He began to notice a pattern—not in the charts, but in the sound of the room. The closer a patient came to the end, the heavier and faster they breathed. Their chests heaved as if they were running a race while lying perfectly still. To the medical world, this "over-breathing" was a symptom. To Buteyko, it looked like a cause. He realized that by gulping air, these patients were actually starving their bodies of the very oxygen they were trying to inhale.

The air was thick in the 1950s Soviet medical ward where young Dr. Konstantin Buteyko kept his vigil. As a medical student in Moscow, his assignment was simple but haunting: monitor the terminally ill.

One night, faced with his own skyrocketing blood pressure and a crushing headache, Buteyko decided to test his theory on himself. He sat still and did the unthinkable: he breathed less . He closed his mouth, used only his nose, and slowed his breath until he felt a slight "air hunger". Within minutes, his headache vanished and his pulse calmed. The Core Principles of Buteyko

Dr. Buteyko’s "101" approach centers on three golden rules that challenge the modern "take a deep breath" advice: Buteyko Breathing Technique: Benefits, Uses, & How It Works