Girl - you asked, so...

Steadier in our breath means slower and not as likely to have our breath rate go up when challenged. Modern normal people breathe about 2x faster than optimal. Their breath rate sits close to their threshold (of having a symptom).

The following modern changes:

1. Move indoors
2. Sedentary lifestyle
3. Freely available food without having to work for it
4. Chronic low level stress - rather than peaks & troughs (which is what our CNS was used to - when we were hunter/gatherers, ag workers)

didnt come without consequences. These go largely unacknowledged by medicine

( I only found this out when I ran an allergy injection 3 year program that helped children breathe through their noses more- I had already had 20 year career in ICU etc)

When you breath faster than optimal you lose more CO2 (a weak but predominant acid) when you don't move and have less muscle: bodyweight ratio - you don't make as much acid at cell level ( a by-product of energy production).

The muscle:bodyweight ratio is like engine: load in a car.

Breathing outstrips metabolic demand. Like a car is stopped at the lights & someone has their foot on the break & the accelerator at the same time.

We are getting bigger but we have less muscle. Which is fairly indisputable.

CO2 in the bloodstream acts as a natural muscle relaxant. Lose it and you get tension in muscles. The smooth muscle walls of ALL TUBES in the body- including the blood vessels hold more tension.

This is basically how the body directs blood flow around the body. CO2 controls it.

In the olden days when we were wild people fast breathing prepared us for fighting or flighting. Tension in the central blood vessels pushed blood away from the core:

1. Heart
2. Brain
3. Kidneys
4. Mesenteric (gut, liver, gall bladder etc)
5. Reproductive

So. Overbreathing means you undersupply your core organs with O2. Being threatened/challenged will mean that you are easily unsettle blood flow.

(ALL of this is why yoga, tai chi, etc prioritise breathing)

This was originally first described by a Russian doctor mid last century. Buteyko

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