Viva: Asthma Free Naturally – Everything You Need To Know To Take Control

ASTHMA – and the wheezing and breathing problems it entails – can be a frightening illness. Now a new book, Asthma Free Naturally – Everything You Need To Know To Take Control by Patrick McKeown (pounds 9.99, Harper Thorsons), shows ways of controlling the symptoms without drugs.

McKeown claims that if sufferers are able to stop themselves “overbreathing”, they will be able to reduce hyperventilation. Excessive breathing reduces levels of carbon dioxide in the body – levels which McKeown says are too low for optimum health.

Things that make people overbreathe and have a knock-on effect to cause hyperventilation: Over-eating and eating too quickly. The more you eat, the more energy the body uses and the harder you breathe.

Stress activates the body’s “fight or flight” response, making breathing rapid.

Stuffy, hot homes cause overbreathing and wearing too many clothes causes people to revert to primitive mouth panting to reduce over-heating.

Too much sleep. Lying horizontally for a long time causes severe overbreathing – most attacks happen between 3am-5am.

Air pollution makes people breathe more to get more air into their lungs