Perhaps the most startling fact about breathing is that it can be wilfully controlled - one can significantly change the depth and frequency and volume per minute etc.

Yogi’s are famous for demonstrating extraordinary physical feats - they have been observed under rigorous scientific conditions, stunning observers by remaining conscious after stopping their brain waves and heart beat etc. And the discipline which they adhere to above all others is their control of breath. The feats of yogi’s, which Western science cannot explain, along with the failure to discover the cause or cure for any of the “diseases of civilization”, points to  a humbling technical deficiency. 

For most people, there are two things they need to know about breathing. Firstly, just about everything they have heard about it is wrong. And secondly, there is not a more direct approach to enhancing the health and well being than by taking deliberate control of it.

If you change your breathing, your entire biological chemistry will change as well.  The rate at which oxygen is delivered to all cells and tissue, the pH, the aperture of all vessels, blood pressure, pulse, the production of hormones and even the excitability of the nervous system, are all directly regulated by the way in which we breathe. This is because all of the above systems are regulated by carbon dioxide – and the amount of carbon dioxide is determined by the volume of air we breathe. If we over-breathe for example, the level of carbon dioxide in our body will fall—there will be a deficiency. This is because the indigenous level of carbon dioxide in the human organism should be around 200 times greater than what is in the air we breathe. Maintaining an optimal level of carbon dioxide is a key to the optimal functioning of the human organism.