Breathing — the Missing Link in Health (and How the Buteyko Method Helps You Reclaim It)
When discussing health, we often think of things like diet, exercise, stress management, or sleep. But there is one vital function that quietly influences every aspect of our well-being, and most people never even think about it:
Breathing.
We breathe automatically. But that does not mean we always breathe well. How we breathe — how often, how deeply, how much volume — massively impacts our mental and physical state. No function of the body or mind is unaffected by our breathing.
Here is what I have learned after more than a decade of coaching:
Breath is the missing link for most.
It is the thread that weaves together everything else we do to build health.
Breathing ties directly into all Four Doctors I teach in my coaching work:
Doctor Rest: Without calm, soft breathing, deep recovery is impossible.
Doctor Nutrition: Breathing affects digestion, metabolism, and the gut microbiome.
Doctor Movement: Breath and posture are inseparably linked.
Doctor Mindset: Conscious breath control is one of the most effective and efficient ways to influence your mental and emotional state.
The truth is that most people's breathing today is pathological and far off the healthy. Not only do I see it in my practice. It has been shown in studies repeatedly. Most people breathe too much volume. Too fast. Too shallow. Through the mouth instead of the nose.
This silent dysfunction contributes to fatigue, anxiety, poor sleep, brain fog, digestive issues, and essentially every health problem imaginable.
The good news is that functional, healthy breathing can be retrained. One of the most effective and scientifically grounded approaches I use with my clients is the Buteyko Method.
This article is part of a new blog series where I introduce the core methods I use in my coaching. We will start with breath because this is where the real change begins.
What is the Buteyko Method?
The Buteyko Method is a structured approach to restoring functional breathing patterns. It was developed in the 1950s by Ukrainian doctor Konstantin Buteyko, who discovered a direct link between dysfunctional breathing and the progression of chronic illness.
At its core, the Buteyko Method aims to reverse chronic overbreathing (hyperventilation) — a habit where people breathe far more air than the body needs.
Overbreathing is not harmless. Breathing more also means exhaling more CO₂. This gas is critical for releasing oxygen from our bloodstream to the cells where it is needed to produce energy. (look up the Bohr effect if you are a physiology nerd) Counterintuitively, breathing more leads to less cell oxygenation and various physiological imbalances in the long run.
The method involves:
Normalising breathing volume - most people breathe way too much volume. I regularly encounter people breathing 2 to 3 times the healthy amount.
Reintroducing nasal breathing - many people are habitual mouth breathers without realising it.
Reducing breathing rate and depth - most people breathe too fast and too shallow, chronically triggering their stress response.
Improving carbon dioxide tolerance - CO₂ triggers our breathing reflex. A low CO₂ tolerance leads to a higher breath rate and chronic overbreathing.
These adjustments may sound simple, but their impact is profound. Retraining your habitual breathing influences every mental and bodily function, from sleep quality and the immune system to digestion, stress resilience, and nervous system balance.
While Buteyko is most commonly associated with asthma and respiratory issues, its applications go far beyond that. Studies and clinical experience show its relevance in anxiety, chronic fatigue, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, digestive disorders, and more. Progressive practitioners of the Buteyko Method, like Misha Sakharoff, even use it in integrated approaches to treat cancer successfully. Others achieve phenomenal results for Long Covid.
Why Breathing Matters in the Bigger Picture
Breathing is not an isolated function. Because breathing is both autonomous and under our voluntary control, it is the gateway into our physiology. It touches every system that keeps you alive, balanced, and well.
In my coaching, I work with what I call the Four Doctors:
Doctor Rest, Doctor Nutrition, Doctor Movement, and Doctor Mindset. These are your four personal health advisors. Imagine them as working in a joint practice for your health and vitality. But to consult any of them, you must see the receptionist first – your breathing.
Doctor Rest: You cannot relax and recharge if your breathing is fast, erratic, or audible. Calm, soft nasal breathing is essential for activating the parasympathetic nervous system — the state that allows for recovery and healing.
Doctor Nutrition: The rate and volume of your breathing affect your metabolic function. Breathing influences cellular oxygenation, digestion and assimilation, and even the balance of your gut microbiome.
Doctor Movement: Breath and posture are deeply interrelated. Functional, pain-free movement requires diaphragmatic control, ribcage mobility, and stable respiration under load.
Doctor Mindset: Your breath is a direct lever into your nervous system. It is one of the fastest and most effective ways to shift your mental and emotional state.
If any of these areas are out of balance, breathing is involved. And if you want to build lasting health and vitality, it is one of the first things to assess and retrain.
In many ways, breathing is the bridge between your conscious and unconscious systems. It is both automatic and trainable. Not only does it reflect your internal state. It allows you to shift it — if you learned how to use it.
If you have seen the Roadmap to Health – my 25-minute masterclass about how I work – you understand that every health journey must reconnect you with your dream if it is to be successful in the long run. That is easier said than done when you are habitually breathing like you are escaping a proverbial tiger. That is one of the reasons why breath retraining is the start for so many of my clients.
Breath is where the system starts to remember how to heal.
How the Buteyko Method Complements Embodied Education
The Buteyko Method was never meant to be just a collection of isolated breathing exercises. (Like it unfortunately became in the West) At its core, it is a lifestyle-based approach to restoring healthy respiratory function. One that naturally integrates with the principles of Embodied Education.
From the beginning, Dr. Buteyko taught that dysfunctional breathing does not exist in a vacuum. It results from a lifestyle that has drifted too far from balance: Poor nutrition, chronic stress, overtraining, shallow sleep, and lack of awareness — all of these factors contribute to chronic overbreathing and must be addressed to restore functional breathing as the foundation for health. That is precisely why the method fits so well within the structure of my coaching work.
