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The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human
- saberdancer 6y agoI've listened to a ex professional sportsman, turned trainer, and one of his big points in the talk was that by controlling our breathing we can influence our mental state. If you are overly excited or nervous you can slow down your breathing and do the exercises to relax. He claimed that the same can be done in reverse, if you are tired or wanting to improve your awareness you can do quick breaths. I tried it, but didn't really see the benefit with quick breaths but maybe I didn't do it long enough.
- vram22 6y agoIndian yoga has claimed that both parts of that are true for centuries.
- dugditches 6y agoReading some blog spam and learning about 'Box Breathing' really helped me. Apparently it's used by Navy Seals, but it really helps me get to sleep if I can't. Or in stressful or sudden situations, it really helps clear your head. Just a simple breathe in, hold, exhale, hold. Taking 4 slow seconds for each step. I was very, very skeptic of breathing techniques and meditation. However after learning this technique things kind of 'clicked' and meditation started to make sense, and see why it's thrown around so much.
- softwaredoug 6y agoThere’s a similar yoga technique called 4-7-8 breathing. Breath in for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8
- ekabod 6y ago4-7-8 is better than 4-4-4-4 to help fall in sleep to my experience.
- hanoz 6y agoScalene triangle breathing?
- vram22 6y agoThere's a video about it by a doctor (who is into these kinds of things, apart from his regular work) somewhere on YouTube. Saw it some time ago. Edit: found it: Watch "How To Perform the 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise | Andrew Weil, M.D." on YouTube https://youtu.be/YRPh_GaiL8s https://youtu.be/YRPh_GaiL8s
- Biganon 6y agoIf that helped him solve Fermat's last conjecture, it can probably help me relax
- rashkov 6y agoI really like this technique. Sometimes it gives me a pleasant head rush which instantly relaxes my entire body. It helps me to fall asleep or to relax in every day life. There's a nice dynamic with this technique where you end up using more of the oxygen in your breath, since you inhale for less time (4 seconds) than you hold & exhale (7+8 seconds). With box breathing, on the other hand, I find it really unpleasant to hold the empty lung position, and also four seconds feels like it's really not enough to use my full breath.
- rramadass 6y agoThe "standard" count in Classical Pranayama is usually 1:4:2 i.e. breathe in for x secs, hold for 4x secs and exhale for 2x secs.
- jcul 6y agoIn my training it was usually the exhale that was lengthened. Though my training was more physical yoga focused (Asana) so perhaps classical / more advanced / different purpose pranayama is different. Usually it was 1:1:2 inhale, hold, exhale.
- rramadass 6y agoOne of the things which bothers me is that, with the explosion of interest in all aspects of Yoga, there has been a concomitant dilution/muddying of its original teachings by Self-styled, New-Age, Half-baked gurus and plain old Charlatans. They simply lack the knowledge, which is unforgivable when you realize that the original sources are just a "google search" away. For people interested in the Original sources, i highly recommend starting with; Roots of Yoga by James Mallinson and Mark Singleton to know the primary sources and then actually reading them.
- xattt 6y agoI wonder how close this is to the breathing in the app on the Apple Watch.
- mr-ron 6y agoI learned and started using this from the game Wolfenstein, New Order. And I use it all the time for falling asleep. Works amazing!
- necrotic_comp 6y agoI was taught this in my grappling sports as a child! We did it for 10 seconds each step, and it's just enough that it slows everything down and helps you fall asleep.
- beaconstudios 6y agoslow breathing is one of the things that helps with breath-focused meditation, but there are other techniques with varying intentions and benefits. Broadly speaking, mindfulness-type meditation can make you aware of thoughts or emotions that you weren't previously aware of that could be affecting you. Has something ever bothered you, and you didn't realise how much until later on when you got irrationally annoyed at something else and thought "wait a minute, this shouldn't bother me this much"? Mindfulness practices can make you more aware of that emotion sooner so you're not carrying it with you all day. There's nothing inherently odd about it. There are also other forms of meditation that are intended to increase your sense of love and gratitude (metta), to come to grips with your own mortality (maranassati), and surely other psychological exercises I'm not aware of.
