Yoga Benefits Are in Breathing Less: Measure Progress in Health Using DIY Body Oxygen Test To Defeat Symptoms and Diseases with Smart Yoga

by Artour Rakhimov, Volker Schmitz

Starting from the 1960's, yoga books and nearly all yoga teachers started to promote the deep-breathing  one should breathe more air (even at rest) and expel "toxic" CO2. However, hundreds of clinical studies showed and proved that hyperventilation reduces oxygen levels in cells, while CO2 is crucial for health.

Deep breathing, as during pranayama, only looks deep. In reality, as ancient yoga texts teach, pranayama should be done with maximum breath holds and accumulation of CO2 in order to have slower breathing after the practice and 24/7. Only with progress in pranayama (extension of all stages), one can get main yoga benefits, weight loss and other effects. 

Millions of people believe in a myth that gaining health improvements from practicing yoga is about performing progressively more difficult poses. However, you can practice poses for months or years, but this does not provide any guarantee that your health is going to improve.

Yoga benefits and true yoga spirit, as ancient yoga Sanskrit books teach, are in breathing less air 24/7, even less than the tiny medical respiratory norm. Then one can expect more oxygen in the brain and other organs, normal body weight, short natural sleep, and experience real measurable yoga benefits. Here are general ideas that are confirmed by hundreds of clinical studies quoted in this

Severely sick and hospitalized people
* Respiratory frequency at rest and during >25 breaths/min
* Body oxygenation (result for the CP test): <10 s
* Common Sleep is often more than 10 hours (very poor quality), very low energy levels (chronic desire to lie down), numerous symptoms, and a need for medication.

Majority of modern people
* Respiratory frequency at rest and during 15-25 breaths/min
* Body oxygen levels (result for the CP test): 10-25 s
* Common Sleep is often more than 7 hours (poor quality), low energy levels (chronic desire to sit), and some symptoms.

Healthy people (medical norms for breathing)
* Respiratory frequency at rest and during 10-12 breaths/min 
* Body O2 levels (result for the CP test): 40 s
* Common Sleep is about 6 hours naturally (good quality), normal energy levels, absence of chronic diseases and their symptoms, natural desire to have correct posture and stay throughout the day.

Real yoga masters
* Respiratory frequency at rest and during 3-5 breaths/min
* Body oxygenation (result for the CP test): 2-3 minutes; maximum breath 7-9 minutes
* Common Sleep is 2-3 hours naturally and without trying (excellent quality), very high energy levels (natural joy and craving for physical exercise), and natural desire to eat raw foods.

You can eat tons of supplements and superfoods, drink canisters of herbal drinks, have hundreds of colonic irrigations, and practice yoga for many hours every day, but if your breathing (and body oxygen level) remains the same, you will suffer from the same symptoms and require the same dosage of medication.

Ancient yoga sutras (see The Yoga Sutras of the Book of the Spiritual Man and many others) were right claiming benefits of spirit of moving into stillness of breath. Thousands of recent research studies have proven beyond all doubts that chronic health problems, on a cell level, are based on low O2 levels. This relates to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, inflammatory conditions, cystic fibrosis, HIV-AIDS and many other conditions. You cannot have normal body oxygenation and a lifestyle disease. Therefore, freedom from diseases is among main yoga benefits.

Progress in yoga can be measured using a simple DIY body-oxygen test that is described in this book. If you get over 40 seconds of O2 for this easy test, you will be astonished with effects of yoga on your health.

This updated edition of the book provides practical guidance in yoga practice and most essential lifestyle ideas.

229 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 8, 2019

About the author

Dr. Artour Rakhimov is the world's leading inventor of breathing retraining methods and the developer of the Buteyko technique.

* High School Honor student (Grade “A” for all exams)
* Moscow University Honor student (Grade “A” for all exams)
* Moscow University PhD (Math/Physics), accepted in Canada and the UK
* Winner of many regional competitions in mathematics, chess and sport orienteering (during teenage and University years)
* Good classical piano-player: Chopin, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Strauss (up to now)
* Joined Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in 2001
* Former captain of the ski-O varsity team and member of the cross-country skiing varsity team of the Moscow State University, best student teams of the USSR
* Former individual coach of world-elite athletes from Soviet (Russian) and Finnish national teams who took gold and silver medals during World Championships
* Total distance covered by running, cross country skiing, and swimming: over 100,000 km or over 2.5 loops around the Earth
* Author of the publication which won Russian National 1998 Contest of scientific and methodological sport papers
* Author of the most comprehensive book in English (“Normal breathing: the key to vital health”) about the Buteyko breathing method and one of the largest world’s website devoted to breathing training (www.NormalBreathing.com)
* Buteyko breathing teacher (since 2002 up to now) and trainer
* Health writer and health educator