i like the yoga quote - "breathing with your mouth is like eating with your nose". a litttle extreme but it delivers a good point.
i had asthma before i had mecfs so had looked into breathing before i got ill (98). butyeko claimed that mouth/chest breathing causes "hidden hyperventilation". after a few months of using my nose, together with abdominal breathing, it became my natural way to breathe again - so retraining and prompting the autonomic system perhaps.i cured the asthma with breathing, dietary changes and acupuncture...a week later i got mecfs after a dental appointment but sooo glad i was off the high strength, 4 times a day, meds/inhaler- which i think would have negatively affected the mecfs.
when im resting i also practise some abdominal breathing. i generally breath in slowly through my nose whilst my abdomen rises first and then my chest rises for a full use of lung capacity (important and opens and activates the navel, sloar plexus and heart centre.) and then a slow exhale through the nose - exhale is slightly longer than the inhale. sometimes i hum as im exhaling as this vibrates the cells in your body, in particular upper chest and throat, and so relaxes and even detoxes a little i think. sometimes i hum the mantra lam (base chakra) vam (navel) ram (solar plexus) yam (heart centre) ham (throat) om (brow) silent om (crown) with my outbreath. its also good to exercise your voice box like this, especially if you live alone and don't talk much.
also i find alternate nostril breathing, a yoga technique/exercise, to be noticably relaxing and cleansing -hmmm should get back into that.
in chin. med. the lung meridian (hi-phase 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.) follows after the liver meridian (1-3 a.m.) and is followed by the colon (5-7 a.m.)...hence why breath work, and the general state of the lungs, helps to activate the liver and colon. and also, conversely, why the state of the liver and colon meridians affects breathing/lungs. important, i think, is the role of diet as what "sits", for extended periods in the colon, directly affects breathing/lungs- if you imagine that what enters the blood stream from the outer surface of the colon will come into contact with the surface of the lungs. and from the other perspective, the air you breath can affect the colon, i.e. air fresheners, deodorants, etc sitting on the surface of the lungs and charging them up.
i came across salt pipes after suffering pleurisy a couple of years back, which knocked me for a six- took my personality with it, whats left. the heart chakra is supposedly of the most powerfull out of all the chakras/energy centres/glands. within 2 weeks, following feeling reallllly ill, triggered by the inhaler, my lungs were 95% better. probably one of the most powerfull healing experiences since being ill- incidentally they're used by one doc for "lyme patient"s, probably due to their immune enhancing affects. the salt inhalers showed me a couple of things; how much of your immediate anxiety is held in your lungs. my bro, whom i bought one for his asthma, reported the same immediate relaxation following as little as 3-4 inhales on a pipe; also the inhalers initiate immediate bowel movement- which i relate to fact that a soothed lung (meridian) more easily flows into the colon meridian, thus activating it. i do find they can be over-used, with no real bad affects, but you need something in the bowel to create a ground.
breathwork is certainly helpfull in my experience.
edit: also breathing through the nose is more apt to warming the air you breath, cleaning it via the 1000's of little hairs creating vortices and there is more suction required. so you're breathing like nature which uses indirect implosion energy as opposed to direct explosive energy- think bellows, and how they suck air in for blowing on a fire. abdominal breathing implodes and sucks energy into the form...chest breathing is explosive and sends energy away. to remain slightly alkaline, you should implode slightly more than explode, generally speaking, system wide. tai chi, quigong and yoga are implosive forms of exercise.
Mitochondrial function (a key issue for those with CFS) is highly dependent on oxygen levels for energy production
this reminded me of the film about the cornflake inventor, who ran a health farm apparently, and one of the things the patients would do was to be put in a bed outside for, i assumed, a thorough intake of oxygen...anthony hopkins in "the road to wellville"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111001/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_48