- abeppu 6y agoBut often mindfulness of breath instruction will suggest not trying to force your breath to be fast or slow, but to be attentive and aware of the character of the breath.
- beaconstudios 6y agotrue, but in deep meditation breath tends to slow down quite dramatically. It's not a case of "hold for 4", more just a natural rhythmic slowdown.
- n1000 6y agohttps://quietkit.com/box-breathing/ https://quietkit.com/box-breathing/ Edit: Learned it here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13508038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13508038
- runjake 6y agoI don't know why box breathing always gets credited as a Navy SEAL invention. This is a centuries-old technique and the SEALs got this from yoga/pranayama.
- alexmorenodev 6y agoIs it? I always read about it as "used" by Navy SEAL, not "created" by them.
- irjustin 6y agoIt's like the moon walk[0]. Michael Jackson made it popular but it had been around well before hand. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalk_(dance) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalk_(dance)
- ssully 6y agoIt sounds a lot cooler for some people to say they use a technique that Navy SEALs use instead of calling it a yoga technique.
- rv-de 6y agotechnically, in pranayama you never hold your breath after exhaling. also a 16 second cycle is quite fast for a pranayama technique.
- bonestamp2 6y agoFor those who are curious, it's called "Box Breathing" because, if it's helpful for you, you can picture a box and then trace the edges of the box in your mind as you're counting for each of the 4 steps (inhale, hold, exhale, hold). That visual can help take your mind off whatever is making you do this in the first place.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoThanks for sharing that since I did not know the reason for the name. But a box is a cube. Since there are four steps, shouldn’t it be called square breathing?
- Crespyl 6y ago"Box" is used often enough in natural english to refer to a square, particularly in the context of diagrams. "Draw a box around it", etc.
- wlesieutre 6y ago<input type="checkbox">
- loco5niner 6y ago> But a box is a cube only for some definitions of box
- pelario 6y agoA 3d box is a cube, a 2d box is a square.
- pawelmi 6y agoDoes tesseract count as box too? ;)
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
- mseidl 6y agoI learned/practiced this in my martial arts. I guess I'm the same level as a navy seal.
- ghostpepper 6y agoI am curious about the Navy SEAL connection because I was recently told by a scuba instructor never to do box breathing. Holding your breath while ascending from depth can cause over inflation of the lungs. Regular deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing is what they recommend.
- the_other 6y agoSEALs are mammals too; even they spend _some_ time on land. And, said in a less snarky way: I can see why a diving instructor would say "don't hold your breath" when you're under water. Navy SEALs likely dive a lot, but they also do training and actions above the water. And they likely spend a lot of time in stressful situations (certainly more than me). I can imagine they might box breath _on land_ to help manage the stress.
- Fezzik 6y agoMy understanding is that (in theory) box breathing is used to calm and focus the practitioner - it’s not something you do while exerting yourself at all. If you tried box breathing while running (or diving), for example, you would quickly need to stop running or pass out.
- me_me_me 6y agothat when you ascend. In the emergency ascending you are suppose to constantly exhale all the way to the surface. otherwise your lungs might tear. When doing next dive take a balloon with you and fill it with your air at the depth. Then go up. Otherwise when at same depth you don't have to worry too much about it. Disclaimer i am not an actual certified diving instructor.
- Aromasin 6y agoI do a lot of cave and wreck diving, where box breathing is reguarly touted as a fantastic way to calm yourself if you get into a stressful situation. You do it while at rest if you find yourself disorientated. Never hold your breate while ascending =/= Never hold your breathe underwater.
- ta1234567890 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hi41 6y agoHow fo you keep track of 4 seconds? Do you constantly count until 4 in your mind?
