Patrick Obolgogiani (00:02)
Sasha, such an honor to have you here. welcome. Why don't we start at kind of the foundations here? Can you tell us who is Dr. Buteyko and how did you first come across him and his work?

Sasha Yakovleva (00:17)
Absolutely, I'll be happy to. Dr. Buteyko is a kind of legendary Russian and Ukrainian physiologist. And in 1952, he made a revolutionary discovery about breathing, which really made people to rethink what breathing is and how it works, and especially CO2.

Sasha Yakovleva (00:45)
And also Dr. Buteyko is a founder and original author of the method of breathing normalization, which has his name, the Buteyko method, and I teach that method.

Patrick Obolgogiani (01:02)
How did he first come across his work?

Sasha Yakovleva (01:07)
basically out of desperation, it was in 2008, and my husband suddenly developed severe asthma. And even though generally speaking, he was a very strong and very healthy man, and he had asthma his whole life, but it didn't bother him much. He was very athletic, but he

Sasha Yakovleva (01:35)
Caught some kind of an exotic flu. It was a pre-COVID time, but you know, it was kind of reminiscent of COVID in a way. It was very strong. And within six months, he became basically disabled. He was not able to work, he was hardly able to walk, developed severe allergies, and just really suffered from shortage of air all the time.

Sasha Yakovleva (02:04)
He felt like he could die at any moment because at any moment he would have he could have a severe suffocation attack, asthma attack.

Sasha Yakovleva (02:17)
So both of us, he was a clinical psychologist and also an acupuncturist, and both of us were healers. And we started just using everything we knew and you know using all our connections with holistic healers to help him. And many things which we did helped him, but nothing really.

Sasha Yakovleva (02:47)
created a radical difference. Nothing was a cure. And then again out of desperation he started using more conventional methods, just like rescue inhalers and all kind of medicine doctors would prescribe to him. And also he found it helpful but it would not really make a difference.

Sasha Yakovleva (03:12)
So it looked like he was basically heading towards his death. And at that time, a friend of mine reminded me about Dr. Buteyko. I knew about him, but I kind of forgot. I knew about him because originally I was educated as a journalist, and I published a first

Patrick Obolgogiani (03:24)
Mm.

Sasha Yakovleva (03:40)
Holistic magazine in Russia. And that magazine started as a just very small newsletter. And you know, I just wanted to publish this newsletter to find answers to my own questions about health and well-being and spirituality. But the newsletter, very fast within two years, became a national magazine and became well known and very popular.

Sasha Yakovleva (04:07)
So at a certain point, Dr. Buteyko called me as an editor of that magazine, and he asked me to interview him. And I said, you know, what what is your method? What does it do? And he said that it can cure 100 about 150 the most widespread diseases. And I didn't believe him.

Sasha Yakovleva (04:34)
At that time I really didn't know anything about breathing, and I thought, you know, I would believe you if you say that it could cure one disease, maybe two, but 150 is just impossible. So I refused to meet with him. But he was mostly known for his work with asthma, because he always used asthma as a model for.

Patrick Obolgogiani (04:46)
Yeah.

Patrick Obolgogiani (04:50)
Yeah.

Sasha Yakovleva (05:03)
Just even to explain how his method works. And sometimes his method was even called natural asthma cure. So a friend of mine reminded me about it. And since we already tried everything basically and we're completely desperate, I called the Buteyko Clinic in Moscow.

Sasha Yakovleva (05:27)
And because my name was known, I was connected to, they connected me to the widow of Dr. Buteyko, Ludmila Buteyko. And at that point I already learned that asthma was an incurable disease. So I didn't I wasn't going to ask her if they could cure my husband's asthma. I was very carefully asking if you could help somehow.

Sasha Yakovleva (05:57)
And Ludmila Buteyko said, of course we can cure his asthma. And listening to her, I thought, Wow, this doesn't sound right, that doesn't sound good. And then I asked her if they can provide a treatment for my husband. My husband was American, so he didn't speak Russian, that's why I was doing everything, arranging everything for her for him.

Sasha Yakovleva (06:25)
She said, Yes, we can. Just pay us ten thousand dollars and we'll cure his asthma, which again didn't sound good. And then I said, Okay, but how I'm going to pay you? Do we have either going to have any contract, you know, any refund guarantee if it doesn't work or anything? And she said.

Sasha Yakovleva (06:54)
No, just transfer ten thousand dollars to me and everything will be fine. So again, it's just you know, a normal like conventional, you know, consumer would just hang up right there. But it was so much sincerity and strength in her voice that somehow both my husband and I felt that it was the right thing to do.

Patrick Obolgogiani (07:04)
Red flags all over the place.

Sasha Yakovleva (07:22)
So fortunately we did have $10,000 and we just transferred to Moscow, transferred it to Moscow and flew there and visited the clinic and started receiving treatments. To our total surprise, the Buteyko method was completely different compared to what we assumed, what we thought about it, and gradually learning the method and more even more so the philosophy of method.

Sasha Yakovleva (07:52)
Both of us were f falling in love with it. And it helped my husband tremendously. It really changed his situation radically. And at the end of that visit, we were even when we still were when we still were in Moscow, we decided to take professional training to be certified as specialist. And at the end of that visit,

Patrick Obolgogiani (07:57)
Mm.

Sasha Yakovleva (08:21)
Ludmilo Buteyko and Dr. Novozhilov, who was the medical director of the Buteyko Clinic, Dr. Buteyko already passed away at that time. So they asked us to represent the Buteyko method in the US and in the West at that time in general, and we agreed. So that's how the whole story started. And also I need to mention that even though the goal was just to help my husband.

Sasha Yakovleva (08:49)
While learning the method in Moscow, I realized that I also wasn't healthy. I just was very ignorant thinking that I was healthy. But in reality I wasn't. And this method also helped me to improve my health tremendously to an unbelievable degree.

