5 ms·

I went once to a session like this out of curiosity. I had cramps. A friend who’s just finished Uni being a GP told what is going on: https://en.m.wikipedia.or

by ay 7y ago

I went once to a session like this out of curiosity. I had cramps. A friend who’s just finished Uni being a GP told what is going on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis Is the medical term. Note this is not the “excess of oxygen” that you feel the effects of - but the lack of CO2. Human body keeps the Ph of the blood in a really tight band - and if it swings outside of it one or the other direction - “bad” things happen. (The opposite condition is called acidosis) Note that this exact thing also happens during the panic attacks; so my running theory is that the “gurus” create a positive feedback loop in the weaker people that are in need of support. Maybe there is some self-impact by the placebo effect; but most usually these “sessions” are just a brilliantly evil way to earn money by getting people high on thin air! (There is no legislation that prohibits deep breathing while with drugs of course there is). Again, the feedback from a person who actually finished a uni to become a doctor: do not do this. If you are looking for spirituality, try meditation instead. Hope this helps.

mistermann 7y ago
> I went once to a session like this out of curiosity. I had cramps. A friend who’s just finished Uni being a GP told what is going on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis Is the medical term. That's actually funny, because "what is actually going on here" was the very first question I had, but it seemed to me like this thought didn't even cross the mind of the other 10 in attendance - I even asked the instructor and he had no idea, or curiosity. It's interesting how differently we all think about the world. > Note that this exact thing also happens during the panic attacks; so my running theory is that the “gurus” create a positive feedback loop in the weaker people that are in need of support. I saw absolutely no sign of this being true in my session. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and there was a strong sense of bonding and peace....anxiety was the exact opposite of what I saw going down. Although, I can agree that some people using these sorts of things, and only these sorts of things, as temporary crutches rather than getting at the underlying issue is an actual problem. > Maybe there is some self-impact by the placebo effect; but most usually these “sessions” are just a brilliantly evil way to earn money by getting people high on thin air! Did you get any results out of your session? Characterizing this as a scam or a placebo effect makes me think it didn't work for you? > Again, the feedback from a person who actually finished a uni to become a doctor: do not do this. If you are looking for spirituality, try meditation instead. I don't see how being a GP would equip someone in any way for having superior insight on such topics, unless they are speaking only to the qualitative medical risk aspect? And even so, any such judgement should also take into consideration the relative efficacy of the different practices.
- ay 7y ago
  > It's interesting how differently we all think about the world. Absolutely. I am convinced that difference in the approach also affects the view of spirituality as well. > I saw absolutely no sign of this being true in my session. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and there was a strong sense of bonding and peace... The group I was in was a mix - probably 40% of people who definitely were going through a tricky time in their life (if wearing a T-shirt with “nobody loves me” may be any indication of that). And most of the remaining ones were the happy looking bunch. The debrief felt okay and fine, but one of the participants explained he needed help during the exercise and he wasn’t given it, and the “teacher” had a kinda uncomfortable interaction with that person at that point. > Did you get any results out of your session? Characterizing this as a scam or a placebo effect makes me think it didn't work for you? With my “effects” of the hyperventilation being the cramps, and the “funny” moment during the debrief, I didn’t get any enlightenment :-) I won’t really call it a scam - since most if not all of our perception of the world is defined by the brain chemistry, much like with drugs, I can see how this may have some effects - especially with some preconditioning. If it helps someone - why not. Placebo is a powerful mechanism. > I don't see how being a GP would equip someone in any way for having superior insight on such topics, unless they are speaking only to the qualitative medical risk aspect? Yeah, precisely. The feedback was basically “there is no conclusive research that this is good for you. Meditation does have such research”. As for spirituality: In my view no one is qualified to tell another person about it in an assertive fashion. Any representation of a higher order system within a lower order system will be necessarily slightly different - that’s why it is everyone’s personal journey. :-)
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > The group I was in was a mix - probably 40% of people who definitely were going through a tricky time in their life (if wearing a T-shirt with “nobody loves me” may be any indication of that). And most of the remaining ones were the happy looking bunch. My session felt similar, the older people in the group seeming to be dealing with ongoing issues from past experiences, whereas the younger people while very sincere about the whole thing seeming to be mostly there more for spirituality as a lifestyle reasons. They all seemed happy and extremely supportive of each other. > With my “effects” of the hyperventilation being the cramps, and the “funny” moment during the debrief, I didn’t get any enlightenment :-) I won’t really call it a scam - since most if not all of our perception of the world is defined by the brain chemistry, much like with drugs, I can see how this may have some effects - especially with some preconditioning. If it helps someone - why not. Placebo is a powerful mechanism. I'm very curious, have you ever taken a significant amount of psychedelic drugs followed by sitting in a quiet dark room for several hours? My intuition suggests not.
mettamage 7y ago
Okay, so this tinnitus thing is an informal experiment that I'm organizing for people who are interested. Which is a thing that is perhaps worthy of discussion. But I feel you're mixing too much new age stuff with hard science. Let's get some facts here and see where we agree and perhaps diverge. Fact 1: the WHM gets you high on adrenaline [1]. It's actually higher than peak adrenaline during bungee jumping. In [1] it is also stated how the WHM is different than hyperventilation (neurobiologically at least). Fact 2: The alkalosis thing is correct [2]. The doctors that I talked to (Radboud Nijmegen, The Netherlands) said that it was seemingly fine since every other indicator was fine. According to my conversation with them alkalosis happens when a person is dead, for example, but if it's the only thing that's negative, then it's probably fine. These doctors were also the authors of [1] as I was one of the research subjects. I can see the medical community disagreeing about something like this (and again, I'm not a doctor, so if one wants to be on the safe side, assume it's bad, safety first). > If you are looking for spirituality, try meditation instead. I agree. The WHM is not something to be done on a whim. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 -- quote: Epinephrine levels in trained individuals were even higher than those reported in a recent study in which acute stress elicited by a bungee jump was found to suppress cytokine production by leukocytes ex vivo stimulated with LPS (13). [2] same paper -- quote: and an increase in pH (reaching up to 7.75 in individual subjects; Fig. 2 and Movie S2), indicating acute respiratory alkalosis, which normalized quickly after cessation of the breathing techniques.
- ay 7y ago
  Ah, my comment was only my experience/opinion about the “spirituality by a half an hour long hyperventilation”, not WHM. Sorry for not making the context clearer. As for WHM itself, and experimenting with it - why not, if going into it carefully and with clear conscience... On the experimentation topic - I am curious - did you also try the link posted elsewhere in this discussion - https://github.com/generalfuzz/acrn https://github.com/generalfuzz/acrn ? Thank you for the link to the paper, very interesting!