- pedalpete 6y agoWe each have our own specific breath-rate, box breathing, 4-7-8 or other styles of conscious breathing attempt to slow down your breath-rate and calm your autonomic nervous system, and for many people calms them enough to fall asleep. I have a very low breath-rate and find box breathing far too quick, and even 4-7-8 often feels fast. We're building a sleep headband and one component is monitoring your breath-rate and learning what your breath-rate is as you fall asleep. Once we know what your optimal breath-rate for sleep is, we can then play sounds which you consciously follow with your breath, and this will guide you to sleep. It's almost like a personalized breath timing exercise. Breath is only one of the ways we are working to improve sleep. If this is interesting to you, find out more at https://soundmind.co https://soundmind.co and sign-up for the waitlist.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoI prefer the 3-5-7 technique.
- criddell 6y agoI don't know if it's just Baader-Meinhof at work, but I've seen more information about breathing in the past year or so than I did over several decades before that. Am I imagining that or did something trigger the recent public interest?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- akuji1993 6y ago> Am I imagining that or did something trigger the recent public interest? It might be because we have a global pandemic on our hands, where the virus is attacking the lung.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction Auto-correct, thinko, or something I'm missing?
- TonyTrapp 6y agoYou are two clicks away from the correct answer :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...
- matsemann 6y agoThe name is from there: [0] > The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon is the illusion where something that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards (...) It was named after an incidence of frequency illusion in which the Baader–Meinhof Group was mentioned. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...
- Sebastian_09 6y ago>I don't know if it's just Baader-Meinhof at work A bit off topic but I was wondering what you mean with Baader-Meinhof - don’t see the obvious link and curious if there’s an expression / connection linked to RAF
- ponderingfish 6y agoThis is nothing but praNayaama packaged in a fancy journal paper. It's been practised in India for > 4000 years as part of Yoga. One of the earliest recorded mentions is in the Bhagavad Gita (set in 2500 BC). In it, Krishna tells Arjuna to calm his mind, focus his gaze on the tip of his nose, and concentrate on his breath. One of the greatest practioners was Sri Aurobindo who practised this for 8 hours a day for several weeks. He then reported a radiating energy through his body and wrote "Savitri" - 24,000 line poem in English while hiding from the British in French-occupied Pondicherry.
- yur5012 6y agoThanks for making a very "scientific" comment. Every scientist will be proud to read this. #sarcasm
- ponderingfish 6y agoLol. I guess everything has to be viewed through the lens of a western journal paper to be "scientic" #sarcasm
- msla 6y agoIt's even older in other parts of the world, of course.
- flobosg 6y agoFrom the introduction: > The act of controlling one’s breath for the purpose of restoring or enhancing one’s health has been practiced for thousands of years amongst Eastern cultures. For example, yogic breathing (pranayama) is a well-known ancient practice of controlled breathing, often performed in conjunction with meditation or yoga, for its spiritual and perceived health-enhancing effects.
- freehunter 6y agoTo be fair, "this is nothing but [ancient spiritual practice] but with science backing up the claims" is more valuable than this comment might imply. There's an awful lot of ancient spiritual practices that have no benefit and lots of harm and are still practiced today in the name of ancient spiritual practices (stuff like rhino horns). So having some science behind it is worth a lot more than "packaged in a fancy journal paper".
- 5h 6y agoAs a life long asthmatic who had a serious stutter as a child I've been practicing controlled breathing for as long as I can remember. Recently I've taken an interest in fitness (again) and, via a garmin watch, I've learnt my resting heart-rate is ~42 most nights, some nights dipping to 39. I'm by no means exceptionally fit, but have to think the slow breathing techniques are the cause.
- samblr 6y agoCould you expand on this please. Like the technique, duration and how long have you been doing it.