Patrick Obolgogiani (09:14)
Thank you for the story and a very personal one, I'm sure. Maybe a good place to start almost like as a bridgehead towards what we're actually talking about here is the is the idea that I read somewhere that you're because you actually spent time with Dr. Buteyko and one of the few people in the world who teach this kind of complete form of what has been taught, including the philosophy. Like, what's the difference here between the complete form?

Patrick Obolgogiani (09:42)
And maybe the not as complete, like what do you think is the core essence that you think is sometimes missed?

Sasha Yakovleva (09:50)
Well, first of all, you know, Dr. Buteyko made more than one discovery. In in the West, it's mostly this. His f not even in the West everywhere, including Russia. his first discovery about breathing is the one which is known. But he made a few more also very important discoveries. And I think it's really beneficial for people to know about it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (09:56)
Hmm.

Sasha Yakovleva (10:19)
But I also think it's too much for this podcast. So today we will probably concentrate on his discovery about breathing. Well, often people

Sasha Yakovleva (10:33)
Misunderstand even what the Buteyko method is. They assume that it's just a breathing technique which will help you somehow. The Buteyko method is not a breathing technique at all. And a lot of breathing techniques were created when someone maybe had some health problems or some other problems or just was curious about breathing, and suddenly they had an eureka moment.

Sasha Yakovleva (11:01)
And they what will happen if I breathe this way, right? And it probably will help me. And if it did help this person, then that person started teaching that technique and passing it to others. That's kind of very typical, right? The story behind the Buteyko method is completely different. so the way how that method was formed, established, was that.

Patrick Obolgogiani (11:15)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (11:33)
at certain point and that were and this was during the Cold War, the government of Soviet Union decided to investigate breathing and they they established a big laboratory in Siberia in the city of academicians. It was called Akadem Gorodok, the city of Academicians.

Sasha Yakovleva (12:01)
And they invited Dr. Buteyko to be the head of this laboratory. They literally gave him unlimited resources. He was able to buy any equipment to invi to examine b breathing in any country in the world. He also had resources to

Sasha Yakovleva (12:27)
Employ any doctors, fitness instructors, health professionals he needed. So it was a big group of scientists and doctors and other health professionals who examined breathing for years and years and years. And the result of this work was called the Buteyko method. So that's kind of one difference. The other difference is that.

Sasha Yakovleva (12:56)
You know, people often assume that any breathing technique is good for them.

Sasha Yakovleva (13:06)
It's not true. In fact, Dr. Buteyko said that breathing is as powerful as nuclear energy or radiation, we can say. So if you know what you are doing with your breathing, it could generate fantastic results. But if you don't, then be careful because it's very dangerous to mess up with breathing, right? So different breathing techniques.

Sasha Yakovleva (13:35)
generate different results and have different goals. And I could talk about it, but maybe it's less important. But the Buteyko method has a very specific goal. And the goal is breathing normalization, which leads to health improvement, and it leads to health improvement through the increase of CO2 in the lungs.

Patrick Obolgogiani (14:04)
Mm-hmm.

Sasha Yakovleva (14:05)
And this goal is accomplished by two things by normalizing our automatic breathing patterns, meaning how a person breathes you know twenty four seven, and also by establishing a specific lifestyle.

Patrick Obolgogiani (14:26)
Hmm. Maybe a good way to start exploring this entire idea is this this this even on this very podcast, people talk often about deep breathing. And I guess there's different ways to interpret that, but I would say, or at least I've heard you say that this can actually be kind of harmful. What's going on there? Can you maybe start there? what's the problem with deep breathing?

Sasha Yakovleva (14:58)
Well, the first problem is with the philosophy of it, because the philosophy of more is always better doesn't always work, right? Even we can say that like two, three hundred years ago, people sincerely believed that the more they would eat, the better it will be for them, right? But a modern person knows that it's not true, you know, a person would laugh at this idea.

Sasha Yakovleva (15:28)
Yeah. But we still not me not me actually, but a lot of people still believe that it's applicable when it comes to breathing. And that's why it's very common to advise, you know, take a big breath. Take sorry, take a deep breath to say that.

Sasha Yakovleva (15:49)
Well, it's important what people mean by deep breath. You know what what is a deep breath? Usually when people say it, they mean a big breath. So if someone would tell another person, take a deep breath, most likely you will see that the person will do this. Right? It's not necessarily a deep breath, it's a big breath, it's excessive breath. And

Sasha Yakovleva (16:18)
Just like eating excessively is not good for health, breathing excessively is also not good for health, but it's just thousands times stronger than eating, because breathing impacts us much more than what we eat or what we drink. we can live without.

Patrick Obolgogiani (16:39)
Let's go deeper in that. What do you what do you mean? Like I I get the point that we're taking what twenty thousand breaths per day. So this this volume is different than than what we eat. but w what' what do you mean by the fact that it's the impact of the way we breathe is much stronger than what we eat?

Sasha Yakovleva (16:56)
Yeah. Well, first of all, what we do all the time affects us more than what we do sometimes and we we breathe all the time every minute of our existence. But also Dr. Buteyko explained this comparison this way that we can survive without food for approximately months. We can survive without water for approximately a week.

Patrick Obolgogiani (17:04)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (17:26)
and we can survive without air just for a few minutes. And it shows the impact of those three substances which we take in on our bodies, on our whole system. So yes, the air is very important and how we breathe greatly affects our well-being, not just even health, but our well being.

Patrick Obolgogiani (17:54)
Yeah. Can we go deeper into the physiology? You kind of touched on this a little bit. So when you take a deep, like a big breath, not a deep breath, which, as you mentioned, sometimes when I talk about deep breathing, I mean using diaphragm instead of the shallow breathing, is the opposite where you have just the chest moving. And deep breathing is when you actually engage your diaphragm better. And it comes like to the core and the entire rib cage expands, which is like the like the actual functional breathing should look like. But when it comes to like the

Patrick Obolgogiani (18:22)
Physiology of a big breath. What's happening there that is causing this damage that you're kind of referring to here?

