Back to Self-Healing Breathwork
The word 'spirit' comes from a latin word meaning 'breath'
Having personally experienced a lifetime of asthma (40 years), I consider myself somewhat of an asthma expert .... My most dangerous experience was with Theophylline drugs....At about the age of 18 years I began regularly puffing on what I then mistakenly thought was a 'wonder drug', Ventolin (a broncho-dilator). I was to stay on this for the next 20 years. The asthma went from acute to chronic, my allergies increased, I was hospitalised numerous times ,and by 1992 I had yet another near fatal attack. Assorted alternative therapies, such as acupuncture, homoeopathy and also diet and meditation certainly helped improve my quality of life at times and assisted my survival in a big way until I was able to access the Buteyko Method. Now I can really learn to live again. Life is very different without asthma as a constant companion.
I am so glad now that I gave it a chance. I shudder to think where I would be and how much more suffering I would have endured if I had not been able to learn Buteyko.
Initially, l was stunned by just how quickly my acute symptoms and therefore my need for reliever medication diminished....
I was stunned by how much emotional... resistance l felt whilst doing initial exercises. I just did not know life without asthma and it took some adjusting....Within a few months l was back in 'control' and extremely aware of how l was feeling and what to do and what not to do to relieve any symptoms the minute they arose.
That was five years ago. (Update... 15 yrs later and I'm still improving!) My general health and quality of life continues to improve. With the Buteyko technique I am so much more aware of just how to avoid any asthmatic symptoms. I will always be potentially asthmatic but today l am totally drug and symptom free.
-S.B.
I have suffered from a sense of suffocation for most of my life. I am 54 now and have searched for relief since the age of 16. I went to therapies galore, and to every type of practitioner, traditional and alternative. I've even been to India - just to put my quest into perspective.
I have also been diagnosed (in my 40's) as an Aspergers person by a doctor who was careful to give out this diagnosis (it's way overly diagnosed). But most of my suffering has come from hyper-ventilation Syndrome: Claustrophobia, IBS, fear of drowning - and the anxiety that results from feeling trapped in a body that malfunctioned and an experiential prison which I could not escape. I always felt that every new experience was akin to literally submerging myself into a new pool of fear. I would sometimes aproach a new situation with a "here it goes - dive!" and take a deep breath to survive. (I never
knew what that was about.) Consequently, I procrastinated a lot in
life. I just did not want to deal with "it" -- which always involved the routine anticipatory anxiety of drowning.
I was at my wits end just 2 months ago -- depressed and feeling hopeless, not suicidal but just in a dark, wet cave of melancholy. I prayed for help. And then I came across Buteyko. And now, after a
month of doing the Buteyko program and practicing persistently, I feel better than I felt for most of my life. I've noticed my many fears have abated somewhat and the feeling of suffocation has receded significantly. Sometimes a feeling of new possibilities fills me with joy.
What a godsend: to experience safety in the world, what a concept! To not be exhausted all of the time, feeling weighted down with the crushing cross of living. I survived -- but was not really living. I made it through. Now, because of Buteyko, I have a new lease on
life. Better late than never! Jason (of the Argonauts fame) would indeed have thought such was a holy grail.
-M.B.