- 5h 6y agoThe ones I remember most were for stammering/stuttering. It was a mix of breathing from the bottom of your chest, strong posture with shoulders up & a little back, not forcing your ribs up, but feeling them move out horizontally. The biggest part for becoming a confident public speaker was the psychological side (aside from all the usual stuff about slowing down mentally). Becoming conscious of breathing for just a few seconds before starting works wonders, as does carefully timing awkward to produce sounds/syllables on different parts of the breathing downstroke. I've been doing this for 30yrs (i wrote 20 initially ... forgot i'm old :) now, slow breathing is the norm at the desk & before speaking to an audience/hosting meetings etc I still have to follow the same steps every time otherwise I start tripping over my tongue.
- mellavora 6y agoNo idea if it is the cause or not, but there are strong physiological links between breath control and heart rate. Do some reading on "heart rate variability", see for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189422/#s5title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189422/#s5titl... vargas nerve, parasympathetic nervous system, etc. (sourced from a quick google search; it's been 2 years since I was active in this and I don't have my sources in short-term memory).
- 5h 6y ago
- matsemann 6y agoIf it's taken to the extreme: Are there then even more health benefits for long breath holds? Or is it the breathing that's the clue? I've been practicing holding my breath for freediving earlier, and got to 5 minutes. It's very relaxing, until it's not.
- gambler 6y agoYes, in regards to holding breath. Look up Wim Hof breathing exercise. I haven't tried it it seriously yet, but the research looks promising.
- matsemann 6y agoA heads up: Hyperventilating before diving can be fatal, so not something I'd recommend in that context, at least. Which also makes me a bit dubious about his other claims. Edit: found a twitter thread where he told someone to not do it before freediving, so at least we agree there. I've just seen his method mentioned so many times in relation to breath hold, and it's so incredibly dangerous to do under water.
- monoideism 6y agoWim Hof repeatedly, in every video of his I've seen, tells people to do the breathing in a safe place, not in a pool or in the car. He even has a safety first video that discusses these things linked in all of his other videos.
- wombatmobile 6y agoNot everyone is able to breathe automatically. Brainstem structures located in the medulla are in charge of the automatic mode, whereas cortico-subcortical brain networks - including various frontal lobe areas - subtend the voluntary mode. Patients suffering from central congenital hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS), a very rare developmental condition secondary to brainstem dysfunction, make themselves breathe consciously while awake, but require mechanically-assisted ventilation (MV) during sleep to overcome the inability of brainstem structures to mediate automatic spontaneous breathing (SB), which is unreliable. This study used EEG-fMRI to compare patterns of brain activity between voluntary and autonomic ventilation during wakefulness. It found that the CCHS patient was more efficient in cognitive tasks requiring executive control during MV than during SB. Mechanical ventilation freed up the brain to perform other cognitive functions. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0107850 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- dheerajvs 6y agoI find it curious that breathing is one activity that can be both voluntary and autonomous. Are there any other activities that are so?
- jm547ster 6y agoBlinking is one that comes to mind
- wombatmobile 6y agoSleeping. Urinating. Defecating. Navigating. Grooming. Voting. Adjudicating. Loving. Hating.
- setum 6y agoPrāṇāyāma: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranayama https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranayama
- mistrial9 6y agothe illustration prepended to this PDF shows a South Asian man using the one-nostril 'nadi channels' variation of some pranayama practice -- not enough info to know which.. personally I find that the single nostril nadi constriction is a distraction or worse, actually detrimental, for some people, some amount of the time. The breathing rhythms and GENTLE retentions discussed in the comments, are powerful tools and do affect physiology immediately. I suggest a) working with an experienced person at first, b) know your own body, c) do no include fancy extras in the practice, like the nadi channel restriction shown in the photo, rather focus on steady repitition and stable surroundings, at predictable times of day. This practice has helped me a lot and I trust it will bring health and stability to others also.
- alltakendamned 6y agoProbably nadi shodana. You shouldn’t start this one right away, but only after you’ve already slowed down breathing. I agree there’s also other techniques first, and if it is uncomfortable, stay away from it. That said, it’s a pretgood technique to know.
- jimiray 6y agoI dropped in here to say this. There's a book that just came out related to this called Breathe. I looks at breath from a cultural perspective also.
