Starting Buteyko Breathing -- Amazing!

This is my third day of breathing using only the shallow breathing advocated by the Buteyko Breathing Method. I found it o the internet after starting to breathe exclusively through my nose. Doing so, I felt better than I have in a number of ways, but after running I experienced severe sinus congestion akin to allergies (from some sort of irritant, no real idea what -- perhaps simply oversensitivity to particles in the air, cold air, or volume of air).

Immediately after starting it, I was able to run a few miles and return and not experience any sinus congestion. How? By taking shallow breaths. There's not really any more to it than that (that I know of yet), but the book and practioners can guide you thorugh it as the amazing simple can be oddly deceptive when it comes to something so foundational and unconscious as how we breathe.

Yesterday, I did a regular run and kept up my normal speed. Again, no congestion. Today I'm experiencing a "cleansing day" -- the idea is that by breathing shallower (normal), my O2 and CO2 levels begin to come into ballance, which makes the oxygen more accessable to the cells, and everything in the body works better. However, when first starting this, it's possible to experiencing the body cleaning house of scum that couldn't be gotten rid of when there was too little CO2 and too much O2 -- a bit like how scrubbing the tile and grout in the bath makes a mess in the tub.

Here are a few excerpts from my breathing log:

Today is an intriguing day. I feel like I have scrubbing bubbles of accessible oxygenated blood everywhere in my body, like all my tissues and capillaries are effervescing. Images of the cleaning solution with the "cleaning bubbles" seem appropriate. I don't want solid food (a first for me since my brain injury), but am instead craving only salad, "Green Magma" and fruits. We'll see how long that lasts. Clearly I am cleansing, or detoxing, at a cellular level, but I've never felt it happen this way. While my body is resting and not up for much, it's rather the feeling of resting in bed on a cold winter's day, than a negative thing that I strive to embrace and carry on as best I can (those "brain fatigue" days happen a lot with brain injury, and are one of the things on which I'm curious to see the effects of Buteyko. The bottom line today: even feeling worse, I feel better.

I continue to have layers of paint feel like they peal out of "new" areas of my sinuses -- perhaps areas that have been closed off?

Breathing light is very easy now, feeling more like a new normal than a new odd. The rhythm and feeling of shallow breaths is starting to be more unconscious and conscious. I have done no sprays or oils or other sinus meds since starting Buteyko.

I suspect that my body has to be cleansed to the fullest extent possible before it's ready to make the next leap in improved Control Pause.