People who breathe a little bit faster and harder have reduced blood circulation and reduced oxygen delivery throughout the body
Patrick McKeown: "The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is only 0.4% of atmospheric pressure. It's really, really hardly anything. The human lungs and blood needs 5% of atmospheric pressure. […] We are producing carbon dioxide as part of our metabolism. So as human beings, we eat food, we breathe in oxygen. Food meeting oxygen generates energy, and the byproduct of the generation of energy is carbon dioxide. If we move our muscles more, if we increase our metabolic activity, we produce more carbon dioxide. So the carbon dioxide is coming from the tissues into the blood, and that blood then is coming back to the heart, back to the lungs. We breathe out the excess CO₂.
"But the key is not to breathe out too much of the carbon dioxide, because if we breathe out too much carbon dioxide from the lungs, we then lower carbon dioxide in the blood leaving the lungs. This will be hypocapnia. […]
"If I said to you, Jakob, breathe 10 full breaths in and out of your mouth. During those 10 full breaths you will get rid of a lot of carbon dioxide from your lungs. It's very easy to get rid of a lot of carbon dioxide from your lungs. Whatever the pressure of carbon dioxide is in the lungs will determine the pressure of carbon dioxide in the blood leaving the lungs, because gas will go from an area of high pressure to low pressure. So if you lower the CO₂ in your lungs, well then the CO₂ in the blood leaving the lungs is going to be low.
"As the CO₂ is low in the blood your blood vessels constrict. But also not just do your blood vessels constrict, because of the loss of carbon dioxide your blood pH then increases too much. So this is what's called respiratory alkalosis. This in turn causes arousal of the central nervous system, which is including the brain.
"Now the brain is becoming excited. So we have 80 billion brain cells and each brain cell is communicating with 15,000 other brain cells. If you hyperventilate, these brain cells start firing all over the place. […] And if that's the case then a seizure can occur. […]"
"I'll give you this example. I was a mouth breather, and a slightly faster breather and a harder breather for years. I always had cold hands and cold feet, and I always had brain fog. We have 50,000 miles of blood vessels throughout the human body. Your ability to influence your blood circulation, and to improve your blood circulation is going to be influenced by how hard and fast you breathe. The more air you breathe, the more your blood vessels constrict. The more air you breathe, the more hemoglobin, which is the carrier of oxygen in the blood, holds on to oxygen.
"People who breathe a little bit faster and harder have reduced blood circulation, and reduced oxygen delivery throughout the body, and an increased sympathetic drive. […] There is a place for hyperventilation in terms of breathing. But people have to realize that this is not what it's all about. What about your everyday breathing patterns? Because so many of us have a state of chronic hyperventilation. We are not having a panic attack. It just means that our breathing is a bit faster and a bit harder, and that is literally depriving our body of blood flow and oxygen delivery. It is not about the oxygen coming into the lungs. It's about that oxygen transferring from the lungs to the blood, and from the blood to the tissues."
Patrick McKeown with Mads Tömörkènyi & Jakob @ 40:12–44:27 (posted 2024-07-21) https://youtu.be/-nCm8c_hVJA&t=2412