- m3kw9 6y agoSlow = “ we define slow breathing as any rate from 4 to 10 breaths per min (0.07–0.16 Hz). The typical respiratory rate in humans is within the range of 10–20 breaths per min (0.16–0.33 Hz).”
- elric 6y agoDoes "one breath" refer to a single cycle (in & out)? Or to a discrete in or out breath?
- SamBam 6y agoOne cycle.
- SamBam 6y agoI use an app on my phone where I can set the inhale, exhale and pause times, as well as the ramping down time, and I find when I want to relax I can quite easily get down to 3 breaths a minute.
- riantogo 6y agoApp name/link?
- SamBam 6y agoPaced Breathing, for Android. Very simple, you can set the inhale, hold, exhale, hold times, and you can set start and end speeds and ramp-down time. You can save settings, so I have a "Quick calm down" that's just 3 minutes, going down to 4.5 breaths/min, and a "Slooow" that 6 minutes long that has me at 3 breaths/min for most of it, and a "Slooow continued" that starts at 3 breaths/min and just continues for another 5 minutes, for when I just want to stay there for a while. I also have a square breathing pattern saved, 6 seconds per side, but I don't much like square breathing. Inhale and exhale is shown visually, by sounds, or by phone vibrations. No other fluff.
- TheHideout 6y ago"You're only ever 15 minutes away from peace" - a sticky note on my desk. I regularly slowly breathe in and count to 4 then out while counting to 4 for 15 minutes and find that it leaves me in a peaceful/content state. If anyone is interested, I made an hour long mix of lots of waves and wind sounds, paying special attention to panning and levels to create a wide, enveloping, slow pulsing feeling that I use when doing heavy concentration work [0]. [0]: https://soundcloud.com/syn_nine/waves-and-wind-1-hour https://soundcloud.com/syn_nine/waves-and-wind-1-hour
- arghwhat 6y agoI interpreted your sticky note as giving a more morbid suggestion of you achieving (final) peace if you stop breathing for 15 minutes...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- me_me_me 6y agoIn 2012, German freediver Tom Sietas held his breath underwater for 22 minutes and 22 seconds :)
- Someone 6y agoAfter breathing pure oxygen for up to 30 minutes. Still insane, but he’s ‘only’ 4th/6th in the all-time list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_apnea#With_pure_oxygen_–_record_progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_apnea#With_pure_oxygen_...) Unaided, the record is about half that. Don’t try either at home. Freediving is extremely dangerous, even this version, where aid can always be at arm’s length.
- matsemann 6y agoNothing inherently dangerous about practicing breath holds at home, as long as it's done sitting in a bed or so in case of dizziness. Unless you hyperventilate (don't!) the pain will be too great for most people to hold until they black out. And one can always just start breathing before that, never beat your own PR by more than a few seconds at a time. Of course, when setting records it's done in the water (because of the diving reflex), which should never be attempted alone. I recommend apps for "co2 tables" when practicing.
- scotty79 6y agoLeave it to humans and they will give each other verbal advice on how to breathe. And then discuss that advice. The socialiest species.
- lattalayta 6y agoFor some reason, I find this GIF really relaxing. I have it bookmarked and match my breathing to it every once in awhile https://i.imgur.com/Huou7Gh.gif https://i.imgur.com/Huou7Gh.gif
- lbj 6y agoThat gif is about 20% faster than how I normally breathe. It stressed me out :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chanmad29 6y agointeresting idea but a slower gif would've been truly relaxing.
- ElijahLynn 6y agoOh interesting, the latest version of the Wim Hoff app (on Android at least) has that same type of visualization for the breathing coaching!
- sgentle 6y agoI made this a while back: https://demos.samgentle.com/breather/ https://demos.samgentle.com/breather/ It's a 4-2-6 breathing pattern, but it's a single html file, so should be pretty easy to save and customise if you want something different.
