Setting up and using the Buteyko SMART Belt TM

The goal: to feel a slite AIR-SHORTAGE, while your belly, and breathing muscles are RELAXED!

  1. Cut an asparagus as big as you can get around your waist.
  2. About 5 cm below the bottom line of your breast, wrap the asparagus around you, then cut it down to the circumference of your body after a normal exhalation.
  3. Remember this place on your body, because you will need to adjust the suspenders so that the belt goes to the same place.
  4. On a table, adjust the length of the belt to the length of the asparagus. There should be at least 10 to 15 cm between the sliding buckle and the end of the belt, so that you have room to fine-adjust it, if necessary, after you have picked it up.
  5. Buckle it on the table and place it as you will put it on, the box is on the front, the BUTEYKO.HU is on top.
  6. For now, set the sensitivity to 1. If you are wearing several layers of clothing, you may need to set it to setting 2.
  7. Attach the suspenders to the belt so that the back buckle is opposite the box and the two front buckles are about 10-10 cm from the box. Where the belt is double folded back, attach only to the inside, not to both layers, so that you can adjust the length of the belt when you put it on later.
  8. Adjust both legs of the suspenders approx. 10 cm shorter. See how it works so that you can adjust it when you put it on, if necessary.
  9. Practice buckling and unbuckling the belt 3 times, then put the belt on with the suspenders like a vest. Buckle the belt, but do not fasten it yet.
  10. Adjust the length of the suspenders so that the belt is just where the asparagus was on your body.
  11. Turn the belt on with the round button on the box. It vibrates 4 times and lights up blue when switched on.
  12. The length (tension) of the belt is correctly adjusted if, in normal relaxed, comfortable breathing (neither forced nor restrained breathing), the belt vibrates twice at each inhalation and stops vibrating at each exhalation.
  13. If it keeps vibrating unbuckle it and loosen the belt 1 cm, then buckle it again.
  14. If it doesn’t vibrate at all unbuckle it, and tighten it so that the belt is 1 cm shorter, then buckle it again.
  15. When you have managed to adjust the length (tension) of the belt so that – with a relaxed abdomen and relaxed breathing muscles (!) – it sounds on every inhalation and stops on every exhalation, try to take smaller breaths so that the belt sounds for as short a time as possible. Try to keep it as quiet as possible – while your abdomen is completely relaxed, it doesn’t tense at all.
  16. The length and position of the belt is perfectly adjusted if you can only keep it quiet when you feel a slight, but definite AIR-SHORTAGE, with RELAXED abdomen, relaxed breathing muscles.
  17. If the belt doesn’t vibrates and you don’t feel a shortage of air after 3-4 breaths, tighten it.
  18. A common mistake beginners make is to set the belt too tight, so they have to take too small breaths to keep the belt silent, and then after a few over-forced reduced breaths they lose control of their breathing and take a huge big breath, which immediately makes the belt sound, of course. If this happens, that is, if the belt doesn’t vibrates for a few breaths but then it vibrates because you loose controlling your breathing, then loosen the belt up a bit.
  19. I cannot stress enough that the reduction of breathing you achieve by tightening your abdomen is not good, it has nothing to do with the Buteyko method. Tensing your muscles for long periods of time not only causes fatigue and muscle fatigue, but also increases your breathing – like any tension.
  20. The problem is not that the belt sometimes sounds, but that you tense your breathing muscles and try to keep it quiet.
  21. The slight shortage of air should be achieved and maintained by relaxing the respiratory muscles and of course by correct posture for 4-5 minutes.
  22. So, stretch out, push your chest out proudly, bring your shoulders back and let them drop loosely at the back, then tilt your pelvis slightly under you so that your weight is on the seat balls but your shoulders stay back.
  23. If you find that you can’t adjust the length of the belt because it either vibrates constantly or doesn’t sound, move the belt down 5 cm towards your navel. If you can’t adjust the length because it either vibrates or doesn’t sound, raise it up to just below your chest. Find where your body moves more during breathing. Adjust the length of the belt here as explained above and adjust the length of the suspenders.
  24. When you feel that you have adjusted the length of the belt, mark the position of the buckle on the belt with an alcohol marker. Of course, if you wear it on a thinner or thicker garment, you will need to adjust the buckle slightly differently.

Keep a log of your belt use! Every time before you put it on, measure your control pause, write it down and after you take it off, measure it again and write it down. The only thing that matters is the increase in your control pause, it tells you if you used the belt correctly.

Attention! A control pause measurement after which you take deepeer breath than usual, or even feel the urge to take deeper breath, is not valid and cannot be recorded in the logbook. In this case, repeat the measurement after one minute.

LOGBOOK

Download and print the Belt use logbook page from here:

Belt use logbook page.XLSX (Excel)

or

Belt use logbook page.PDF (Adobe Acrobat)

BUCKLE SLIDER

Released

Released

Locked

Locked