Don White AT

AT Page 11 Breathing 0. Coronavirus.

This is a fairly long post giving detailed info and guidance on significantly improving oxygen intake to assist you during this virus attack.

1. Ultimately our survival depends on our immune system being given the time to find how to overcome the Covid-19 infection by giving the body any means of increasing the oxygen received in the blood stream.
2. Boilers & Fires use oxygen to support the combustion. Ventilation from outside and sealing the doorway inside will help.
3. Unserviced boilers may emit 'poisonous' carbon monoxide.
4. Medical Ventilators can even be supplied with pressurised oxygen, which not only increases the oxygen supply but also places it in the lungs.

Please write to me if you have any additions to make, improvements to wording or disagreements.

Coronavirus leading to Covid 19 causing Fibrosis of the lung tissue, and what you can do beforehand which may be helpful, and afterward.

Covid 19 can result in partial or complete inability to convert any oxygen in the air in the lungs to essential oxygen in the blood stream.

What nothing can do is prevent or cure this disease at present.

We can, however, allay the fear induced by our seeming inability to do anything to improve our survival chances, by taking some measure of control and thus not giving in to the personal shut down that is a predictable response.

There are a number of things we can do immediately, as simple as switching on a light.
1. Stop smoking (if you do).
2. Perform the Emmett Technique move(s) to improve breathing -
place an index finger immediately below the Costal Arch four finger widths from the body's centre line and with very light pressure both towards the back and the upper ribs. A 'switch' is now performed which involves sliding the index finger in contact with your skin along the Costal Arch away from the mid-line of your body. The finger should neither lose contact with the skin, nor rub over the skin. The distance moved is very short, only about an inch. After a slight (about 30 seconds) pause the other side is addressed. Repeat the process two more times on each side, and after quickly and lightly running the hands over the contacted area (to take away focus) you're done. Quick, almost no effort, amazing results!
**Contact me by pm if you want me to show you in a live call.
3. Remove any flowers at night. (like hospitals).
4. Open the window, for ventilation.
These four simple measures are likely to increase the amount of oxygen entering the lungs by an unknown but useful amount.

Doing any or all of the measures above will not only reduce fear and the feeling of helplessness, but boost the immune system by reducing fear, which is a further benefit.

The remainder of the process takes some time to become proficient, but there are two benefits even if you are not very successful, these being the willingness to experiment and the consequent adaptability and questioning, and the increase in flexibility and pliability of the ribs, lung tissue and the diaphragm, making it easier and quicker to gain some skill in controlling your breathing.

As you will see from my other articles, you can be taught to breathe better, but success depends on increasing the amount of oxygen reaching the blood stream. This needs to be maximised, so I have dispensed with anything that may improve breathing, but does nothing for the current emergency.

Conventionally the air taken in is assumed to contain a fixed proportion of oxygen, but we can improve this by stopping smoking, removal of indoor flowers, ensuring that there is good ventilation, and/or even the addition of medical oxygen. It is said that drinking carbonated water improves the absorption of oxygen. I have not tested this.

SO..breathing..

Under normal circumstances breathing can be divided into two actions, the 'In' breath and the 'Out' breath, a pause after the out breath being unnecesessary if the objective is to get as much air in as short a time as possible.

A temptation is to pant, breathe more quickly and shallowly, move the shoulders up and down, which has its speed limits and does little or nothing to increase the supply of oxygen. Supply to the blood may be slightly improved because the proportion of oxygen should be marginally higher as the air is in the lungs for less time and is therefore higher in oxygen content.

As you would be consciously practising breathing differently it is easy to take precautions against untoward events by safely lying down, preferably on your back, so that you can't fall anywhere!

Stay with me.

If we learn to allow deeper in breaths and shorter, more complete out breaths, say six seconds in through the nose and four seconds out through the mouth (6*6 breaths = 36 seconds of fresh oxygen per minute instead of just 30, a 20% increase), we get more oxygen in a given time and also benefit from the spent air being quickly exhaled. You can experiment with times that seem easy for you - this works well for me. I can easily manage 7 and 3, and even 8 and 2 is readily possible. The last gives a huge increase to 48 seconds of air quality oxygen per minute. I can't (yet) manage 9 and 1, but hey, isn't an improvement of 60% worth having in addition the benefits of the absence of flowers, stopping smoking and a well ventilated room!

The reason I breathe in through the nose is that this engages the Alae Naesii, the longer heated passage which makes the air more acceptible and does not shock and tend to close the breathing tubes and sacs (alveoli), and the nasal hairs for filtering out many small solids. Oxygen exchange is facilitated by the use of the nose. The speed and completeness of the out breath is greatly helped by the use of the mouth.

Practising this would quickly lead to hyperventilation (too much oxygen) which will cause a faint.