- yetanotherjosh 6y agoNo pausing on the end of the exhalation? Pausing there is the most relaxing part of breathing, IMO.
- ourcat 6y agoI do this when I shiver in the cold. You'll stay warmer for longer.
- jungletime 6y agoJust wanted to recommend this Yoga series, Namaste Yoga. It synchronizes breathing with movement. Plus its shot in some pretty spectacular locations. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205793/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205793/
- feralimal 6y agoCompare and contrast with mandatory face mask wearing. Re-breathing your own expelled air is provably bad for health.
- feralimal 6y agoSeriously though, I'm in total agreement with the breathing techniques mentioned above. I wouldn't sit in traffic fumes, I do think pranayama breathing, Wim Hof, etc are excellent. I try to go outdoors, in nature daily, breathing deeply as I go. The mandatory mask wearing is anti-peace, anti-life, anti-'all the good stuff mentioned above'. And governments have made this mandatory in many places. I can't think of something more anti-life than restricting free breathing. Governments are mandating anti-life activity, and this is accepted! This has been rolled out and is encouraged by most. Its even actually considered ok to shame and snitch on others who don't accept it. For me, the mask 'cure' is worse than the disease. How many people will suffer known health effects from wearing masks, for the sake of the unproven hypothesis that they mitigate something? I don't understand those on this thread who are happy to upvote the nice comments, while overlooking the elephant in the room. Perhaps you didn't recognise it as the mask is covering its whole trunk!!
- matsemann 6y ago> How many people will suffer known health effects from wearing masks None? Or they are probably already in a physical state in which going out in public during a pandemic is not a good idea?
- neffy 6y agoI think the elephant in the room is what is really behind QAnon - I must admit I do admire the coordination behind the arguments, seen this one a few times the last couple of days.
- edmundsauto 6y agoI am unfamiliar with the evidence that wearing a mask is bad for your health. I do see a lot of health professionals mention that surgeons wear masks for 10+ hour surgery, implying there are no deleterious effects. On the other hand, wearing a mask does prevent particulate transmission, which is provably good for other people's health. Would you be able to provide any reliable evidence to your claim?
- crispyambulance 6y agoThis relates to breath meditation and makes me think of the audio files from https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html#basics https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_collections_index.html#basic... It's helpful (for many of us) to have guided breath meditation, if only to get into the right headspace needed for sustained "focus" on breath. Thanissaro Bhikkhu is perhaps the most chill human on the planet.
- thdrdt 6y agoYesterday I watched Pierre Capel explain the Wim Hof method. He explains that you can change the pH levels in your body with breathing techniques. And this alters how your nerves are working. Very interesting: https://youtu.be/hJ7zbsRM0-c https://youtu.be/hJ7zbsRM0-c
- jml7c5 6y agoIt's worth noting that any hyperventilation raises blood pH (low CO2 in blood -> increased alkalinity). There's nothing special about the Wim Hof method in this regard.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agoThe effect on the nervous system is different depending on the technique. Also the WH method (I'm not a practitioner btw) has been experimentally demonstrated [0] to have the purported effects. Not all such breathing systems can say that. [0] https://edlatimore.com/wim-hof-method-review/#the-science https://edlatimore.com/wim-hof-method-review/#the-science
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aaisola 6y agoThis is something that yogis have been saying for 1000s of years, using breathing techniques like 'pranayam'. It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited. Now we are seeing an explosion in breathing related practices from Wim Hof, to Kelly Starrett and the Navy Seals essentially taking a practice that people have been doing for millennia and making it seem novel.
- mpweiher 6y ago"The act of controlling one’s breath for the purpose of restoring or enhancing one’s health has been practiced for thousands of years amongst Eastern cultures. For example, yogic breathing (pranayama) is a well-known ancient practice of controlled breathing, ..."
- zabil 6y ago> It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited. I don't think it was discredited. It's just making the case stronger using science. I believe this will keep happening and that's good!
