Carbon Dioxide | Not Just A Waste Gas

Do you know how important carbon dioxide (CO2) is to our breathing?

Oxygen Advantage® founder and Director of Education and Training, Patrick McKeown shows us how essential CO2 is for oxygen uptake in the blood and how by breathing too much air we can actually reduce our blood/oxygen levels.

It is a long held myth that taking big gulps of air in through our mouth, into our lungs in big upper-chest breaths is how we increase our oxygen (O2) levels in the blood. This is entirely untrue.

Patrick explains the role of haemoglobin and how CO2 is not just a waste gas but an essential indicator, telling the body when we need to breathe. More CO2 in the blood means the body feels a stronger “air hunger” and signals the brain to increase breaths in order to increase O2 levels.

However, with functional nasal breathing we can control the levels of carbon dioxide in our lungs and in doing so, reduce our sensitivity to CO2 meaning we can greatly improve our blood/oxygen levels and in doing so, our performance and endurance.

🔗 CONNECT WITH Patrick McKeown (Oxygen Advantage®)

Oxygen Advantage® on YouTube. Over 20 years’ experience of international Breathing Expert Patrick McKeown at your fingertips.

[auntiemsplace]

Wow - thank you for this - I was experimenting with my pulse oximeter and found that when I fully exhaled and held the exhale, my O2 saturation increased by at least 2%, and wondered how does that happen? You just explained it perfectly. I'm going to have to watch you more often!😊

[johnfontana]

Modern people only accept or want to understand complicated systems, what you share is very simple and helpful to those of us who seek, thank you so much for what you share!

[meiliu]

Amazing content! You made my understanding so much better. This channel is totally undervalued! Thank you !

[Giladh]

Regarding CO2 tolerance: I’ve heard many recommendations to monitor CO2 levels in homes, and to make sure CO2 levels don’t rise higher than 800-900 PPM in the home’s air.
According to Patrick’s view, is this not important? Is it fine to have higher CO2 levels in one’s home?

[mitubogoogle]

Excellent content - as with everything else in life, it is about balance

[stratocasterable]

I suffer from chronic anxiety and have tingling in most of my body all the time, how should I breathe exactly?

[nonewhatsoever]

I do have a question. I exercise with nose breathing all the time, HIIT, running with 80-85%, weight training, biking ... everything with nose breathing. At night, the mouth stays closed. I experimented a while with CO2 medical gas as a form of intermittent hypercapnia training, keeping blood O2 at around 80-85% for 2 min with 10 min breaks, 3-4x. I have no problems with that either - getting all warm, frees the sinus wonderfully and wakes me up (side effect is a deranged sleeping pattern if done too often). BUT, when i do breath-holding with or without nose pinching, I feel panic. I can not do it. BOLT around 22 sec. What am I doing wrong? What can I do to get over the feeling of panic?

[eternalwarrior-ypqx]

Hypercapnia (high CO2 levels) is therapeutic when it's acute and pathological when it's chronic. Two examples of pathological hypercapnia are obstructive sleep apnea and devastating ocean acidity as a result of elevated CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

[PotPotChuan]

The house we rent has a stinky smell from the toilet. If we breathe in carbon dioxide every day, what could be the negative effects? Sir?

[aymalkhan]

This means wim hof method is not safe.

[k.h.]

Waste gas!? CO2 is also known as the gas of life. No CO2, no photosynthesis, no life.

[princesskassandra]

So is more CO2 in the atmosphere not a terrible thing?