Sasha Yakovleva (18:36)
I'll answer this question, but I also want to say that functional breathing looks different from the Buteyko perspective. Of okay, shall I save it for little or touch it next?

Patrick Obolgogiani (18:46)
Yeah, happy to go into that as well.

Patrick Obolgogiani (18:51)
Well, maybe you could just on a slight tangent we can take a quick quick detour to at least cover that as well. I'd be curious to hear.

Sasha Yakovleva (18:55)
Okay.

Sasha Yakovleva (18:59)
Sure. So of course any healthy breathing is diaphragmatic breathing and the Buteyko breathing is not an exception. It's also diaphragmatic breathing because the diaphragm should be engaged in the process of breathing, right? That's just the foundation. However, most people, even breathing instructors, when they think about diaphragmatic breathing.

Sasha Yakovleva (19:25)
They automatically think about big breathing, deep breathing, excessive breathing. They think that if it's diaphragmatic breathing, the belly needs to expand. And as you said, even the rip cage also, you know, has to expand a little bit. That's not how it looks at all from the Buteyko breathing perspective. So from the perspective of Dr. Buteyko, healthy breathing looks invisible.

Sasha Yakovleva (19:55)
Meaning that that's kind of an I think he used in his work. He would tell a person, imagine that you are standing in front of a big mirror, right? And your torso is naked, and you're looking at your reflection in the mirror. Nothing in the mirror should indicate that you are breathing. That's how healthy breathing looks like.

Sasha Yakovleva (20:22)
Of course it's diaphragmatic breathing, meaning the diaphragm always moves, but if we are not running or jumping, if we are in a kind of resting position, it moves so little.

Sasha Yakovleva (20:40)
So gently in such a relaxed f way that you can determine whether you cannot determine whether it moves or not by looking at your reflection. And I can even show you right now that I am breathing. I don't know if you could see it or not, but my abdominal area doesn't move when I breathe.

Sasha Yakovleva (21:12)
Right. It's diaphragmatic breathing, but it's greatly reduced air intake.

Sasha Yakovleva (21:21)
That's why the belly is not moving actively. Does it make sense?

Patrick Obolgogiani (21:26)
Fascinating. You know, it does. although it's like, as you mentioned, very much juxtaposed with like even in the research community, one of our advisors is John Dickinson, professor in the University of Kent, and has been studying dysfunctional breathing using like a motion capture, and they look at the different body parts moving, and what they notice is that there's a distinction between dysfunctional and functional in the way the body moves, but in both cases it still moves, which is like

Sasha Yakovleva (21:54)
Yeah.

Patrick Obolgogiani (21:56)
Very different from what you're what you're saying here. And just to be clear, like what do you think what percentage of the of the day you're able to maintain that level of low breathing? What do you think for yourself who's been like, you know, studying this for years and years?

Sasha Yakovleva (22:08)
All the time unless I'm physically active.

Patrick Obolgogiani (22:15)
Maybe one little detail here is like 'cause like I think a lot of the pushback comes from in the kind of scientific and like respiratory physiology, for example, where they you know they could claim that the bodies kind of evolve to regulate CO two quite tightly and and automatically. And so if there's like, you know, chronically low CO two, like we're kind of saying here, like there should be a reason for it. So I'm just curious to hear like how do you think about that? Like

Patrick Obolgogiani (22:45)
How is it that we've evolved evolved to such so many of us today in this world to kind of overbreathe what's happened here?

Sasha Yakovleva (22:52)
Yeah, this is a very interesting and a very important question. Because Dr. Buteyko determined that we don't breathe the same way as our ancestors did. Our breathing, automatic breathing patterns are very different. The question is why, right? Because those automatic breathing patterns they actually lead to shortage of CO2 in modern people.

Sasha Yakovleva (23:21)
But why breathing patterns of modern people are different compared to how it used to be? And the answer is very simple: the lifestyle, because breathing patterns are always the result of the lifestyle.

Sasha Yakovleva (23:40)
Even if you look at a person who is greatly o overweight and sedentary and maybe not that healthy, this person you will see that this person will be

Sasha Yakovleva (23:57)
Will be breathing heavily and excessively, and that's the result of that person's lifestyle. And you know, a young athletic person most likely will be breathing in a not always, but most likely will be breathing in a healthier way. So the difference between lifestyle, imagine how your lifestyle would be if you would be born 200 years ago.

Sasha Yakovleva (24:28)
first of all, most likely you will be married, you will have like maybe five children by now or more, and you will be hunting, you know, the whole day long, you will be spending time on riding a horse, you know, you will be building a house and so on. But the point is that

Patrick Obolgogiani (24:47)
Mm.

Sasha Yakovleva (24:56)
you will be physically active the whole day long. Right? You will not be a sitting, you won't be sitting in a temperature controlled room in front of the computer screen, you know, and it goes on and on and on like that. You know, you won't be taking warm showers in the morning.

Sasha Yakovleva (25:21)
You know, and once in a while when you would need to wash yourself, you probably would jump into a cold mountain stream, something like that. Yeah. So our

Sasha Yakovleva (25:33)
lifestyle, the life of a modern person is extremely different compared to how people used to live. And because of that, our breathing patterns are different as well. Now before people were more active for longer periods of time, approximately between four and six hours a day. And when we are physically active

Sasha Yakovleva (26:01)
The body generates much more CO2. And that's why people had more CO2 before. But modern style lifestyle is different. We people mostly sit, which leads to a loss of CO2. They often talk a lot, that also leads to a loss of CO2. And then often people have just like

Sasha Yakovleva (26:28)
40 minutes after work and they run to a gym and do really fast aerobic exercises or trying to lift up really heavy weights. And that also leads to a loss of CO2 because

Sasha Yakovleva (26:50)
because these exercises could be too much for their breathing. Right? So people exercise intensely and because their breathing is already weak, they breathe through the mouth a lot, they breathe heavily, and in this case even a workout could actually generate a negative result and create a loss of CO2.

