A healthy brain needs two things; fuel and activation. The two types of fuel your brain needs are glucose and oxygen. You need to eat and breathe. Eating for a healthy brain is an entirely different blog so in this post I'd like to talk about breathing, particularly carbon dioxide.
Growing up, we were taught to believe that oxygen is good and carbon dioxide is bad. That's half true: carbon dioxide is also good. In fact, carbon dioxide drives respiration. Movement produces carbon dioxide.
This is not good news if you don't move. If you don't move much, you're not producing carbon dioxide. You're over breathing, meaning you're taking in too much oxygen, but without carbon dioxide, your cells cannot get the oxygen you need. The oxygen gets stuck in the bloodstream.
In all simplicity, carbon dioxide is a messenger molecule. It attaches to the oxygen molecule and takes it into the cell. 100% blood oxygen is NOT GOOD. 95-97% Oxygen saturation is good.
Here is an excellent article about carbon dioxide: Science of Breathing. Truth about Carbon Dioxide
How to you increase carbon dioxide? You move. You exercise. Nasal breathing. And most important, you bag breathe. Not like you're hyperventilating but slow and controlled. In a bag, 30 seconds, 3-4 times per day.
Just breathe.
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