Dyslexia: The Breathing Techniques Calm Him Down And Relax Him. Helps Him Get Through Our Reading Program.

An email from one of my students who is a world class Tutor in Sydney Australia. "I am now working with a 51 year old dyslexic who is very afraid of reading (lots of emotional issues), very tensed, chest breather. He found the breathing techniques calm him down and relax him. Helps him get through our reading program".

The next step of course is to make the breathing patterns more permanent with Optimal Breathing development as the tutoring ensues. But BEWARE of WHICH" exercise.

The University of  Würzburg conducted a study showing that early training in knowledge of letters and sound structure of spoken language can reduce the risk of dyslexia. Schneider, Roth, Ennemaser. J. of Ed Psych 2000 vol-92,(2) 284-295. 

From Mike:
"SOUND" structure? Hmmmm.
I have always suspected that a significant part of dyslexia is a lack of internal connection with the subtlety and intensity of one's breathing.  Sort of weakened neural pathways that can be retrained using breathing and sound production over varying periods of time.  

Some say that dyslexics are lazy. I like to think that the person has not been trained well enough, like a lazy ear or eye. Learning something new requires repetition and consistency. I believe the dyslexic's unbalanced breathing throws off their internal balance/signals and this creates nervous system/proprioceptive/kinesthetic distractions deep within them.

PROPER training, integrating breathing insights can help GREATLY and to say that they are lazy is I believe quite untrue and unfair, especially if blood sugar or undiagnosed thyroid issues exist. I spent 30 years to get my singing voice BACK.

That's right BACK. I sang acapella for 300 grade school chums at age 11 and then received a lot of abuse and lost my ability to sing. It took me 25 years to regain it with many well-meaning but confusing voice teachers along the way.

To try to do something many times when you just can't seem to get it right and then to be labeled slow, dyslexic, stupid or whatever to me often speaks more of the teacher then the student. Never forget that if you want to be in the Olympics it is necessary to have an experienced teacher/coach. The same is true of many other aspects of learning.  

Practice not only makes perfect (or permanent), it makes the brain efficient. What has previously been seen with monkey brains now has been seen on humans.

Using functional MRI, a German University has shown that when learning a motor movement (in this case learning to play the piano), a great deal of the motor region of the brain is used.

With experience, smaller and smaller regions of the brain are used. In professional musicians, only very tiny regions of the motor cortex are involved in their playing. (Sounds just like the microchip industry; smaller is faster and better).

Thus, practice makes neural networks efficient and frees up regions of the cortex again to be used for other things. Jancke, L., et.al. 2000. Cognitive Brain Research. Vol.10(1-2), 177-183.

AMEN. The issue is WHAT KIND OF PRACTICE? Start by making sure that the breathing is easy, strong, consistent, balanced and not in any way distracting. The problem is HOW.