Patrick Obolgogiani (27:17)
I don't think we actually went into that yet. Like you talk about the loss of CO2, but what's the problem with that? Why is it so bad?

Sasha Yakovleva (27:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's an excellent question. So all over the world people knew before, they used to know about a substance which greatly affects and regulates our health.

Sasha Yakovleva (27:45)
In India it was called prana, in China it was called qi, and it also had different names, but it was known in many by many cultures. But what is it really? You know? And if like when yogis were asked what is prana?

Sasha Yakovleva (28:07)
They would say prana is something to do with breathing. It's not what we inhale and it's not what we exhale, but it's what's left in the body after exhaling. Scientifically, what's left in the body after exhaling is carbon dioxide.

Sasha Yakovleva (28:29)
which always stays in the lungs. When the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs becomes zero, we die. We cannot be life without it. Well doctors still sometimes call carbon dioxide a waste gas. Not only doctors, but it's kind of like you know, an idea, common idea.

Sasha Yakovleva (28:59)
Dr. Buteyko discovered that the reality is opposite to people's belief. He called carbon dioxide in the lungs the main regulator of all functions of the body. The way how a nervous system works, it depends on the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs, metabolism, really all systems of the body depend on it.

Sasha Yakovleva (29:29)
And Dr. Buteyko determined that when we have a great shortage of carbon dioxide in the lungs, meaning very little carbon dioxide, we are very ill. A person is very ill. And it's not just one disease, it could be a variety of different diseases because

Sasha Yakovleva (29:54)
Everyone has a predisposition to have a certain disease. I call it a tendency to have a certain disease. And it often comes from a family, right? However, Dr. Buteyko determined

Sasha Yakovleva (30:08)
If the level of carbon dioxide is low, we have this disease. If the level of carbon dioxide is normal or even higher than the norm, then this tendency stays as a tendency for the rest of our lives, but we could be very healthy and not to be affected by that tendency at all.

Patrick Obolgogiani (30:34)
And going a bit deeper, like, do you know the physiology here? Like, is it somehow that the the the carbon dioxide in the lungs is acting as a sort of trigger for the other biological systems, particularly the metabolic system? Like, w do you know what what's the mechanism of how it's affecting the other systems?

Sasha Yakovleva (30:55)
Mm-hmm. Dr. Novozhilov in Moscow when you know during my first visit to the Buteyko clinic, I asked him a similar question and said, sometimes my patients ask me how how the Buteyko method could co could help allergies.

Sasha Yakovleva (31:21)
And he said, My answer is if you increase your level of carbon dioxide in the lungs, which is measurable, your allergies will decrease proportionally with it, and eventually you will become allergies, allergy-free. And then the patients would ask him, Well, can you explain the mechanism of it physiologically? How does it work? And and he said

Sasha Yakovleva (31:49)
Do you really want to know it? And they absolutely we want to know it. And then he would say, wait a minute, he goes to another room and bring, you know, like 10 different posters, huge ones, which shows the biochemic chemical process in the body. And he says,

Sasha Yakovleva (32:12)
I'm so sorry the process is very complicated, but I can give you a glimpse of it. And then he talks for two hours, you know, using his medical terms and chemical terms, and his patients are like, No, no, no, that's enough, you know. We don't want to know it. So I'm not even a doctor and the process, the physiological process is very complicated, but

Sasha Yakovleva (32:39)
For example, how does it affect metapol metabolism? You know, if you go to on my website, breathingcenter.com, you will see you will find there my interviews with doctors, like one of them is called

Sasha Yakovleva (32:57)
hyperventilation and its consequences, I think. And it's my interview with an American doctor, Dr. Ira Parkman, where he briefly explains how it's connected to the function of metabolism and also how CO2 affects the function of kidneys. There is another interview on my website when I interviewed Dr. Novozhilov and he explains you know exactly what happens

Sasha Yakovleva (33:28)
in the body when the l level of carbon dioxide is low and people start having all kind of breathing difficulties, you know, how does that work and so on. So with the nervous with the nervous system, the brief explanation is that a so so-called excitability of nerve cells

Patrick Obolgogiani (33:39)
Yeah, definitely we'll check those out.

Sasha Yakovleva (33:54)
Depends on the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs. So when this level is normal or higher than normal, then the nerve cells are not very reactive. But when the level of carbon dioxide goes down, it kind of activates flight-of-fight response, and the nerve cells become very reactive.

Sasha Yakovleva (34:21)
That's why when people suffer from chronic hyperventilation, which always creates a shortage or di deficit of carbon dioxide, they often have anxiety. But th then when they normalize their breathing and improve their levels or their concentration of carbon dioxide, they don't have anxiety anymore, or their anxiety becomes greatly reduced. So like that.

Patrick Obolgogiani (34:50)
I wanna go back to kind of early on you mentioned this claim around 150 diseases that breathing can can fix or you know heal or support with. Wha where are we now? Like if you think about that was like, you know, already decades ago. Like what I'm I'm sure like there's a lot of work to do still to maybe validate the rest of them, but where are we with kind of understanding based on the research of what it already we know that it can actually heal? And I know Astina we we've talked about.

Patrick Obolgogiani (35:20)
And so I think I've quite a big body of evidence there. But is there something else that is worth mentioning where it's like at least glimpses of of kind of validation towards that claim?

Sasha Yakovleva (35:32)
Yeah, well again if you go on my website and you click on natural healing, and then you will see you know a button says all conditions reversible by breathing normalization. You will see that list. It's a very impressive list, and actually there are two of them. One of them was created by Dr. Buteyko.