The standard advice to prevent this is to breathe from a paper bag as this provides us with a supply of spent air, low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide, which quickly brings down our oxygen level. Who has a supply of such bags? Most people, however, do have two hands that they can 'cup' and bring to their face and use this to cover their nose and mouth instead. DO NOT be tempted to use a plastic bag as this is VERY dangerous.

Armed with this safe procedure, practising a new breathing technique may help when the time comes. By doing so the lung tissue and the surrounding Rib Cage becomes more compliant and able to expand and contract more fully and easily. This means every in breath can be fuller and deeper so yet more oxygen is made available.

Should we find that our breathing is challenged, I would suggest that we try this or a similar breathing regime when tried and tested methods need yet more assistance.

You will see from the regular notes on breathing in 'Don White AT' that the air is 'thought' into the lower back: the diaphragm and ribs and Point of Louis (the joint between the Sternum and the Manubrium above it - read all about Carl Stough and his successful experiments) are encouraged to be free: the shoulders are left alone (they contribute nothing to breathing): all the proven discoveries of the A.T. are used - neck is free, mind and body are not separate despite language, thought is access to the new way. These are the 'how' of any Alexander approach to change.

The most important part of the Alexander Technique is Inhibition, which is a pause and choice before and during any activity, roughly meaning choosing whether to breathe as best we can in the new way, the old way, or some other way.

Readers may notice that I believe there are different objectives for good breathing and survival breathing. In the latter the idea is to maximise the inflow of oxygen, the former is to breathe well when there is little for no challenge to life. However, the flexibility, use of choice, willingness and ability to try other methods of breathing stand any student of Alexander Technique (or just breathing) in good stead.

Try it and see what changes you can make.
And you can PM me to do some remote sessions for help.

AT Page 15. Breathing IV.

I have added this because it displays that none of the Alexander Technique is final, done.

Some Alexander Teachers specialise, and Jessica Wolf not only has chosen breathing but also has studied under Carl Stough. She often runs courses for Teachers on the South Coast of England, so there are a number of teachers here who have greater experience than I.

That said, I have been exploring breathing from my own viewpoint. I noticed long ago on a First Aid Course that my own breathing rate was unexpectedly high at about eighteen breaths per minute.

Experimenting with breathing involved counting the parts of my breath without interfering. What is interfering? The first thing I noticed was that I had no pause. Alexander maintained that any pause should come after the outbreath, and it was easy to verify that pausing after the inbreath involved a forcible holding, and so was undesirable. So the recommendation of Stig Severinsen was not for me.

What I also quickly found was that breathing immediately reverted to 'normal', no waiting after the outbreath, and the rate as before. I have no true answers yet! Maybe I never will, and the value may be in the journey.

As regards counting, I am able to instantly take my breathing to second counts of inbreath (4), outbreath (20), wait (6) on a permanent basis, i.e. No shortage of oxygen.

At present, each becomes effortful - inbreath after about 10, outbreath after about 50 (depending on a longer inbreath), and wait (for carbon dioxide reflex to kick in) at about 10.

I do this most frequently at night when I wake, and occasionally experiment, with other counts. It seems that the inbreath controls both the other counts. Often I can maintain a rate of one breath per minute, and I have achieved one minute forty seconds, but these last seem to be only temporary, and probably both a strain and provide insufficient oxygen to become permanent.

I continue to experiment, but would welcome any comments.


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AT Page 14.

I have tried to make you, the pupil, have awareness that you have autonomy and choice in whether you study, who you choose as a teacher, where the Alexander Technique is going for you, what you attempt and especially in what order.

So you establish which habits are most troublesome to you and deal with them first. Some habits are useful, (that is what they are there for!) and should not be changed (yet). Further examination may reveal that a previously ok habit is now found to be a problem. Never worry, you can get round to it at an appropriate time.

The object is not to do things right, but just to do them better, and each time could be different allowing events to happen as you inhibit the "wrong" thing! Do not try to be "right", there is no "right".

Celebrate "wrong" as it shows improved awareness, openness, and it gives you something new to work upon.

Good luck 😃😃😃 but you don't need it, just diligence!

I will move on now to some actions I have studied, in order to give you some ideas, approaches etc.



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AT Page 13 Breathing III

F.M. Alexander encouraged his pupils to 'breathe into their lower backs', and this was hugely effective, because the lungs are at their largest here.

The late Carl Stough maintained and demonstrated that work with the Point of Louis (facet joint between the Manubrium and the Sternum on the breast bone) effected greater flexibility and improved breathing enormously.

It seems to me that there is much to be gained from taking deeper breaths much less frequently, which leaves available the speeding up of breath if necessary.

AT Page 12 Breathing II.

