Long COVID is debilitating, and recovering from it incredibly difficult since the person suffering has very little energy to expend. Breathing exercises offer a simple, low energy approach to recovery that get results.

Often people are sceptical about the efficacy of breath as an approach to healing. After all it is such a simple act, and something we do unconsciously from the moment we’re born. Long COVID programs often mention breath but usually only in the sense of relaxation. There is little focus on using breath the reset the chemical balance in the body.

Long COVID and Carbon Dioxide

There is, however, a growing body of research that shows that people suffering from the symptoms of Long COVID have lowered levels of carbon dioxide despite apparently normal respiratory rates.

A paper published in the Journal of Breath Research published in December 2021, titled “Levels of end-tidal carbon dioxide are low despite normal respiratory rate in individuals with long COVID” by Jamie Wood et al states the following:

“It is apparent that hypocapnia* is present in the absence of hyperventilation in patients with long COVID following less severe acute infection, potentially contributing to or as a manifestation of the underlying pathophysiology…. The possible causes of hypocapnia in this cohort may include increases in baseline respiration rate compared to pre-COVID-19 infection, disruption of the autonomic nervous system that may also be the cause of many long COVID symptoms, or organ damage that may not be detectable on routine clinical imaging and assessment.”

(*hypocapnia; a decrease in blood carbon dioxide (CO2) levels below the normal reference range of 35 mmHg).

The effects of reduced carbon dioxide levels cannot be over-emphasised. The Bohr Effect states that haemoglobin has a lower affinity for oxygen if partial pressure of carbon dioxide increases. In other words, the higher the levels of carbon dioxide, the more likely it is that oxygen will be offloaded to tissues to meet demand. And what happens if oxygen doesn’t get to your cells? Fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, breathlessness, heart palpitations, postural tachycardia syndrome, allergies, rashes, anxiety and depression, and more.

Put simply, COVID can lower your base levels of carbon dioxide. And once the body has adjusted to that, restoring normal levels can be arduous and uncomfortable. If your experience of COVID was primarily congestion, difficulty breathing, or abnormal fatigue, or, if, before getting COVID, you had energy issues, snored heavily, suffered from anxiety or depression, or talked for a living then you are likely to have been more susceptible to Long COVID.

Healing

The good news is you can adjust your levels of carbon dioxide back to normal. The bad news is, it takes time, patience, and commitment, and can feel intolerable. The breathing exercises that I offer are based on the principles of Buteyko breathing, and involve restoring breath functionality, and resetting the carbon dioxide tolerance of the chemoreceptors. The exercises are simple yet difficult to master but progress is quantifiable with a simple test.

My program takes one hundred and fifty minutes to learn. Improvement requires short amounts of practice at regular intervals throughout the day, for example, three to five minutes every hour or every two hours. And you should see improvement in just a few sessions.

If you would like to learn more about the program please email me at info @babacool.net.