by ay 7y ago

mistermann 7y ago

> I went once to a session like this out of curiosity. I had cramps. A friend who’s just finished Uni being a GP told what is going on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_alkalosis Is the medical term. That's actually funny, because "what is actually going on here" was the very first question I had, but it seemed to me like this thought didn't even cross the mind of the other 10 in attendance - I even asked the instructor and he had no idea, or curiosity. It's interesting how differently we all think about the world. > Note that this exact thing also happens during the panic attacks; so my running theory is that the “gurus” create a positive feedback loop in the weaker people that are in need of support. I saw absolutely no sign of this being true in my session. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and there was a strong sense of bonding and peace....anxiety was the exact opposite of what I saw going down. Although, I can agree that some people using these sorts of things, and only these sorts of things, as temporary crutches rather than getting at the underlying issue is an actual problem. > Maybe there is some self-impact by the placebo effect; but most usually these “sessions” are just a brilliantly evil way to earn money by getting people high on thin air! Did you get any results out of your session? Characterizing this as a scam or a placebo effect makes me think it didn't work for you? > Again, the feedback from a person who actually finished a uni to become a doctor: do not do this. If you are looking for spirituality, try meditation instead. I don't see how being a GP would equip someone in any way for having superior insight on such topics, unless they are speaking only to the qualitative medical risk aspect? And even so, any such judgement should also take into consideration the relative efficacy of the different practices.