Sasha Yakovleva (35:58)
And the second one it's kind of an updated version, which the original list edited by Dr. Pachman, an American physician. Yeah. So it helps with all kind of conditions. Of course, you know, first, you know, anything related to breathing.

Sasha Yakovleva (36:24)
Asthma, COPD, emphysema, sleep apnea, you know, pa in those skin, then the problems with the nervous system, anxiety, panic attacks, and even more serious diseases, all kinds of digestive problems, many problems,

Sasha Yakovleva (36:51)
with the heart, cardio problems, kidney problems, joint problems. Yeah.

Patrick Obolgogiani (36:59)
Yeah. And maybe I can look into it myself as well, but i in case you know like where which one of those has the kind of a strong body of evidence and where there's like more work to do where we can study that further.

Sasha Yakovleva (37:01)
Vision pro so

Sasha Yakovleva (37:14)
It's difficult to talk about evidence. So the diseases I mentioned, it's like I mostly work with people who have those conditions, and I was able to help them by teaching them the Buteyko method. Regarding evidence, well in Soviet Union.

Patrick Obolgogiani (37:25)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (37:40)
There were quite a few medical trials regarding different diseases. But I in the United States or in the West it was very few, and all of them were about asthma. And by the standards of the Buteyko doctors from Russia, they were not even conducted well.

Patrick Obolgogiani (37:47)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (38:07)
But still they showed really good positive results. So that's why it's difficult to talk about evidence. But there is an experience of many years of work of the Buteyko Clinic. And the Buteyko Clinic in Moscow, of course, it's just like it's a container of precious, precious knowledge which could be used now.

Patrick Obolgogiani (38:23)
Mm.

Patrick Obolgogiani (38:32)
Yeah, definitely.

Sasha Yakovleva (38:36)
But will it be used? You know, we don't know because

Sasha Yakovleva (38:43)
Kind of the philosophy of health in accordance with Dr. Buteyko's work is quite different compared to the conventional approach. So

Patrick Obolgogiani (38:57)
Yeah. Well definitely let me have a look if I can find the resources you mentioned in Russian language, because then with modern tools you can transl translate that and maybe we can summarize it into like a resource for people to look into. Cause like it sounds like there's some golden golden nuggets in there, at least in terms of like what to look for next when it comes to studies. And and as you know, we're hoping to like be at the forefront of both research and education when it comes to how breathing can affect your health. so

Patrick Obolgogiani (39:26)
Let's see. Let's see what we can do there.

Sasha Yakovleva (39:28)
Yeah, and and the d the list of the diseases, of course, it's all in English. Everything everything is in English and we'll mm.

Patrick Obolgogiani (39:32)
Yes. Great. Amazing. Well, I think we've kind of alluded to what the method is, but it might be nice to have a bit of a taster for people that wanna at least understand in practice what it's like. And then of course there's people that well there's yourself that that you can re can reach out to. And then there's a a whole cascade of people that you've trained over the years in your center that are now teaching the similar method.

Patrick Obolgogiani (40:02)
across the world. But in case people want to get a taste of like what's a good way to do it? Like sh can we do like a quick one here together to understand what we're talking about.

Sasha Yakovleva (40:14)
Absolutely. So the first step is always to establish healthy breathing, right? And healthy breathing is pretty easy, though it could be very difficult for people. It means breathing in and out through the nose all the time, no exceptions almost, right?

Patrick Obolgogiani (40:23)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (40:36)
So that's step number one. You're breathing through the nose right now, in and out. Yeah? Bingo. So the first step is accomplished. The second step, listen to your breathing. Do you hear any sound? Is your breathing audible?

Sasha Yakovleva (40:59)
Your breathing is silent, it's inaudible. Perfect. That's how breathing, healthy breathing sounds like, right? Many people, including children, breathe like this. You hear it? Here's how yeah, so that's unhealthy breathing. So it's very important for a person to switch to silent breathing. The third one is invisible breathing.

Patrick Obolgogiani (41:15)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (41:29)
Many people breathe in a way that their shoulders move like

Sasha Yakovleva (41:37)
Elderly people, often people who have COPD or emphysema, breathe like this. So breathing should be invisible. The shoulders should not move. People who have anxiety often breathe in a way that their chest moves. Should not move. But just put your hand on your chest and check.

Sasha Yakovleva (42:06)
If your chest moves because of briding.

Sasha Yakovleva (42:17)
Perfect. Nothing to correct here. Now, as I said, eventually even the abdominal area should not move in an obvious way. When we breathe, you can put your hand on your abdominal area and just check. Does your belly move?

Patrick Obolgogiani (42:44)
It does slightly. I can of course force it not to move, but natural naturally it would move.

Sasha Yakovleva (42:47)
No, they're not force, it's about force. Yeah. And it's it's totally fine right now. There is nothing bad about it, but eventually if you really want to establish the Buteyko breathing, then even the abdominal area should not move in any obvious way. It's like if you imagine the whole respiratory system as a balloon, right? And if you put a lot of air in the balloon, like

Sasha Yakovleva (43:18)
And the balloon will expand, right? But if we put a little bit of airlack, just a little bit, the balloon will expand very little, right? So that's what's happening with the diaphragm. When we switch to reduced breathing, bateca breathing is reduced breathing, we it becomes normal for us to consume very little air.

Sasha Yakovleva (43:45)
And that's why the diaphragm doesn't move much. It moves but a little. So that. And then the next thing is very important, is so-called air hunger. Most people are afraid of air hunger, but a mild sensation of air hunger is actually what makes our breathing strong. So in the Buteyko method, we deliberately

Sasha Yakovleva (44:14)
Cultivate that mild sensation of a hunger. We are not afraid of it, we invite it in our lives. And there is a very simple breathing exercise to experience what I mean by that. So you could just use two fingers and kind of cover your nostrils. And first cover them almost completely, like have very tiny openings.

