Body and Breath - Yoga Shop Talk

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Yoga shoptalk, December, 2001

Question: I am interested in knowing if there is a rhythm of absorption of the oxygen from the alveoli into the blood. I recently heard a teacher (not of yoga but of energy healing) say that most of the actual absorption takes place after the exhalation. I am a longtime teacher of yoga and as I learn more and more anatomy I try to teach the practices in ways that are more true to what is actually happening.

Answer: Under ordinary circumstances, absorption of oxygen from the alveoli into the blood takes place all the time, with no connection to inhalation or exhalation, because there is little variation in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the alveoli as might relate to inhalation separately from exhalation. There might be some periodicity of absorption if one were breathing extremely slowly---say taking one or two breaths per minute---but even then it would be an open question as to what the result would be until someone settled the matter by testing the question under experimental conditions. If I were taking a guess, I would say that under an extreme condition of one breath per minute that somewhat more absorption of oxygen would take place toward the end of inhalation than toward the end of exhalation, and for the simplest of reasons. That’s when the greatest partial pressure of oxygen (the technical term for the amount of oxygen within a mixture of alveolar gases, namely oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor) would be in the alveoli.