Our carbon dioxide levels, not oxygen, regulate our breathing. We need a certain level of Co2 in our body to release oxygen from the blood and into the cell. Where it’s then used for creating energy for both physical and mental tasks.
For this system to work well, we need to tolerate a certain amount of Co2 in the body. When our Co2 tolerance is low, it leads to over-breathing and a feeling of breathlessness. Simply because we can’t release the oxygen we’re inhaling.
This can have all kinds of yucky mental and physical reverberations. From anxiety to low energy in training. And everything in between.
More on this next week.
– J