Asthma and the Alexander Technique:
quick relief or lasting solution?

Asthma is essentially a breathing problem.

No, I lie: asthma is not a breathing problem.

Asthma is an inappropriate reaction to feeling unable to breathe. This somewhat revolutionary statement (revolutionary to people who don’t know about the Alexander Technique) has important consequences for the treatment of asthma.

Before I can consider those, however, I need to demonstrate an important truth. The symptoms of asthma result from a very usual, but inappropriate, reaction to feeling unable to breathe.

Let’s look at two major symptoms that of an asthma attack

The airways are constricted, making it difficult for the air to flow though them.
The victim of the asthma attack is constantly straining to breathe more air in, even though it’s readily apparent to the outside observer that they need to let out air to make room for a fresh lungful.

Looking at the second symptom first …

you can see what I mean straight away.

The sufferer, feeling short of air, reacts by straining to take in more air. Even though the lungs are already at full stretch.

This totally inappropriate reaction to feeling short of air then ensures that there truly is a shortage.

Let’s return to the first symptom:

The airways are constricted and feel blocked.

How does the asthmatic react? By trying to force air past the blockages: by forcibly sucking air in and blowing it out again. This is the same heavy, chesty breathing you see whenever someone is out of breath.

Such laboured breathing triggers a reflex tightening of the muscles in the air-passage walls, constricting them further.

This reflex can be seen in normal operation whenever one coughs, sneezes or blows one’s nose.

The narrowing of the passage, combined with the forcible expulsions of air causes the air to move much faster. It’s an attempt to flush out the blockage with a jet of very fast-moving air.

While it can be very effective when there’s a blockage to flush out, it only adds to the problem when there isn’t.

The asthma sufferer’s real problem

… is not the physical fact of constricted bronchioles — or even inflammation.

These are secondary problems, mere symptoms, in fact. Symptoms of their reaction to feeling unable to breathe.

Their reaction is what constricts the bronchioles.

Their reaction to feeling constricted is what makes them constrict their airways even further
… and this is what makes them less able to breathe than ever. [footnote].

This habitual reaction is just about the worst possible.

If instead they had reacted to the feeling of breathlessness by refraining from making any effort to breathe, the problem would have automatically sorted itself out.

Their air passages would have relaxed and dilated and they would have allowed their respiratory muscles to release and let the stale air out. This would have left room for a new supply of fresh air.

Without the Alexander Technique, this isn’t easily done, though.

To help you really understand the problem, I need to make it personal.

The thing you feel you have to do to breathe is the very thing that is interfering with your breathing.

To stop interfering with your breathing you have to stop trying to breathe
… even though when you stop trying to breathe it feels as though your breathing has come to a standstill
… even though it feels like, if you don’t do something quickly, you won’t be around much longer!

Allowing for a difference in severity, this is the same problem we all have whenever we experience any difficulty at all in breathing. It makes no odds whether the problem is asthma brought on by hay fever or a stuffed-up nose due to a cold.

So next time you have a cold

… you too can breathe freely through your nose as normal.

All you have to do is to stop sniffing and uselessly blowing your nose to get rid of the blockage. Don’t open your mouth either. Just ignore the feeling that you’re in dire danger of asphyxiation.

Can you do that? I doubt it. Even if you do succeed for a time, I guarantee that the blockage will be back again shortly after.

But, if you do succeed in sticking with it, you will find that you are breathing freely through what was a completely blocked nose.

It’s no easy matter to disregard that feeling of asphyxiation.
The fact that the feeling is utterly mistaken makes no odds.

Here, then, is a serious problem you didn’t know you had

… an utterly unreliable sense of your own breathing.

Actually, it’s more than that: it’s an utterly unreliable sense of movement. Technically, this unreliable sense of movement and breathing is known as debauched kinaesthesia.

To sum up, asthma is an inappropriate reaction to feeling unable to breathe. The Alexander Technique helps the sufferer recognise and overcome their unreliable sense of their breathing.

Footnote: Carbon dioxide and the Buteyko method

There is also a current of opinion, following the Russian Dr Buteyko, that the constriction of the airways is due to a shortage of carbon dioxide in the blood as a result of hyperventilation. It is certainly true that all this effort to breathe can and often does result in hyperventilation. Whether the carbon dioxide shortage is also a contributory factor to the tightening of the airways, I cannot say. Either way, the remedy I am advocating, by calming the breathing, eliminates the tendency to hyperventilation and so allows the carbon dioxide levels to return to normal.
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The other articles in this category are here:‒

Breathing with proper breath support

Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley

If you want to get the best kind of help, come to me for an introductory lesson in Liverpool.

If you’re too far away, then the next best thing is to get personal lessons and advice from me online at Repoise.com, my on-line school. (Both far-away and local pupils use Repoise).

In more detail:–

If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)

There’s nothing better than individual lessons. My practice is at 37 Hope Street, Liverpool L1. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book an initial consultation and first lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).
If you’re short of funds, you can still have first class training from me — though it will require a little more work on your part.

The thing to do is have an individual, in-person lesson just once a month. That will entitle you to also get regular on-line lessons from me through Repoise. That way, you have the best of both worlds: in-person lessons and very regular, even daily, on-line Personal Coaching by Philip Pawley from me. That’s a real bargain because Repoise costs the equivalent of three lessons a year to everyone else.

Ring me on 0151 708 6172 if you want to arrange this.
I occasionally run group lessons. If you’re interested in these, go here for details.

If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool

There’s still nothing better than individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
I suggest you also get direct day-to-day guidance from me by joining Repoise.
If you’re having plain Alexander Technique lessons from someone else, you still need to discover the Smiling Back Method of the Alexander Technique. You’ll get a lot more out of your lessons when you do.