the result is saved to the App, the Breath Rate is then linked to Apple Health.

Spirometry:

This is done in the Spirometry Testing session of the AYO BT+ App, where the following lung function Testing is performed:

Forced Vital Capacity (FVC): The total amount of air you exhale during a forced expiratory volume test, which is an indication of the lung capacity in volume.

Forced Expiratory volume, 1 second (FEV1): Forced Expiratory Volume during the first-second expiration, which is an indication if the airways are obstructive or not.

FEV1/ FVC: The ratio between FEV1 and FVC is used in the diagnosis of restrictive or obstructive lung disease. For healthy people, it is above 70%. The value is reduced for asthmatics and COPD patients.

Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEF): The maximum expiratory flow is an indication of the degree of obstruction in the airways. The value is reduced for asthmatics and COPD patients.

Once a test is completed and the result is saved to the App, FVC, FEV1, and PEF will be linked to Apple Health.

Within Apple Health, a calendar format data storage is provided, where you can see the data in Day, Week, Month, 6 Months, and Year format, a great way to see how these data are trending at a glance.

In short, your health information is now more complete with AYO BT+ providing vital breathing and lung function data.

Spirometry Testing – An Effective Metric Testing for Asthmatics

由 admin | 3 月 3, 2023 | Asthma Management

What is Spirometry?

Spirometry is an objective physiological lung function test, and it is one of the most important tools for pulmonary physicians to diagnose lung and airway conditions accurately.

What Conditions Can Spirometry Test Diagnose?

Typically, spirometry testing is used to diagnose asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other conditions that affect breathing. In asthma, spirometry is used to detect obstruction, the degree of obstruction, and the variability of obstruction.

If you’ve already been diagnosed with a chronic lung disorder such as asthma, spirometry may be used periodically to monitor your lung and airway condition and check whether a treatment for your asthma is helping you breathe better, or whether your breathing problems are under control.

What Does Spirometry Measure?

Simply put, spirometry measures how much air you inhale, how much you exhale, and how quickly you exhale.

Key spirometry tests include the following:

Forced Vital Capacity (FVC):

This is the largest amount of air that you can forcefully exhale after breathing in as deeply as you can. A lower-than-normal FVC reading indicates restricted breathing.
Forced Expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1):
This is how much air you can force from your lungs in one second. This reading helps assess the severity of your breathing problems. Lower FEV1 readings indicate more significant obstruction.FEV1/

FVC Ratio:

The ratio between FEV1 and FVC is used in the diagnosis of restrictive or obstructive lung disease. For healthy people, it is above 70%. The value is reduced for asthmatics and COPD patients showing the presence of an obstruction in the lungs or airways. Different from FEV1 alone, FEV1/FVC ratio provides a relative indication of obstruction such as in asthma, and it is particularly useful in helping assess how well your asthma treatment or management is working or how your condition is progressing.

Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEF):

The maximum expiratory flow is an indication of the degree of obstruction in the airways. The value is reduced for asthmatics and COPD patients.

FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and PEF together provide a good picture of how well your lungs and airways function.

Spirometry Testing – An Effective Metric Testing for Asthmatics

How to Prepare and Perform a Spirometry Test

To Prepare:

● You may need to stop using your inhaler beforehand. Check with your doctor.
● Wear loose clothing that won’t interfere with your ability to take a deep breath.
● Avoid eating a large meal or drinking alcohol before your test.
● Avoid smoking for 24 hours before the test.
● Avoid heavy physical effort or exercise for at least 30 minutes before the test.

To Perform:

● Sit in a chair with your back straight.
● Follow the instructions to put on a breathing piece.
● Take a deep breath in as far as you could, then hold your breath for a few seconds before exhaling as hard and complete as you can into the breathing piece.
● Repeat the test three times to make sure that the 3 test results are consistent, then record the highest value.

Spirometry Criteria For Normal Condition

The normal/health range of the spirometry results varies from person to person, they’re based on your age, height, race, and sex.
You can find your estimated normal values from relevant medical sources. Typically, for FVC, FEV1, and PEF, a ratio value of >= 80% of the estimate is considered normal. For FEV1/FVC, >= 70% is considered normal.

How to Use Spirometry to Diagnose and Manage Asthma

● To manage your asthma, we recommend that you perform spirometry testing periodically based on the severity of your symptoms.
● You could first find out your normal range for FVC, FEV1, and PEF.
● Record your spirometry results of FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC, PEF.

Spirometry Criteria for Asthma

● If the ratio of FVC, FEV1 and PEF results to your corresponding normal values are below 80%, or FEV1/FVC ratio below 70%, it is an indication of asthma.
● You should discuss with or visit your doctor for treatment or adjust the existing treatment.

In summary, spirometry is a highly effective metric for the diagnosis and management of your asthma. Further, It is not just a test for your lung health, but rather for human health. It is considered the fifth vital sign, in addition to Blood Pressure, Body Temperature, Heart Rate, and Breath Rate.