Sasha Yakovleva (44:44)
And breathe. And you should feel that it's very difficult to breathe. It's almost like suffocating a little bit. Yeah? Do you feel that? Good. And now cover your nostrils very little, like they're almost completely open.

Sasha Yakovleva (45:05)
Now you don't feel that feeling that a hunger, intense a hunger, like a feeling of suffocation, right? So that was two extremes. And now find the middle way, a sweet spot in between. Move your fingers, yeah. When you feel a little bit of a hunger, but you feel like it's okay, you know, it's bearable.

Sasha Yakovleva (45:33)
I can live with it. It doesn't bother me much.

Sasha Yakovleva (45:39)
Do you feel it? Yeah? Good. And now just breathe and instead of fighting this feeling of a hunger, relax into it.

Sasha Yakovleva (46:18)
That's it. Now you have a reference point. So when you are doing physical activities, you want to do them to the extent of creating that mild level of hunger. When you do breathing exercises, you'd also want to create this mild level of a hunger. And this hunger is just the same as.

Patrick Obolgogiani (46:29)
Yeah.

Sasha Yakovleva (46:43)
muscle soreness when a person does a good workout. Like you know, when we do workout, it's not really positive for our health if the next day we are in extreme pain. Right? But if the next day we have a little bit of muscle soreness, it's good. It means our muscles are becoming stronger. Right? The same for breathing. Air hunger makes our breathing stronger.

Patrick Obolgogiani (46:57)
Mm-hmm.

Sasha Yakovleva (47:12)
And most modern people, no, even when they have strong muscles and bones, their breathing is very weak and they need to make it stronger.

Patrick Obolgogiani (47:23)
Hmm. Yeah, I think the the feeling of air hunger, as you mentioned, it's very useful as a thought exercise.

Patrick Obolgogiani (47:34)
Almost like a reference point when you're like at the edge. It's it's really useful, really useful. I do I do remember reading somewhere with where the expansion of the ribcage, there's this like I can't remember what it's called, but there's this like thing going throughout like entire rib cage, and it's like a chemoreceptor or something, and basically it's at expansion, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. And I wonder like whether the

Patrick Obolgogiani (48:03)
Like when you breathe so little and and also you have air hunger, like how does it relate to the kind of rest and digest side of the nervous system? but I think you mentioned earlier that actually the CO2 does activate that as well. Is that a good way to think about it?

Sasha Yakovleva (48:21)
Yes, in general yeah, in general the Buteyko method is peaceful breathing and it always activates the parasympathetic nervous system and people usually feel it within one session of breathing exercises. And no here is another reference point. Like ha do you have any experience in meditation? Have you ever meditated?

Patrick Obolgogiani (48:50)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (48:51)
If you have, then you are probably familiar with the feeling that by the end of the meditation session, breathing becomes so subtle that you almost don't feel it. Some people even say it feels like I'm not breathing. Of course they are breathing, but instead of breathing deep this way, the breathing, their breathing patterns become very, very subtle.

Sasha Yakovleva (49:18)
Just like this, very little breathing. And so the Buteyko method is like this: we train ourselves breathing like we are meditating all the time, and meditation gifts us with numerous health benefits, and it's greatly or partially at least.

Sasha Yakovleva (49:45)
Because what happens t with breathing during meditation becomes very gentle, very peaceful.

Patrick Obolgogiani (49:52)
Yeah, I've actually read that that that's the case where it's hard to distinguish the benefit from pure meditation, so to speak, and meditation because of the breathing patterns that are associated with it. I wanted to go just ask you a very kind of technical question because you have the master here, but like if I had to visualize where like you have the normal breathing is like, let's say you have you never like fully exhale. There's always some area in the lungs and you go kind of back and forth that that kind of continuum.

Patrick Obolgogiani (50:21)
And I feel like there's a couple of ways of doing the Buteyko meth method where one is like at the very end where you're like you exhale, you kinda push all air air out, take a slight breath, and then you push back all out. Or I can do it in the middle, when meaning I have some air in the lungs all the time, but it's light in in the middle, and there's always some air in the lungs. Like, is there a right way to do it or are both both fine?

Sasha Yakovleva (50:46)
Not really, and in the Buteyko method, it's not recommended actually to think about this thing, how we exhale, because overthinking and over-controlling breathing create tension, and tension always reduces the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs when relaxation increases it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (51:07)
Mm.

Sasha Yakovleva (51:14)
So in the Buteyko method, we are mostly concerned with inhalation because exhalation is just the result of inhalation. If we inhale excessively, we will exhale excessively as well. But exhalation is just it's just normal, you know, it's an automatic process, so it just stops whenever it stops. We don't need to regulate it. But we do need to regulate in

Patrick Obolgogiani (51:42)
That's great advice.

Sasha Yakovleva (51:44)
Inhalation. So we need to breathe through the nose all the time instead of the mouth. Right? That's how we control it. And we practice reduced breathing. Kind of like if you imagine that you know I'm breathing through two narrow straws. Usually I have narrow straws to demonstrate it, but I don't have it with me right now.

Sasha Yakovleva (52:12)
But if I'm breathing through two narrow straws, still unlimited air is still the air is unlimited. I can use the air unlimitedly without any limits, right? Because it's just all over everywhere around me. But in this case I have to take it in slowly and the airflow is narrow, right? So that's how

Sasha Yakovleva (52:41)
People who practice the Buteyko method, please. Versus

Patrick Obolgogiani (52:52)
Indeed, indeed. And something you've mentioned many times now is the nose breathing as a core part of the pillars of of the the right up breathing. Is it just the volume that is decreased with the nose or is it something more special that happens? Like why is nose breathing so important?

