050. 3 Tips for Better Breathing

We can go weeks without food, days without water, but minutes without air. So therefore, air is the most essential. Here are some tips for better breathing I got from the book, The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown (buy it here).

First, we have to figure out how good of a breather you are. So, we’ll take a test called the BOLT test. Bolt stands for Body Oxygen Level Test. Here’s how you do it.

1. You take a normal breath in and plug your nose, then you start the stopwatch.

2. Once you have a strong desire to breathe, but not so strong that you are gasping for air, unplug your nose and stop the clock.

3. What’d you get? 20 is average but we want to work our way up to 40 if possible. Each extra 5 seconds after 20 is related to significant gains in energy and reduced breathlessness during exercise.

So how do we improve this score? Here are three tips for breathing better.

1. Always breathe through your nose. Noses were made for breathing, mouths were made for eating. If you can’t breathe through your nose, go see your doctor.

2. Wear a piece of tape over your mouth when you sleep at night. If you aren’t sure if you breathe through your nose or your mouth at night, do this. You haven’t experienced a great night’s rest until you’ve slept with your mouth closed the whole night. Buy the tape here.

3. Go for a walk. This exercise is cool to improve your breathing. As you’re walking. Plug your nose and count your paces. Once you’ve gotten to a point where you have a strong urge to breathe, release your nose and recover your breath within 2-3 breaths. If it takes more than that, then you were holding your breath too long. As you train, your paces per breath hold will go up.

So, there are three tips to breathing better. Get on it!