So, if we can utilize the lower chest, not only is it bigger, but it necessarily includes the chest volume above too. By using this part of the chest we are also gaining some more flexibility in the soft tissue (mostly muscles) between the ribs, and so increasing the volume available.

There are 12 pairs of ribs, the penultimate 4 pairs are only indirectly attached to the breast bone, and the final 2 pairs are not attached to the breast bone at all, and so are even more capable of expansion.

A common misunderstanding is that the ribs expand directly outwards as we breathe, but the muscles between the ribs clearly lift the curved ribs, expanding in a similar way to the handle of a bucket as it reaches the horizontal. Armed with this knowledge and understanding we can make better use of this expansion.

The volume of air taken in during each breath is dependent on the increase in volume of the rib cage and the lowest excursion of the diaphragm muscle which attached to the bottom of the ribcage.

Some breathing gurus say that breathing into the belly is desirable, but as there is no lung tissue there to effect oxygen transfer, I believe that is questionable and therefore unnecessary.

AT Page 11 Breathing I

Breathing.
Life is defined by movement. The minimum movement is that of the diaphragm and ribs and heart as we breathe in and out. If this stops we are no more.

Physically, we need the fresh oxygen contained in the air to replace the spent oxygen in our outbreath. The amount of oxygen is directly proportional to the amount of air we inhale to our lungs. The amount of air we inhale is automatically governed for us by the rate at which we breathe, controlled by our physiology.

There is a limit to how fast an individual can breathe, but fortunately we can learn to breathe deeper or shallower, although this, being a learning process can take time.

Many of us breathe in a very shallow fashion, using only the top of the lungs. If you observe the breathing of an asthmatic you will see that they carry this to the extreme. Anatomy counts against them too, as the "circle" of the rib cage is smaller the higher up the rib cage we go.

Bruce Fertman has his thinking completely aligned with mine, but also says it really well.

The Top Ten Myths about the Alexander Technique A fellow Alexander teacher asked if I had a transcript of my little youtube video, Top Ten Myths about the Alexander Technique. It was somewhere in my computer. I found it and tweaked it just a bit…

AT Page 10 Application in life

Teachers are trained in, or simply research a number of set-piece or building-block movements, some of which are employed as Alexander Technique practices.

Conventional AT. Egs. Carrington, Barlow, McDonald schools.
Constructive Rest/Semi-supine
To Sit. To Stand. Sitting. Standing.
Walking.
Squat. Rise.
Partial Squat or 'monkey'.
Lunge. Reverse lunge.
Hands on Back of Chair.
Breathing.
Moving Arms, Lifting.
Work/Play Activity.

Application AT. Eg. Barstow lineage
Whatever movement application is causing a pupil difficulty.

Explore and experiment with any activity yourself. For each unconsidered activity, pause, (inhibit) think what you need to achieve, think not just how to go about the movement but also how best to start it. Usually letting the weight of the head do the work is sufficient!

Note that a young child has an even greater handicap (the head weighs more than 10% of body weight) yet knowing how to do all these things gracefully and effortlessly is natural. Watch and learn from the experts!

If we know how to do something, watch out. It is probably just habit, and no change is possible without some form of Inhibition.


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AT Page 9 More useful Anatomy

I need to write about the importance of both ends of the spine.

The hip-joints are surprisingly narrow, the lowest bones of the pelvis (Ischial Tuberosities) have large semi-circular depressions to accept the top of the cranked upper leg bone (Acetabulum)

Try it, find them. At the top of the upper leg-bone, (suddenly becomes soft tissue where the Greater Trochanter goes inwards towards the Acetabulum).

Exploring the base of the pelvis will reveal that it is outwardly rounded so that it is rocker-shaped, making it almost impossible to sit still. This gives a good indication that sitting is not a done-deal, but an activity, with all that that implies.

The head (weighing about 10% of the body weight) is supported on the neck (the spine at its thinnest point) via the Atlanto-Occipital joint(s). Because of this it is vitally important to maintain the head in as free a balance as possibe. If inappropriate tension is allowed to persist through life the weight of the head can cause the neck to bend with compensatory curvature and pain in the spine as the head slowly descends with time.

Observe it. Just compare older folk to youngsters. Some people don't suffer this, but a quick straw poll will confirm that a lot do. So many people needlessly suffering.

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3.Sitting. Colin Beattie.

This should have preceded no. 4, but never mind, there was no logical reason for the sequence, only chronology!

I was aware that my habit is to sit leaning backwards, and I persisted in trying to become aware that I was muscularly pulling backwards or forwards.

I also "knew" that remaining still would benefit greatly from having the attitude that at any moment I could choose to make a movement. Never had I realized (until Colin said it, and attributed this to Marjory Barlow) that this could be used in this very situation.

The connection I could now try was simply to employ this thinking while seated, and this freed me from the seemingly impossible, and it all became easy.