Sasha Yakovleva (53:13)
Yeah, of course the volume is important, but also it's important to use the organ which was made to an organ which is like our ultimate air conditioner, the organ which we are supposed to use for breathing. Dr. Buteyko said

Sasha Yakovleva (53:34)
Breathe through your mouth as often as you eat through your nose.

Sasha Yakovleva (53:43)
Breathe through your mouth as often as you eat through your nose. Because the mouse is the organ which is supposed to condition food for our consumption. The nose is the organ which is supposed to condition the air for our consumption. But because the function of breathing is so important, we are given the second option to breathe through the mouth.

Sasha Yakovleva (54:12)
which should be used only in emergency like situations. So of course the nose purifies the air, it changes its temperature, and does many other functions to condition the air for our consumption.

Patrick Obolgogiani (54:36)
Hmm. Yeah, definitely. I guess w a related topic, which I'm personally curious as is a father of a three year old. And you know, I'm one of those annoying parents who like tells him to close his mouth and and and do annoy's breathing. But like I'm curious to hear, 'cause I think you've also kind of written in this in your books, and of course you work with many parents, like w what do you just what's your advice towards parents? How to best kind of help our children to

Patrick Obolgogiani (55:05)
Should grow the right way.

Sasha Yakovleva (55:07)
Mm-hmm. Notice your child's breathing as early as possible, preferably right after they were they are born. make sure the earlier you notice it, the easier it's correct it's to correct it. Notice if your child breathes through the nose or through the mouth.

Sasha Yakovleva (55:30)
And if they breathe through the mouse, it's absolutely essential to help a child to establish nasal breathing. Mouse breathing leads to numerous health problems, including tonsil and adenoid issues, and all kind of breathing issues and frequent respiratory problems as well. So absolutely. Then make sure that a child

Sasha Yakovleva (56:01)
is physically active enough. Most modern p children are not physically active enough. And every time a child is active, they of course need to breathe through the nose as well.

Sasha Yakovleva (56:18)
Make your child be aware of his or her breathing. Ask them questions about their breathing. Instead of telling the child, breathe through your nose, ask, let's say him, how's my breathing? Am I breathing through my nose or am I breathing through my mouth? Is my breathing noisy? Is my breathing silent?

Sasha Yakovleva (56:47)
Is my chest moving when I'm breathing? Thank you so much. Your answers really helped me with my breathing. Now, may I ask you about your breathing? No, this is the approach. And if a child has breathing problems and breathing through the mouse, chronically, it's definitely a breathing problem, a very serious breathing problem. Then there are a lot of fun.

Patrick Obolgogiani (56:56)
Yeah.

Sasha Yakovleva (57:16)
breathing games which could help a child to correct their breathing.

Patrick Obolgogiani (57:22)
Yeah. No, it's good advice. It's like helping them be the teacher in some way to in order to learn what is the right methodology, which is always always smart. you mentioned adenoids. I actually haven't heard that before. I started researching one of the books you wrote. Can you ex just explain what is that?

Sasha Yakovleva (57:42)
Absolutely. So I wrote a book called Adenoids Without Surgery and I often work with parents whose children have enlarged adenoids and they're waiting adenoid removal surgery. And I help those parents to I train the parents to help their children to normalize their breathing. And when children establish

Sasha Yakovleva (58:11)
Nasal breathing 100% or close to it and increase the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs. Typically, adenoids stop bothering them, and children don't need a surgery anymore. And this, of course, has to be confirmed by the doctor, and it always does. The doctors always confirm that. So, hyperventilation.

Sasha Yakovleva (58:41)
And especially mouth breathing is very dangerous for the body because as a result of it we lose carbon dioxide in the lungs. And as I already mentioned, when this carbon dioxide level becomes zero, we die. And a human body doesn't want to die, it actually wants to be very healthy and live a long time for a long time.

Sasha Yakovleva (59:11)
So when we start losing carbon dioxide, it creates all kinds of defense mechanisms against hyperventilation to increase the level of carbon dioxide. And one of those mechanisms is in children is enlarged adenoids. With adults, sometimes it's polyps, but basically something starts growing.

Sasha Yakovleva (59:38)
you know, in the nose or in between the in the in our airways to break, to stop this forceful excessive airflow, right? And make breathing slower, you know, and increase the level of carbon dioxide by doing that in people who have, you know, before I also mentioned that Dr. Buteyko often used

Sasha Yakovleva (60:06)
asthma as a model explaining his method. So this mechanism is especially very obvious in people who have asthma because the airways are open and they often breathe excessively and as a result of that that's they start losing carbon dioxide in the lungs. And when that happens

Sasha Yakovleva (60:34)
Their airways react immediately, they constrict, right? They become narrow. And that's when a person gets frightened and feel like I can die from suffocation. But it's actually not something which will make them die, it's the body.

Sasha Yakovleva (60:58)
trying to normalize the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs by narrowing airways and making a person breathe less, breathe slower, right, and narrowing the air intake. So normally

Patrick Obolgogiani (61:14)
Yeah.

Sasha Yakovleva (61:23)
like the medicine a person takes, some medicine or even recommendation given by other holistic practitioners is based on the idea of fighting against that mechanism. So do whatever you can to open your airways, right? The Buteyko approach is completely different. I say cooperate with an incredible intelligence of your body.

Patrick Obolgogiani (61:42)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (61:52)
Instead of fighting against this constriction, start breathing like your airways are already constricted. Start breathing like you're breathing through two narrow stroves. Help your body. And in this case, airways relax and open up by themselves because there is no need to do that anymore.

Patrick Obolgogiani (62:18)
Mm, that's such a good visualization. It makes a lot of sense when you say it that way. I realize you've been very generous with your time. would you still have a few more minutes for kind of rapid fire close up questions?

Sasha Yakovleva (62:33)
Sure.

