Huffing It

— Anonymous

Most of us take breathing for granted. We consider it a passive activity and let our autonomic nervous system handle how much we inhale and exhale. And while this strategy works fairly under normal or even moderate conditions, it can have limitations when we're under higher levels of stress, such as climbing at altitude.

The natural tendency as physical workload increases is to breathe more rapidly and focus on getting more air into the lungs, with little attention given towards getting used air out. This results in even more accelerated breathing because you need to get rid of the carbon dioxide that builds up in your body (this buildup is what causes you to want to take a breath when you're underwater—try gradually letting air out and you'll stay under longer). If this continues, you're just huffing and puffing and not making much progress.

Power breathing is a controlled practice in which you concentrate on exhalations rather than inhalations. As the effort required by your activity increases, focus your attention on getting air out of your lungs by encouraging the air to leave with a "puff" at the end of an exhalation. This tends to reduce the carbon dioxide buildup, which in turn reduces the tendency to breathe faster.

Timing these exhalations with a movement is a good way to develop this technique. The next time you go hiking, try making a forceful exhalation every fifth step, taking long relaxed breaths in between the puffs. On the more demanding sections of your hike, reduce the interval between exhalations, going from every fifth step to every third. Acquiring this technique requires a certain degree of focus, but once you've mastered it, you'll stop worrying about weather or not you have the energy to make it to the top, and start enjoying the view.