When I breath more deeply, I have more physical and mental energy... why?

[Bansaw]

I have noticed that when I take time to sit down and consciously breath in and out deeply, this has a significant effect on my mental and physical well-being the next day.

For years I've been breathing shallowly during everyday activities, and probably during my sleep as well.
I have to make a concious effort to breath deeply.

This leads me to believe that my CFS is linked to my HPA axis and when I mentally rest, the axis goes into a healing and rejuvination mode and starts to do its job better (this is my theory).

I am pretty convinced that breathing and getting more oxygen in my blood especially to the brain will make a huge difference for me. Although I have tried supplements like Biloba to help, but these haven't really worked. Acetyl-L-Carnitine did somethnig for me but the effects wore off.

Has anyone got any comments on this, or recommendations?

 

[JES]

You might want to have a look at the Wim Hof method and hyperbaric (or normobaric) oxygen administration, which several of us have tried.

Improvement from deep breathing might not necessarily have to do anything with the HPA axis. Mike Snyder presented an interesting observation in the OMF symposium a few weeks ago. He tracks his oxygen with a wearable device 24/7 and he noticed his blood oxygen levels went down when he caught an acute Lyme infection. You can watch the full video here:

 

[Bansaw]

You might want to have a look at the Wim Hof method and hyperbaric (or normobaric) oxygen administration, which several of us have tried.

Improvement from deep breathing might not necessarily have to do anything with the HPA axis. Mike Snyder presented an interesting observation in the OMF symposium a few weeks ago. He tracks his oxygen with a wearable device 24/7 and he noticed his blood oxygen levels went down when he caught an acute Lyme infection. You can watch the full video here:

Thanks, I watched that video, interesting. I might look into a wearable to see if I have blood oxygen issues. I have in fact had chronic Lyme (actually Endemic Typhus which is pretty much the same) so thats a clue to maybe an oxygen pathology.

 

[Cherry]

Thank you for this reminder of the benefits of slow deep breathing. Deep breathing helps with stress reduction, as you mentioned, but also by not using shallow, rapid breathing, the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood will be more optimal. (In other words, hyperventilation causes hypocapnia: not enough carbon dioxide in the blood, which in turn, depresses respiratory drive.) There has been some research that has suggested that many people with ME/CFS experience orthostatic intolerance due to hypocapnia. https://dynamic-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-5918-6-2