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From: Bob Quesal
Date: 11 Oct 2011
Time: 09:01:30 -0500
Remote Name: 143.43.167.90
Hi Tim: Interesting comments. I will make a few observations, for what they are worth. First, I doubt if you truly are at rest when you begin to count and, if you are, you are working very hard by the time you get to 40. Rest level is when the pressure in your lungs equals atmospheric pressure. Beyond that point the negative relaxation pressure (passive pressure) increases as air flows out of your lungs and you have to work to overcome that. During normal conversational speech, we rarely go below rest level. Having said that, it's also important to note that we also don't use a lot of our lung volume during speech - we are usually between about 40-60% of our vital capacity while speaking. No one takes a *deep* breath before talking - that is counterproductive. What I point out about breathing and speech breathing all the time is that we do them without thinking about them. I am guessing that people reading this right now are focusing on their breathing ("Am I breathing right?") and may have never even considered how they breathe up until now. When we introduce "breathing" as a component of speech, it's like asking the centipede how he walks - as long as it is a natural behavior, it all works fine. Once you start thinking about it, things get all screwed up. One final comment is that I don't think that "breathing" is a cause of stuttering - the disrupted breathing patterns are usually the result of something else (like laryngeal blocking, as you point out). As I noted in my response to Geoff last week, I don't think it is the breathing that is responsible for the success of costal breathing therapy. It is the many other important treatment variables that are a big part of the treatment. Bob Q.