Show #220 – Dr Rosalba Courtney: The Magic of Breathing Optimally

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And on this week’s show!

This week continuing our health series, I interview Dr. Rosalba Courtney, Ph.D., who did her Ph.D. in the area of breathing: How to define through testing what is optimal, what is suboptimal, and how to get a patient to regain breathing flexibility – all will be explained in the show, trust me. We talk about breathing ‘cult followings’ and how to know what works for you and what won’t as well as what won’t; how to know you need help with your breathing, the fascinating link between optimal breathing and blood sugar regulation and so much more. A fascinating conversation with one of the world’s most knowledgeable when it comes to all things breath and I’m thrilled to bring Rosalba on the show.

The questions I asked Rosalba:

You have a Ph.D. in breathing – what was your Ph.D. focused on within that subject?
What led you to identify breathing/lung health as where you wanted to specialise?
What’s happening that’s good for the body when we’re breathing ‘right’?
And when we’re not breathing right? What’s lost in a poor breathing function that can rob us of our full potential?
And how important is it exactly, that we breathe through our noses?
Can you talk us through the different stages of a breath – where it passes through, where it gets to and what exchanges are occurring in the body to either help or hinder overall health?
What are some of the signs we might need to give ourselves a breathing health check? How could that look for children? For adults?
Here, we might then look into each of those signs, the challenge they present and strategies for improving those so that we can get to work then on improving our breathing quality.
Can you explain the relationship between our breathing and our nervous system/immune function?
How can we train a more effective breath? Beginning steps? Advanced techniques?
There are a lot of new protocols and promises that come out from gurus or doctors that can make it difficult for the average human to figure out what the best advice to follow is – what are your thoughts on some of the main breath work trends in recent years as they pertain to the overall goals of healthy breathing habits and overall health? Buteyko/Wim Hof for eg? Others?
You teach many health professionals how to support their patients in this area: what does that look like, in case we have health professionals listening now who want to bring this work to their clinics?
And if you could issue us all with a few key breathing optimisation homework items for the weeks ahead, to firmly make into habits, what would they be?