ay 7y ago
> It's interesting how differently we all think about the world. Absolutely. I am convinced that difference in the approach also affects the view of spirituality as well. > I saw absolutely no sign of this being true in my session. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and there was a strong sense of bonding and peace... The group I was in was a mix - probably 40% of people who definitely were going through a tricky time in their life (if wearing a T-shirt with “nobody loves me” may be any indication of that). And most of the remaining ones were the happy looking bunch. The debrief felt okay and fine, but one of the participants explained he needed help during the exercise and he wasn’t given it, and the “teacher” had a kinda uncomfortable interaction with that person at that point. > Did you get any results out of your session? Characterizing this as a scam or a placebo effect makes me think it didn't work for you? With my “effects” of the hyperventilation being the cramps, and the “funny” moment during the debrief, I didn’t get any enlightenment :-) I won’t really call it a scam - since most if not all of our perception of the world is defined by the brain chemistry, much like with drugs, I can see how this may have some effects - especially with some preconditioning. If it helps someone - why not. Placebo is a powerful mechanism. > I don't see how being a GP would equip someone in any way for having superior insight on such topics, unless they are speaking only to the qualitative medical risk aspect? Yeah, precisely. The feedback was basically “there is no conclusive research that this is good for you. Meditation does have such research”. As for spirituality: In my view no one is qualified to tell another person about it in an assertive fashion. Any representation of a higher order system within a lower order system will be necessarily slightly different - that’s why it is everyone’s personal journey. :-)
- mistermann 7y ago
  > The group I was in was a mix - probably 40% of people who definitely were going through a tricky time in their life (if wearing a T-shirt with “nobody loves me” may be any indication of that). And most of the remaining ones were the happy looking bunch. My session felt similar, the older people in the group seeming to be dealing with ongoing issues from past experiences, whereas the younger people while very sincere about the whole thing seeming to be mostly there more for spirituality as a lifestyle reasons. They all seemed happy and extremely supportive of each other. > With my “effects” of the hyperventilation being the cramps, and the “funny” moment during the debrief, I didn’t get any enlightenment :-) I won’t really call it a scam - since most if not all of our perception of the world is defined by the brain chemistry, much like with drugs, I can see how this may have some effects - especially with some preconditioning. If it helps someone - why not. Placebo is a powerful mechanism. I'm very curious, have you ever taken a significant amount of psychedelic drugs followed by sitting in a quiet dark room for several hours? My intuition suggests not.

mettamage 7y ago

Okay, so this tinnitus thing is an informal experiment that I'm organizing for people who are interested. Which is a thing that is perhaps worthy of discussion. But I feel you're mixing too much new age stuff with hard science. Let's get some facts here and see where we agree and perhaps diverge. Fact 1: the WHM gets you high on adrenaline [1]. It's actually higher than peak adrenaline during bungee jumping. In [1] it is also stated how the WHM is different than hyperventilation (neurobiologically at least). Fact 2: The alkalosis thing is correct [2]. The doctors that I talked to (Radboud Nijmegen, The Netherlands) said that it was seemingly fine since every other indicator was fine. According to my conversation with them alkalosis happens when a person is dead, for example, but if it's the only thing that's negative, then it's probably fine. These doctors were also the authors of [1] as I was one of the research subjects. I can see the medical community disagreeing about something like this (and again, I'm not a doctor, so if one wants to be on the safe side, assume it's bad, safety first). > If you are looking for spirituality, try meditation instead. I agree. The WHM is not something to be done on a whim. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7379 -- quote: Epinephrine levels in trained individuals were even higher than those reported in a recent study in which acute stress elicited by a bungee jump was found to suppress cytokine production by leukocytes ex vivo stimulated with LPS (13). [2] same paper -- quote: and an increase in pH (reaching up to 7.75 in individual subjects; Fig. 2 and Movie S2), indicating acute respiratory alkalosis, which normalized quickly after cessation of the breathing techniques.

ay 7y ago
Ah, my comment was only my experience/opinion about the “spirituality by a half an hour long hyperventilation”, not WHM. Sorry for not making the context clearer. As for WHM itself, and experimenting with it - why not, if going into it carefully and with clear conscience... On the experimentation topic - I am curious - did you also try the link posted elsewhere in this discussion - https://github.com/generalfuzz/acrn https://github.com/generalfuzz/acrn ? Thank you for the link to the paper, very interesting!