Programs

Statistics suggest that tens millions of people worldwide suffer with the profound and misunderstood symptoms and deficits of learned dysfunctional breathing habits, effects that may seriously compromise health and performance, e.g., up to 25% of the USA general population. Statistics associated with dysfunctional breathing habits are impressive, e.g., 60% of the ambulance runs in the largest USA cities can be attributed to acute symptoms brought on by learned breathing behaviors that compromise acid-base physiology. Unfortunately, these habits are rarely identified by practitioners, their effects mistakenly attributed to other causes, and their resolutions prescriptive in nature where focus is on symptoms rather than on causes (physiological programming).

Symptoms and deficits are far reaching, even extraordinary. They can be immediate (e.g., dizziness and disorientation), long-term (e.g., fatigue), dramatic (e.g., fainting), subtle (e.g., reduced reaction time), and insidious (e.g., shifts in self-esteem). They can trigger (e.g., headache), exacerbate (e.g., anxiety), perpetuate (e.g. nausea), and/or cause a wide variety of emotional changes (anxiety, anger), cognitive changes (attention, learning), personality changes (aggressiveness), performance changes (public speaking, test taking, athletics), and physical changes (tetany, vomiting, hypoglycemia) that may seriously impact health and performance.

These outcomes can be devastating (e.g., anger episode, panic attack) and life-changing, outcomes that are usually attributed to other causes by both professional and lay people alike. Dysfunctional breathing behavior also interacts with unrelated disorders where it can trigger, exacerbate, and perpetuate symptoms associated with those disorders and where the symptoms and deficits directly brought on by breathing behavior itself may themselves be mistakenly identified as having originated from the same disorders rather than the breathing. Here is a table that lists many of the symptoms and deficits brought on by learned dysfunctional breathing behavior (habits).