The Oxygen Paradox
Have we been misinformed?
Is carbon dioxide good for us?
Surprisingly, yes. But it’s not just good for us, it’s vital for our health, for fighting off disease and viruses, and for keeping our body in a balanced state.
The oxygen paradox
We all know that we need oxygen to breathe, it’s one of the first lessons we have in science class. But what we’ve been misled on is that too much oxygen is actually bad for us, and more interestingly, more CO2 can actually be good for us.
This is the oxygen paradox: oxygen is vital to live, but too much of it can be damaging.
I guess it shouldn’t be all that surprising if we look more closely at nature. Life itself is a balance of complex, awe-inspiring atoms that form over billions and billions of years to create all the different life forms that we see today: from an ant to a whale, and from a leaf to a planet. All life forms are balanced perfectly to allow the window of life that we see here on Earth to live in abundance. Even the Earth itself is delicately poised on a perfect axis and nothing highlights this more than if were to tip the Earth off its axis by just 2 or 3 degrees, we would suddenly find a very hostile planet indeed.
Everything needs balance, and oxygen is no different.
The effects of too much oxygen
There is such a thing as oxidative stress which means that when there is too much oxygen in the cells of our body we come under stress.
A rusting car has been the analogy used before as it provides a great visual of the process of having too much oxygen. When metals are exposed to oxygen they begin to rust. The strength of each metal then becomes thinner and flakier and ultimately loses its strength.
The same thing can happen to the cells within our body and this can cause unwanted stress as it works to re-balance the now weakened system.
Another example that highlights too much oxygen causing stress is through hyperventilation. Hyperventilation causes us to take short, sharp breaths that lowers the CO2 levels and floods the body with oxygen. This in and of itself contracts the heart, sends a message up to the brain that makes it think it needs to beat faster so it sends a message back down to the heart for it to speed up which creates yet quicker breaths that continues to speed up the rhythm of the heart and so on.
So unless the person is either in a fight/flight mode whereby the need for adrenaline is released to get them to safety or make very quick life-threatening decisions or is in the middle of some extreme physical exercise that needs that requires lots of oxygen, the person is instead is in a state more commonly known as a panic attack.
The breath is a direct link to our inner state of being and too much oxygen can reflect that we’re in a more stressed, more highly alert state. The side of the nervous system (sympathetic nervous system) is activated on every inhale we take (the intake of oxygen) and is what activated the fight or flight response. This happens (very subtly) on every breath!
CO2 balances this out and is, most fascinatingly, what happens on each every exhale too.
A quick look at what happens to the body on every breath
On every inhale we take in oxygen (and other gases) and as we do, the diaphragm lifts, the heart contracts, and then the brain sends a message back to the heart to say, ‘you need to speed up’ so it does.
On every exhale we release CO2 and as we do, the diaphragm drops, the heart opens up a little which makes it beat a little slower as the brain and heart communicate once again for it to slow down.
The breath works independently of our awareness but we can enhance it by the way we breathe.
The need to expel CO2 is what causes the first impulse to breathe, and not the more common idea that we need more oxygen.
Understanding what happens when the CO2 levels are up is what helps us tap into the extraordinary health benefits it can bring. There is a breathing technique that supports exactly this, which I’ll get to in just a moment.
But let’s first talk about where we’ve come from.
Life in the womb
Interestingly, life in the womb is a life with high carbon dioxide levels. It’s a heavily CO2 based environment, with only 10% oxygen available. These high levels of CO2 give the growing fetus the perfect environment to form new structures from its pool of stem cells and grow into the newborn baby it becomes. These high-level CO2 environments are also found in nature and maybe none more covered than the naked mole rat’s environment.
The naked mole rat
This strange little creature lives underground in very high levels of CO2. Naked mole rats can hold their breath for up to 18 minutes but most interestingly, they also live a very long life compared to their other counterparts. Some 25 years longer! And they are seemingly immune to cancers, viruses, and disease. I don’t like it but humans have tested this out on the naked mole rats and the results reveal it to be true.
Can that be down to a high level environment of CO2? It appears that way.
In ancient times
Yogis developed pranayama which is a set of breathing patterns designed to create balance and tap into our bodies’ innate healing wisdom by controlling our internal systems such as the immune system.
It’s been hypothesized that they observed nature and saw that animals who live longer are those who typically take much fewer breaths (2–4 breaths per minute). So, those ancient yogis developed breathing patterns that also trained their bodies to take fewer and fewer breaths and the results today prove that what they discovered still stands the test of time. It’s been known for thousands of years but only now are we tuning back into what those ancient yogis discovered.
Naked mole rats, whales, elephants, tortoises, and many other animals that breathe slow, deep breaths tend to live much longer, healthier lives.
So, the saying goes “breathe live a tortoise, live like a king.”
Can this also point to less oxygen/more CO2 as the reason? It looks more and more likely.
Some extraordinary health benefits of CO2
- reduces inflammation
- boosts immune system
- balances the nervous system
- supports growth
- aids neuroplasticity (the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization.) — Wikipedia
- enhances cerebral spinal fluid movement
- supports a calm and peaceful (internal) environment
- strengthens muscular tissue
Misleading information
Science teachers, books, and otherwise have recorded that CO2 levels are bad for us, and although this is true when we think about air pollution, consciously tapping into higher CO2 levels via intermittent hypoxia during breathwork techniques such as Soma Breath, we find that (in short doses), raising the level of CO2 has tremendous health benefits, like those I just touched mentioned above.
Let’s get practical — how to actually use this stuff
There are a few different breathwork techniques that have this as one of their primary functions, none more so than Soma Breath whose main focus, among others, is to train and teach people how to breathe fewer breaths per minute and enter intermittent hypoxic states for longer.
Free-divers have been doing this for years, so have the pranayama yogis.
And now Soma Breath has come onto the scene to enhance, support, and nurture this growth with backed science, results, and experiential wisdom.
Learn more about what Soma Breath offers here
Or try Soma Breath for free in this 5-day mini intro course here
Or join one of their free online masterclasses here