150 Native American tribes taught this 19th-century painter to breath less and live longer
Blazing Reader,
In my last post, I quoted a subscriber who says I'm "crazy" for suggesting that breathing less would produce better health.
"If nature wanted us to breathe less," he claims, "it would have already taken care of it."
In the same way that if nature wanted people to eat less junk food, drink less alcohol, or get more exercise, nature would have taken care of it?
I agree. Nature does take care of such things by producing poor health, depression and premature death.
However, such unhealthy habits as over-breathing can hardly be deemed natural.
The foremost researcher of the 20th century on over-breathing was Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, a Ukrainian scientist. Buteyko discovered a direct correlation between breathing volume and overall health. The healthier someone was, the less they breathed.
Few people realize that the urge to breathe is not in response to a decrease in oxygen in the bloodstream, but rather an increase in CO2. Sedentary work produces little CO2. This leads to people's brains over-reacting to CO2, triggering larger and more frequent respiration, depleting the blood of CO2. CO2 is a muscle relaxant. Too little in the blood causes blood vessels to constrict resulting in chronic health conditions and, eventually, premature death.
So, yes, nature takes care of things in her usual merciless way.
The art of breathing less was well-known to the nature-bound Indigenous people of North America as documented by the work of 19th century painter George Catlin. Catlin is most famous for his portraits of Native Americans, visiting over 150 tribes.
In the process of painting portraits of these beautiful people, he became fascinated by their superior health. For example, he noted that infant mortality was almost zero among the Indigenous people, while one out of four European babies never survived their first year.
"Amongst two millions of these wild people whom I have visited," Catlin wrote, "I never saw or heard of a hunchback (crooked spine), though my inquiries were made in every tribe; nor did I ever see an idiot or lunatic amongst them, though I heard of some three or four, during my travels, and perhaps of as many deaf and dumb.”
He later went on to write a book, Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life, the title of which sums up the principal reason Catlin believed the natives were so healthy: They breathed through their nose while being extremely active.
The nose, of course, is a smaller passage, allowing less CO2 to escape.
He observed how native mothers would shut their children's mouths after breastfeeding, and even submerge their babies underwater to teach them to hold their breath.
“I am compelled to believe, and feel authorized to assert," wrote Catlin, "that a great proportion of the diseases prematurely fatal to human life, as well as mental and physical deformities, and destruction of the teeth, are caused by the abuse of the lungs..."
The lifestyle of native people was quite active, which meant they were producing large amounts of CO2 all day long. By breathing through their nose, far less would escape. CO2 even collects in the sinus cavity and is re-inhaled. With this increased exposure, their brain stems did not overreact to CO2 like most modern people who spend their days sitting (in cars, at desks and on couches), often breathing through their mouths.
Catlin's little book goes into much anecdotal detail — stories that would make your jaw drop if it wasn't for the title discouraging it.
"If I had a million dollars to give," wrote Catlin, "to do the best charity I could with it, I would invest it in four million of these little books, and bequeath them to the mothers of the poor, and the rich, of all countries."
Well, I don't have a million dollars either, so you're going to have to buy your own copy of Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life: https://blazingpinecone.com/shop/shut-your-mouth
—John C. A. Manley
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/
