Dr. Andy Galpin

I kept saying 14 breaths per minute or 15 breaths per minute. And I'm doing that because the literature will show you. The cutoff line seems to be about 16 breaths per minute. If you are over 16, there is clear and consistent literature tying that to everything from risk of a cardiovascular event, myocardial infarction or stroke,

or things like that is tied to clinical deterioration pain emotional stress cognitive load and a whole host of things that you don't want to be anywhere near if you are at 16 you're right on that line and i'm not trying to overly scare you but if you're above that i'm going to make the case that you as long as our data are accurate which is again a whole other question

or things like that is tied to clinical deterioration pain emotional stress cognitive load and a whole host of things that you don't want to be anywhere near if you are at 16 you're right on that line and i'm not trying to overly scare you but if you're above that i'm going to make the case that you as long as our data are accurate which is again a whole other question

But if you are up there, then we have a case of chronic over-breathing, whether that is chronic hyperventilation, that's a medical diagnosis, not for me to decide, but you are over-breathing in my opinion, and we're going to want to bring that thing down. Most of the time I'm looking at, if you are in the 10 to 14 range, and then I don't see anything else, I'm good here.

But if you are up there, then we have a case of chronic over-breathing, whether that is chronic hyperventilation, that's a medical diagnosis, not for me to decide, but you are over-breathing in my opinion, and we're going to want to bring that thing down. Most of the time I'm looking at, if you are in the 10 to 14 range, and then I don't see anything else, I'm good here.

If you're 15, I'm asking a lot of follow-up questions. You're 15, 16, I'm probably going to ask us to do something. If we have a bunch of other major issues, maybe I'm not too worried about it. But if you're over 16, then this is going to be one of our top tier priorities. Because of all the reasons I shared earlier about what happens when you're overventilating.

If you're 15, I'm asking a lot of follow-up questions. You're 15, 16, I'm probably going to ask us to do something. If we have a bunch of other major issues, maybe I'm not too worried about it. But if you're over 16, then this is going to be one of our top tier priorities. Because of all the reasons I shared earlier about what happens when you're overventilating.

Lots of short and long-term issues. And so this is exactly how we interpret those numbers. Let's say you're at 16 or 17. Okay, very first stop on this train, I want to make sure your breathing mechanics are okay. Very simple first principles here.

Lots of short and long-term issues. And so this is exactly how we interpret those numbers. Let's say you're at 16 or 17. Okay, very first stop on this train, I want to make sure your breathing mechanics are okay. Very simple first principles here.

If you are ineffective with your breathing strategy, whether you're breathing through your shoulders and your neck, or clavicular breathing, whether your diaphragm doesn't work appropriately, your intercostals are weak, your position or your posture is bad, so bad that it's infecting your, well, then you can't breathe well. You're going to have to bring more often.

If you are ineffective with your breathing strategy, whether you're breathing through your shoulders and your neck, or clavicular breathing, whether your diaphragm doesn't work appropriately, your intercostals are weak, your position or your posture is bad, so bad that it's infecting your, well, then you can't breathe well. You're going to have to bring more often.

This is simply, if you're weak in a spot, you have to do it more often. If you can imagine being hunched over, right? Touch your front of your shoulder to your knee and try to breathe. You can't. So you're going to breathe more frequently to get the same amount of air in. That's an exaggerated example, but you get the point.

This is simply, if you're weak in a spot, you have to do it more often. If you can imagine being hunched over, right? Touch your front of your shoulder to your knee and try to breathe. You can't. So you're going to breathe more frequently to get the same amount of air in. That's an exaggerated example, but you get the point.

So number one, before I'm worried about some long-term intervention with you, I just want to make sure that it's not a mechanical issue. Past that, we're gonna look at breathing problems. And what I mean by that are everything from allergies to nasal blockage to clinical sleep disorders. If you can't breathe through your nose, there's a strong chance you're gonna be hyperventilating.

So number one, before I'm worried about some long-term intervention with you, I just want to make sure that it's not a mechanical issue. Past that, we're gonna look at breathing problems. And what I mean by that are everything from allergies to nasal blockage to clinical sleep disorders. If you can't breathe through your nose, there's a strong chance you're gonna be hyperventilating.

It's not a guarantee, but we've just seen that really highly associated. So step number one, the way that we're gonna interpret this higher respiratory rate, okay, maybe it's a sign that mechanical breathing technique is not great. Nope. How's your nose? Oh yeah, I'm stuffed up all the time. Have polyps. Can you breathe through your nose ever? No, never. Are you a mouth breather? Okay, great.

It's not a guarantee, but we've just seen that really highly associated. So step number one, the way that we're gonna interpret this higher respiratory rate, okay, maybe it's a sign that mechanical breathing technique is not great. Nope. How's your nose? Oh yeah, I'm stuffed up all the time. Have polyps. Can you breathe through your nose ever? No, never. Are you a mouth breather? Okay, great.

Then we're going right there. I'm not going into anything else past this until we fix breathing out of your nose. Dehydration can do the same thing. So if you just notice your respiratory rates up one particular day, oh my gosh, and then you properly hydrate, it probably goes back down. Nothing to worry about long-term there. After that, things get a little bit more work intensive.

Then we're going right there. I'm not going into anything else past this until we fix breathing out of your nose. Dehydration can do the same thing. So if you just notice your respiratory rates up one particular day, oh my gosh, and then you properly hydrate, it probably goes back down. Nothing to worry about long-term there. After that, things get a little bit more work intensive.

So it could be a CO2 intolerance thing. If you're highly sensitive to that CO2, your brain can sometimes get miscalibrated. It thinks there's way too much CO2 in the system than there actually is. So you're either hyper-stressed or hypersensitive. And so it starts asking you to dump and offload that CO2 way sooner than it needs to. You're intolerant or hypersensitive, one of those two.