I don't know about breathing in carbon dioxide... that sounds really dangerous. What about the teachings of photosynthesis and the symbiotic relationship between plants and beasts? Plants are meant to absorb CO2 while providing O2 to beasts which produce CO2.
Buteyko breathing is about raising endogenous CO2, not breathing it in from anywhere else.
You do this through breathing exercises that raise air hunger in varying degrees.
The gentlest way to do it is to just pause at the end of your exhales for as long as you comfortably can. Keep breathing like that and your CO2 levels will rise gently without any air hunger. It's a very good pranayam to go deep in void meditation.
Ol argedco luciftias wrote:Of course CO2 and O2 are directly correlated. Because CO2 is created from O2. More oxygen in the blood, when it degrades in the body it becomes CO2.
You can reduce a person's blood CO2 concentration to zero by having them breathe something like pure nitrogen with no oxygen. But then blood oxygen is also zero so this experiment would not be good to do. Another interesting thing is that the extremely physically and mentally painful feeling of suffocation would never happen. This feeling is caused by too much CO2 in the blood, so it does not exist when there is no CO2. Instead there would only be the feeling of very high nitrogen in the blood, which is like a mix of very strong drunkness and tiredness. It becomes very difficult to think about anything or comeplete even a simple action, there is very strong confusion. But there is also strong calmness and tiredness.
The effects of large amounts of nitrogen are very often felt by scuba divers who use some special equipment. Like the ones who go very deep. They breathe a mix of oxygen, nitrogen, and sometimes also helium, so they end up with a lot of nitrogen dissolving into the blood.
I also do not believe that story about the KGB. I guess that it would be much more likely that the KGB would have all of their people start following these actions if they saw that it was helpful in any strong amount.
Like I said it's hard to convince people. I found out about it when I kept getting sluggish and having a stuffy nose after eating,
I found a youtube video from the Russian guy who runs normalbreathing.com that said to pinch your nose and turn your head back and forth until you have strong air hunger, then breathe in gently through your nose.
And what do you know, it worked? Mental clarity and open sinuses back in an instant.
I can't argue the science of it but I'm beyond convinced of the method after having practiced it personally.
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