At Embodied Education, we do not treat symptoms in isolation. We assess and address the root patterns that led to dysfunction in the first place — physically, mentally, and behaviorally. That includes how you breathe, recover, eat, move, and relate to yourself and the world.
Dr Buteyko gave us a practical, evidence-based starting point. It allows us to rebuild the foundations — through the breath — while simultaneously working with the bigger picture of our lives.
And because breathing is both accessible and adaptable, it becomes a tool for change that my clients can carry into every context: Work. Rest. Training. Eating. Sleeping. Stressful moments.
Better breathing is not the end goal. We want to increase the quality of your life, and breath retraining is one of the most powerful tools to get you there effectively and efficiently.
Over time, this tool becomes a habit. The habit becomes a baseline. And that baseline becomes a new standard for health. In this way, the Buteyko Method does not stand apart from Embodied Education — it embodies it.
What It Looks Like in Practice
In my coaching, breath is often the first layer we assess and retrain. The Buteyko Method gives us a clear framework for doing that — gently, progressively, and with immediate impact.
The process usually begins with awareness. Many people do not realise how dysfunctional their breathing has become until we bring attention to it:
They can hear their breathing at rest.
They breathe through the mouth.
They sigh frequently.
They snore or wake up with a dry mouth.
They hold their breath under stress.
They frequently feel like they can not get a "full" breath, so they breathe even more.
We begin by observing these patterns and progressively retraining functional, healthy habits:
Restoring nasal breathing during both day and night
Normalising breathing volume by reducing the air hunger they have adapted to
Improving CO₂ tolerance using gradual exposure to higher CO₂ levels with individualised exercise programs
Restoring proper diaphragmatic mechanics instead of shallow breathing into the chest and shoulders
Alongside this work, clients often begin to notice changes in areas they were not expecting:
They fall asleep faster and wake up more refreshed.
Their digestion improves.
Anxiety decreases.
Energy stabilises.
They stop feeling "out of breath" during everyday activities.
Their capacity to regulate themselves in stressful situations increases.
🎥 Watch Véronique’s Experience
In this short video, my client Véronique shares how breath retraining helped her restore energy, calm her nervous system, and reconnect with a sense of trust in her body.
The best part? Breathing is portable.
You do not need a mat, a therapist, or a supplement.
You only need awareness — and a willingness to practice.
That is where transformation begins.
Test Your Breathing
One of the first tests in my initial assessments and something I continuously work with in breath retraining is a simple self-assessment called the Control Pause.
The Control Pause, or CP for short, measures how long you can comfortably hold your breath after a normal exhalation — without force or pushing. It offers a snapshot of your habitual breathing patterns and tolerance to CO₂, the key gas that regulates your breathing reflex.
Taking the test is simple. All you need is a timer and a few minutes of undisturbed attention.
🎥 Watch this short video to learn how to take the CP test properly.
The number you get — your CP score — can tell you a lot about your current state of health.
What Your CP Score Means
According to clinical observations and Buteyko research:
Less than 10 seconds Indicates severely impaired breathing function. Often found in people with severe chronic illnesses like cancer, coronary heart disease, COPD, etc. This level typically reflects very low body oxygenation.
10–20 seconds is still well within the pathological range. Many people in this range experience chronic low energy, poor sleep, digestive complaints, brain fog, and frequent illness. Their system is operating under constant strain.
20–40 seconds is still suboptimal. People in this range may appear healthy, yet they often experience dips in performance, mood, or resilience — especially under pressure.
40 seconds and higher is associated with healthy, functional breathing and represents the physiologically healthy norm. Most symptoms tend to resolve at this level of respiratory efficiency. Recovery, energy, and mental clarity improve.
Over 60 seconds is what Dr Buteyko called super healthy. It needs deliberate training but rewards you with decreased sleep requirements (advanced practitioners often sleep less than 6 hours naturally) and increased mental and physical performance due to super-efficient breathing and increased body oxygenation.
The vast majority of people nowadays exhibit pathological CPs around 20 seconds. That is not a diagnosis — it is an invitation. Breathing can be retrained, and the body can adapt quickly when given the correct input. It only took a couple of weeks for Véronique.
The CP test is not about performance. It is not a competition. It is a mirror. The goal is not to increase the CP but your quality of life. The CP only serves as an objective measurement to navigate the journey and track progress. It often becomes the starting point for a completely different relationship with your breath and health.
What to Do Next: Watch the Roadmap to Health
If your Control Pause was lower than expected, you are not alone. Most people today live with compromised breathing patterns without even knowing.
But now, you have taken the first step: You brought awareness to the topic. The next step is understanding how your breathing fits into the bigger picture of health because breath is never isolated. It connects to how you eat, sleep, move, and think. To build lasting vitality, you must approach these areas in a structured, integrated way.
That is what I teach in the Roadmap to Health — my free 25-minute video masterclass in which I explain my approach to helping you overcome aches & pains, build health & vitality, and reconnect you to your embodied wisdom.
In this video, I walk you through:
The four essential steps on every successful health journey
Why symptom suppression and "hacks" often fail to create lasting change
How breathing interacts with mindset, recovery, nutrition, and movement
An actual case study and how clients like Véronique turned things around through simple but strategic steps
It is the exact framework I use in my coaching practice. The Roadmap to Health is not one-size-fits-all advice. It is a framework for individualised, practical strategies that meet you where you are and build the health that allows you to live life fully.
Whether you are dealing with low energy, chronic tension, poor sleep, anxiety, or digestive issues — your path back to health and vitality starts here.
With clarity. With breath. With a Roadmap.