Patrick Obolgogiani (62:34)
Great. One thing we haven't talked about, but maybe useful for security and kind of make sure we we cover the ground here is is contrary to indications. Are there people with particular conditions otherwise that should not maybe try this methodology or is it kind of safe for everyone?

Sasha Yakovleva (62:53)
It's safe for everyone if the method is presented correctly. However, the approach regarding different diseases is slightly different. Like a person, you know, I would present the method differently for a person who has emphysema or has anxiety or just enlarged adenoids.

Patrick Obolgogiani (63:21)
Think about like the impact. I assume there's probably going to be some practice needed before we start noticing, for example, this relaxation of your airwaves. Like, what do you typically see? And maybe we can take, let's say, one person who has no conditions per se, but they feel this like just a sympathetic nervous dominance in their life. And then someone else who has asthma, like, how long will it take each of these persons to start seeing some impact and to start breathing?

Patrick Obolgogiani (63:50)
in a Buteyko method like with the practice, let's say daily practice, I don't know, like fifteen, twenty minutes a day.

Sasha Yakovleva (63:56)
Mm-hmm. Well the Buteyko method is definitely very helpful for everyone. And you know, most modern people are highly affected by stress. And stress always comes with hyperventilation. They're like, I don't know, sisters, brothers, you know, they're always together. Yeah. So yeah, doing breathing exercises.

Patrick Obolgogiani (64:02)
Yes.

Patrick Obolgogiani (64:17)
Yes.

Sasha Yakovleva (64:27)
It's like whatever person whatever time a person has. If a person has 10 minutes a day, that will be very helpful. If a person has want to have very significant results, they might want to do three sessions of breathing exercises every day for 30 minutes. But it's even more important to regulate your breathing all the time.

Sasha Yakovleva (64:55)
And to be aware of your breathing all the time compared to doing breathing exercises.

Patrick Obolgogiani (65:02)
Hmm, yeah, that makes sense. Well, as you know, that's something we're heavily working on. Hopefully it can help people become at least more aware when it's rate climbs and just like give them a nudge. And I know we spoke about this that the rate itself of rate of breathing is not kind of enough sometimes. Like you can breathe l like not that much, like I'd say, I don't know, nine times per minute, and they can still be two massive breaths.

Patrick Obolgogiani (65:30)
So it needs to be like a more nuanced approach when it comes to like using data here. But but yeah. maybe before we talk about mobile like your work or start closing, what's what's a breathing myth that you'd want to clarify or maybe bust here before we start closing?

Sasha Yakovleva (65:31)
Okay.

Sasha Yakovleva (65:54)
Well, the biggest myth I already mentioned that any breathing technique is good for health. In my work I often see people who damage their breathing significantly and weaken their health significantly by using breathing techniques. Not every breathing technique is good for health, and also not every breathing technique is suitable for each person.

Sasha Yakovleva (66:23)
So we need to be very careful when it comes to breathing and really know what we are doing with breathing when we're modifying it.

Patrick Obolgogiani (66:34)
Yeah, beautiful. Huge thank you. as you I think we talked about previously, kind of the story of of asthma and Buteyko are very much interlinked with the foundations of Albus as well. Like both myself as a child that had a asthma and kind of the the idea behind the whole company was from Oliver, the one of the co-founders and my brother, who had been struggling with exercise induced asthma for for years. And then, you know.

Patrick Obolgogiani (67:03)
Rare line inhalers, as I'm sure many people have come to you and found different techniques, including Buteyko method that this was like years ago, and then developed a like a practice that really helped him to not need the inhalers anymore. And every time he and OE speak with people that still using inhalers, it's like it's very hard to believe that it's possible. and I'm sure there's people for whom it's not the case, but at least like if there I don't know what percentage, but like 30%, 40%, even more.

Patrick Obolgogiani (67:32)
For whom that is the case, where there's a you know method that you're literally already using all the time, and you can apply that to get rid of this like horrific condition, which like makes, as you mentioned, you feel like sometimes you're you're going to die, or at least like it prevents you from living life fully. I think it's such a like a gift that we hopefully can educate people on together. And and thank you for the work you do on your side to educate others.

Sasha Yakovleva (67:59)
Thank you. And I just want to mention that Patrick, since you had asthma and the tendency of having asthma in this case will stay with you for the rest of your life. According to Dr. Buteyko's work, you belong to a category of fortunate people and people who are even biologically superior to others because your airways are very reactive.

Sasha Yakovleva (68:27)
And if you just understand, and you already, of course, understand and you're on the path to understand it a bit more, if you understand the logic of your body, the logic of your breathing, and if your breath will become your true health coach, you are destined to live a very long time and to be very healthy just because you have a tendency to have asthma.

Patrick Obolgogiani (68:55)
Yeah, I appreciate it. That's definitely makes me feel better. we'll definitely link to all your work in the in the show notes so people can find Buteyko center dot com as you mentioned. is there a particular one resource that you would guide someone who's like a beginner? Is it like a book or Instagram? Like what's the one thing you would recommend them to start with?

Sasha Yakovleva (69:20)
Yeah, there are a couple of things. First, I have a video course on my available on my website. It's called Buteyko Breathing Step by Step. And it's a good resource. And another one is that I lead a group, it's called Buteyko Breath Master Community, and we meet every Sunday for one hour and we do breathing. I guide people through breathing exercises and also.

Sasha Yakovleva (69:49)
Teach them a little bit about the method, answer their questions and so on. So it's another good way to learn the method.

Patrick Obolgogiani (69:58)
With that, thank you for being here, Sasha. It was a huge pleasure and honor. And for everyone listening, appreciate tuning in. And as mentioned, we'll link to everything in our show notes. but with that, wish you a wonderful rest of the week.

Sasha Yakovleva (70:12)
Thank you so much, Patrick. Have a good day too. Bye.