The Buteyko Control Pause - A Complete Guide
About the Control Pause
The Control Pause (CP), Also known as the BOLT Score, is a simple breath-hold measurement that you can use to get feedback on your breathing. The Control Pause measures the number of seconds you can comfortably hold your breath after an exhalation. It will increase as your breathing improves and can be used to track your progress as you practice Buteyko Breathing.
A low Control Pause typically correlates with a variety of dysfunctional breathing symptoms such as upper chest breathing, faster more laboured breathing and breathlessness. By regularly practising Buteyko Breathing exercises and making the relevant lifestyle changes, it is possible to gradually improve the Control Pause and reduce a wide range of symptoms from Asthma and Anxiety to Long Covid and Panic Attacks.
The Control Pause can also be used in conjunction with other self-measurement metrics like HRV (Heart Rate Variability), Resting Heart Rate and Sleep metrics as a way of objectively tracking your health. It also has the added bonus of not requiring expensive wearable devices to measure it.
One downside of the Control Pause is that many factors affect it, and so it can be helpful to measure it on waking to get a more consistent reading. You can also use the instructions below to further improve the consistency and accuracy of your Control Pause measurements.
Steps to Measure your Control Pause Consistently and Accurately
Sit quietly and do nothing for at least 3 minutes before measuring your control pause to let your breathing settle. Your mouth should be closed, and you should avoid any distractions such as looking at your phone.
Sit in a relaxed upright posture, ideally on an upright chair.
Have a stopwatch or similar to hand, to measure the time.
Take a normal breath in and out through the nose, and then hold your nose and start timing.
When you feel the first urge to breathe, or the first sense of discomfort, stop timing.
Let go of your nose and resume breathing normally.
Take note of your body and breathing after taking the control pause. If your breathing is faster or heavier than usual, or if you feel tense or stressed, then you may have held your breath for too long. Next time, stop holding your breath a little earlier.
Common Mistakes with the Control Pause
It is important to clarify:
We are NOT holding the breath as long as we can, but rather waiting for the first signal from the body to breathe.
For those who are goal driven, there can be a tendency to hold the breath for too long. You must not try to push beyond the first distinct urge to breathe as this can be counterproductive.
Avoid looking at the clock/timer while holding your breath, as this can lead to trying to hold for longer than the natural pause point.
The breath before the control pause is a normal, small, quiet breath with the mouth closed.
The breath hold happens after the out breath. So, we breathe in, breath out, then hold.
Practising the Control Pause on its own, won’t change your breathing. It can only be used as a measurement or in conjunction with the Breath Light exercise.
How Long Should I Hold my Breath?
The trickiest element of the control pause is knowing when to stop holding your breath. We are NOT holding the breath as long as we can, but rather waiting for the first definite signal from the body to breathe. If you find it difficult to recognise this urge to breathe, other signals to look for are a subtle movement of the diaphragm or an impulse to swallow.
After the control pause, there should be no disruption to your breathing. Your breathing rate and size of the breaths should be the same as they were before taking the measurement.
How Often Should I Measure my Control Pause?
It is recommended to measure your Control Pause at least once a day, preferably on waking. In terms of tracking progress, it is important to know the following:
There are many factors which can affect the control pause and so it will often vary by about 1–3 seconds each time you measure it. For this reason, when tracking progress, it is better to look at trends over weeks and months rather than focusing on day-to-day variations. If your control goes up or down by 2 seconds from the previous day’s measurement, this doesn’t really mean anything due to the margin of error. If your Control Pause slowly trends up or down by 10 seconds over a 10-day period, this data is much more meaningful.
To help you visualise trends in your Control Pause over time, it can be helpful to enter your data into a simple Google Sheets spreadsheet so that you can see the data over time and even plot a graph if you like.
What to Expect with the Control Pause
For Participants who are fully engaged with a Buteyko Breathing programme and are practising an hour of Buteyko per day (30 mins of which may be walking with the mouth closed), we would typically expect to see:
The Control Pause increases by 3–4 seconds per week for the first 2–3 weeks.
Participants typically see a reduction in breathing related symptoms each time the Control Pause increases by around 5 seconds.
Once the Control Pause reaches 20 seconds, the rate of increase in CP tends to slow down. It will take at least three weeks to reach a Control Pause score of 20 seconds and six months to reach a Control Pause score of 30-40 seconds.
Physical exercise with a closed mouth is usually required to increase the Control Pause beyond 20 seconds.
Improvement depends on a wide range of factors, including your current symptoms, and on how much time you spent on your Buteyko Practice. The more awareness you can bring to your breathing each day, the better.
At the same time, there is no need to become obsessed with your breathing. Allow the changes to gradually occur. The breath cannot be forced into compliance.
Do I Need to Measure my Control Pause to do Buteyko Properly?
No, you don’t have to use the Control Pause to do Buteyko. Some people find it really helpful to give them feedback on their breathing and to track how their breathing improves over time as they adopt the Buteyko lifestyle. For others, especially those who are very goal driven or with perfectionist tendencies, they may find that tracking the Control Pause creates additional frustration, stress or tension. In this case it may be better just to measure the Control Pause once per week or drop it entirely.
