Is hyperventilation good or bad for you?

The interplay between O2 and CO2

We all know that overeating is potentially harmful for the body, no matter how healthy and organic a meal can be. While food quality is a really important piece of the puzzle quantity is a factor that can play an even more crucial role in the orchestration of a complex metabolic dynamics. No matter what we eat, eating too much will always have negative impact on the body. The same can also be applied to overdriving. Drinking too much of water, a vital substance for life maintenance, can lead to serious intoxication and even to fatalities.

The awareness of drinking and eating in moderation has been embedded and acknowledged in the collective consciousness as a necessary aspect to regulate optimally our physiology. Curiously enough when the matter becomes the amount of air we breathe, we seem to dismiss the application of the same common sense. On the contrary, there is a seemingly prevalent misconception that induces us to think that the more air we breathe in the better it might be for the healthy of body. Nothing could be further from the truth than such an erroneous physiological understanding. What is important is a balanced interplay between O2 and CO2. Hyperventilation will not support a better oxygenation of the body. On the contrary, it will compromise blood circulation and O2 delivery in the cells as as consequence of the excessive removal of CO2. A certain presence of CO2 in the bloodstream is vital and necessary for a healthy functioning of the human physiology.

If you wish to learn a bit more about the physiology behind hyperventilation, for instance, towards Wim Hof Method or any other breathing practice that utilizes hyperventilation as a basis, here in the video below I offer a simple explanation