Existence in a Vacuum

Let’s start with “ I AM NOT A DOCTOR OR A SCIENTIST. I make no claims to cure or treat any condition, my offering here is a response to statements made by someone else, that resonated with me.”

Now I’ll summarize these statements.

I watched this video, where a doctor on the front lines described that what he thinks he is seeing, with COVID-19 patients, isn’t so much a pneumonia type response as one that mimics the experience of someone experiencing altitude sickness. A struggling for oxygen, intense pressure around the lungs, an inability to get what the body needs from any basic respiratory action. Paraphrasing Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell “ it’s as though we took these patients and all of a sudden dropped them on the top of Mt. Everest”.

So, of course, I began to research how to train the lungs to prepare for altitude shifts. And one simple exercise caught my curiosity : pursed lip breathing.

Have you ever tried to sip thick milkshake through a straw? It’s kind of the same thing…

In this class, we severely restrict the body’s ability to both intake and expel air, forcing the active muscles to work even harder to achieve the same results.

Whether or not it will help you if you actually are experiencing this situation, the class is a fascinating experience, and from my perspective, expanding your movement vocabulary on any topic can only help your body to respond with more confidence if ever that conversation is initiated by an external source, be it viral or geographical.

Breathe on,

Domini