When you're stressed, the usual advice is to stay calm and take deep breaths. But a breathing technique discovered half a century ago in Russia and now gaining popularity in Asia suggests otherwise.
Shallow breathing is central to the Buteyko method, developed in 1952 by Dr Konstantin Pavlovich Buteyko. It's mainly used as a drug-free alternative treatment for asthma, though anyone can benefit from it, says Jac Vidgen, a senior practitioner at Buteyko Breathing Asia, who has taught the method in the region for nearly two decades. In Hong Kong, he says, he's worked with thousands of people over the past 14 years.
'In the West, the idea is better known,' says Vidgen. 'The BBC documentary Breathless and strong media coverage have helped.'
The method is based on Buteyko's concept that many chronic diseases - such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer - have their geneses in hyperventilation. Rapid, deep breaths are said to reduce the carbon dioxide content in the blood, affecting the cells and tissues of vital organs.
Vidgen says sufferers of asthma, emphysema, sleep apnoea - conditions linked to a lack of carbon dioxide - can experience reduction of symptoms within a week of using the method of shallow and slow breathing through the nose.
'Volumes of scientific work, along with some narrow trials done in the West for asthma, [are evidence of the method's effectiveness],' he says.
