The Oxygen Advantage Book Summary

The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick Mckeown

“Scientific research, as well as the experience of thousands of people I have worked with, has
shown me the vital importance of learning how to breathe correctly. The problem is that correct breathing, which should be everyone’s birthright, has become extremely challenging in our modern society.

We assume that the body reflexively knows how much air it needs at all times, but unfortunately this is not the case. Over the centuries we have altered our environment
so dramatically that many of us have forgotten our innate way of breathing.

The process of breathing has been warped by chronic stress, sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, overheated homes, and lack of fitness. All of these contribute to poor breathing habits. These in turn contribute to lethargy, weight gain, sleeping problems, respiratory conditions, and heart disease.

Modern living gradually increases the amount of air we breathe, and while getting more
oxygen into our lungs might seem like a good idea, it is in fact light breathing that is a testament to good health and fitness.

Think of an overweight tourist and an Olympian both arriving for the Summer Games. As they pick up their luggage and carried it up a flight of stairs, whom would you expect to be huffing and puffing? Certainly not the Olympian.

The biggest obstacle to your health and fitness is a rarely identified problem: chronic
overbreathing. We can breathe two to three times more air than required without knowing it.”

“Just as we have an optimal quantity of water and food to consume each day, we also have an optimal quantity of air to breathe. And just as eating too much can be damaging to our health, so can overbreathing.”

“The crucial point to remember is that hemoglobin releases oxygen when in the presence of carbon dioxide. When we overbreathe, too much carbon dioxide is washed from the lungs,
blood, tissues, and cells.

This condition is called hypocapnia, causing the hemoglobin to hold on to oxygen, resulting in reduced oxygen release and therefore reduced oxygen delivery to tissues and organs.

With less oxygen delivered to the muscles, they cannot work as effectively as we might like them to. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the urge to take bigger, deeper breaths when we hit the wall during exercise does not provide the muscles with more oxygen but effectively reduces oxygenation even further.

In contrast, when breathing volume remains nearer to correct levels, the pressure of carbon dioxide in the blood is higher, loosening the bond between hemoglobin and oxygen and facilitating the delivery of oxygen to the muscles and organs.

John West, author of Respiration Physiology, tells us that ‘an exercising muscle is hot and generates carbon dioxide, and it benefits from increased unloading of O2 [oxygen] from
its capillaries.’

The better we can fuel our muscles with oxygen during activity, the longer and
harder they can work. In light of the Bohr Effect, overbreathing limits the release of oxygen from the blood, and in turn affects how well our muscles are able to work.”

“So how do we ensure that we breathe correctly so as to make optimal use of our amazing respiratory system?

As odd as this may seem, it’s not oxygen that exerts the primary influence on your breathing efficiency, but carbon dioxide.“

“Correct breathing both relies on and results in the right amount of carbon dioxide being retained in your lungs.”

“In order to address breathing volume and increase BOLT (Body Oxygen Level Test) score, the first step is to go back to basics and learn to breathe through the nose both day and night. As any child is aware, our nose is made for breathing, the mouth for eating.

You were born breathing through your nose, and it has been our primary conduit for breathing for hundreds of thousands of years.

It was only when our ancient ancestors were in dangerous situations that they reverted to mouth breathing to take in greater volumes of air in preparation for intense physical activity.

It is for this reason that mouth breathing is synonymous with emergency, activating the same fight-or-flight response that our ancestors experienced but these days usually without the accompanying physical exercise to allow our operating systems to revert to normal.”

And “Abdominal breathing is more efficient simply because of the shape of the lungs. Since they are narrow at the top and wider at the bottom, the amount of blood flow in the lower lobes of the lungs is greater than in the upper lobes.

The fast upper-chest breathing of people who chronically hyperventilate does not take advantage of the lower parts of the lungs, limiting the amount of oxygen that can be transferred to the blood and resulting in a greater loss of CO2.

Not only this, but upper-chest breathing activates the fight-or-flight response, which
raises stress levels and produces even heavier breathing.

Observe your own breathing when you are stressed, or watch the breathing of anxious relatives, friends, or colleagues—you will see that this type of breathing is generally located in the upper chest and goes at a rate faster than normal.

When we are stressed we tend to overbreathe and resort to breathing through the mouth. Stressed breathing is faster than normal, audible, produces visible movements, and often involves sighs.

Many people habitually breathe in this manner every minute of every hour of every day, holding them in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight with adrenalin levels high.

The work of even the best stress counselors, psychologists, or psychotherapists will be limited unless they first help their patients address their dysfunctional breathing. When oxygen delivery to the brain is reduced, no amount of talking and reasoning is going to correct this deficiency.

Stressed and anxious patients can only make the progress they really need when their bad breathing habits are addressed.”

“Upper-chest breathing is more likely to be associated with a stress response, while nasal breathing helps ensure regular, calm, steady breathing using the diaphragm.”

“For many years I too woke up tired and lethargic, suffering from poor concentration throughout the day. The key to improving the quality of my sleep was incredibly simple: All I had to do was to learn to keep my mouth closed during sleep.

Because we are unaware of how we breathe at night, the only sure way to ensure nasal breathing is to wear light paper tape across the lips to prevent the mouth from falling open. ...

Over the years, I have introduced this taping method to thousands of people with incredible
results. Unless you breathe calmly through your nose at night, you have no idea what it feels like to have a great night’s sleep.

Taping the mouth at night is a simple but very effective technique, and while it may sound a little strange, it is well worth getting used to.”

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