"Every breath we take is the breath of God." - Father Theopane
"Many of the great world religions picture the earth as being created and sustained by the breathing of God. Virtually every tradition starts you off on a spiritual practice by bringing your attention to your breath and teaching you to breathe more fully and consciously."
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus, 2008
What do the world’s leading medical experts say about breathing?
"Breathing is the key that unlocks the whole catalog of advanced biological function and development. Is it any wonder that it is so central to every aspect of health? Breathing is the first place, not the last, one should look when fatigue, disease, or other evidence of disordered energy presents itself. Breathing is truly the body's most basic communication system."
Sheldon Hendler, MD, PhD
"All chronic pain, suffering, and diseases are caused by a lack of oxygen at the cell level."
Dr. Arthur C. Guyton, M.D., The Textbook on Medical Physiology
"Oxidation is the source of life. Its lack causes impaired health or disease, and death."
Dr. F.M. Eugene Blass, PH.D.
"Simply put, disease is due to a deficiency in the oxidation process of the body,leading to an accumulation of the toxins. These toxins would ordinarily be burned in normal metabolic functioning."
Dr. Albert Wahl
"Illness is the result of improper removal of toxins from the body. Oxygen (breathing) is the vital factor which assists the body in removing toxins."
Ed McCabe, author, Oxygen Therapies, A New Way of Approaching Disease
"In all serious disease states we find a concomitant low oxygen state...Low oxygen in the body tissues is a sure indicator for disease...Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen in the tissues, is the fundamental cause for all degenerative disease. Oxygen is the source of life to all cells.”
Dr. Stephen Levine, renowned biologist, geneticist; Author, Oxygen Deficiency: A Concomitant to All Degenerative Illness
"Lack of oxygen clearly plays a major role in causing cells to become cancerous."
Dr. Harry Goldblatt, Journal of Experimental Medicine
"Insufficient oxygen means insufficient biological energy that can result in anything from mild fatigue to life-threatening disease.The link between insufficient oxygen and disease has now been firmly established."
Dr. W. Spencer Way; Journal of the American Association of Physicians
"Cancer has only one prime cause. It is the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of the body's cells by an anaerobic (oxygen-deficient) cell respiration".
Dr. Otto Warburg, Two-time Nobel Laureate, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Cancer Research
"Cells undergoing partial oxygen starvation send out tiny panic signals which are collectively felt in the body as a continuous vague sensation of uneasiness, dread or disaster. This low level generalized warning tends to get tuned out as mere ‘background noise’ by the individual experiencing it. Or, it is attributed to other sources of uneasiness.... People rarely suspect that the constant vague feelings of helplessness, fatigue....uneasiness are symptoms of cellular oxygen deprivation."
From the Townsend Letter for Doctors
"Cancer is a condition within the body where the oxidation has become so depleted that the body cells have degenerated beyond physiological control. Similarly, the true cause of allergy is the lowered oxidation process within the body, causing the affected individual to be sensitive to foreign substances entering the body. Only when the oxidation mechanism is restored to its original high state of efficiency can the sensitivity be eliminated."
Dr. Wendell Hendricks
"A lack of oxygen (hypoxia) is the prime cause of 1.5 million heart attacks each year."
Dr. Richard Lippman
“A Dutch Study compared two groups of heart attack patients. The first group was taught simple diaphragmatic breathing, while the second group was given no training in breathing. The breathing group had no further heart attacks, while 7 of the 12 members of the second group had second heart attacks over the next 2 years.”
"Jack Shield, MD, conducted a study on the effects of breathing on the lymphatic system. Using cameras inside the body, he found that deep diaphragmatic breathing stimulated the cleansing of the lymph system by creating a vacuum effect which sucked the lymph through the bloodstream. This increased the rate of toxic elimination by as much as 15 times the normal pace."
Gay Hendricks, PhD
"The relationship between breathing and blood pressure has been known and understood for a long time. It boils down to this: Elevated blood pressure accompanies those bodily states where rapid shallow breathing prevails. By altering breathing to a slow diaphragmatic mode, blood pressure decreases."
(Robert Fried, PhD
"Improper breathing is a common cause of ill health."
Dr. Andrew Weil
Medical College of Georgia
Scientists conducted research at area high schools in Augusta and found that African-American teens at high risk for heart attack and stroke benefited greatly from meditation. Meditating 15 minutes twice daily lowered the participants high blood pressure and the results continued after the study ended.
Dr. Veron Barnes, MD, American Journal of Hypertension, 2013