Proper breathing is the best medicine!
It is a well-known fact that blood supplies tissues with oxygen and removes carbon dioxide from them. The way blood goes to get from heart to tissues resembles a tree: a major vessel (artery) ramifies into minor microvessels (arterioles), and then arterioles ramify into capillaries in tissues. By means of those capillaries metabolic processes in cells take place. Then microvessels unite into veins and get back to the heart – this is greater (systemic) circulation. On the other hand there is lesser (pulmonary) circulation - venous blood reaches lungs where it gives back CO2 and becomes saturated with oxygen. Thus the process of breathing is closely connected with cardiovascular system.
Have you ever thought about the reason that makes you breath in and out every 2-3 seconds? Is it the decreasing level of oxygen in your blood? No, it is not. Our blood in the lungs is almost all the time by 96% saturated with oxygen. It is the amount of excreted CO2, but not oxygen, that regulates our breathing. Why do we breathe deeper while jogging for example? When our muscles work they burn out glucose. As a result of this process CO2 is excreted.
When blood goes through lungs it gets into contact with the inspired oxygen. Oxygen molecules enter into combination with hemoglobin and are carried by blood to the internal. There hemoglobin releases the oxygen and the cells can use it. But what makes oxygen leave hemoglobin? Carbon dioxide! If blood lacks carbon dioxide than irrespective of the amount of oxygen it can not be released for cells to use it (the so-called Verigo-Bora effect).
The second factor. According to the Vascular theory carbon dioxide is a natural vasodilating agent, thus low level of CO2 in blood has a direct impact on microvessels squeezing them and therefore diminishing the blood inflow to the internal organs. In such a way when lack of CO2 is observed the regulation of metabolic processes is affected.
Vasodilating agents influence unstriated muscles that serve as the basis for arterioles and bronchioles (in lungs).
The third important factor: fixed acid-alkaloid blood balance (Rh index) is essential for normal metabolism. Reduced level of CO2 leads to imbalance (alkalosis).
When the respiration rate is increased the pulmonary ventilation level is higher than it is necessary for successful removal of CO2 surpluses. To put it differently, hyperventilation of lungs washes CO2 out of the body, microvessels cramp, and as a result anoxaemia of tissues is observed. Besides, increased resistance of the vascular system makes the blood pressure get abruptly higher. This often leads to various heart diseases.
There is little CO2 in the air. Our body needs about 6.5% of carbon dioxide to function correctly. But air contains only 0.03% of carbon dioxide. The missing part is reproduced in the body itself as a by-product of metabolism. To control the necessary level of carbon dioxide in blood, process of breathing is regulated by the respiratory center that is found in the base of brain. Unhealthy life-style and some diseases lead to functional failure of the respiratory center; as a result the respiration rate increases and the amount of CO2 in blood drops. Microvessels spasm, the internals (inner organs) do not gain enough oxygen what leads to anoxaemia. All this becomes the cause of the above mentioned chronic diseases. Moreover high peripheric resistance of the vascular system produces increased blood pressure, i.e. hypertension.