- Reimersholme 6y ago"It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited." The 'western university' idea of using scientific methods to test claims is what has allowed us to sort out useful actual impact of breathing exercises and meditation from supernatural claims like astral projection, teleportation, telepathy etc., but sure, let's just trust eastern wisdom because anything else would be western colonial oppression...
- ethanbond 6y agoThis is such a tired critique of any science that touches on traditions. There are plenty of traditions that have turned out to be useless, plenty that turn out to be useful. Empirical validation is a good thing and has literally nothing to do with east versus west nor tradition versus modernity. It has to do with knowledge versus suspicion, and the more useful things we can pull forward from suspicion into knowledge, the better off we'll be.
- johnisgood 6y agoOpiates slow down your breathing, and releases endorphins... so it could therapeutically be used to "remain healthy"? I wonder. :)
- netmonk 6y agoThat is why peoples are smoking. Smoking is slow breathing, and therefore as a relaxing effect.
- amelius 6y agoEven better to vape the "anti-stress" vitamin B12: https://vitaminvape.co/ https://vitaminvape.co/
- vanshg 6y agoWell, that, and nicotine is addictive
- netmonk 6y agoNicotine is as addictive as Caffeine. I would point you to look about added susbtances such as sugar, which when burnt produces acetaldehyde which directly stimulate pleasure zones of the brain in less than 15seconds transfer from inhaling to blood.
- mikenew 6y agoAnecdotally (sorry), my resting heart rate was sitting around 72-ish for a long time, according to my fitbit. I'm a pretty fit guy in my mid 30's, so I wasn't really happy with that number. I started working on trying to improve my breathing a bit, and after a couple months it's now sitting around 58 or so. I mostly just tried to breathe through my nose as much as possible, with a lesser focus on breathing slower. At first it was difficult because it always felt like my nose was stuffy and hard to breathe through, but there are some techniques to clear it temporarily [0]. And over time my nasal passages became clearer to where I very rarely have trouble breathing through my nose. Of course I don't know for sure if that was actually what brought my heart rate down, but the timeline fits pretty well. Plus I figure the cost and risks of just trying to improve your breathing are pretty much nil, so it's worth a shot. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBqGS-vEIs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBqGS-vEIs0
- curun1r 6y agoIf you're curious about this subject, there's a fairly new book [0] by James Nestor who argues for what you're talking about and quite a bit more. He did an experiment where he had his nose sealed to force mouth breathing and found that it caused a number of nasty health consequences, including elevated heart rate. So it's likely that your anecdote is representative of an actual causal relationship between nasal breathing and heart rate. He did a promotional appearance [1] for the book with Joe Rogan that covers a bunch of the material, but the book is interesting beyond what gets discussed in the interview. [0] https://www.mrjamesnestor.com/breath https://www.mrjamesnestor.com/breath [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5o9b2RVC2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5o9b2RVC2E
- bane 6y agoI've been fighting a sudden issue with high blood pressure. It's amazing what sitting down and doing some slow breathing will do. I can go from cardiac patient to normal inside of 15 minutes just by taking my time to breath at 5-6 second intervals.
- Henk0 6y agoSome have mentioned the Wim Hof method here, but I’ll give it a shout out too. Have practiced the breathing daily, 1-3 times per day, 4 rounds per session (1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 minute breath holds) for a couple of months now and it’s had great effect on both my asthma and how winded I get from uphill sprints on my morning walks. Am also doing some cold showers and wearing only shorts and tshirt for my walks. I used to feel the need for pants and sweater if the temperature was around 10 celsius outside. The other day I was quite comfortable walking at 0 degrees. Did take a while for my hands and arms to recover full dexterity afterwards, but the kind of cold-to-the-bones freezing I would experience doing something like that didn’t happen. Walk is about an hour on forest trails The breathing sessions are also an easy way to get meditation and body scan exercises into the daily routine. Definitely recommend it
- StavrosK 6y ago> I used to feel the need for pants and sweater if the temperature was around 10 celsius outside. The other day I was quite comfortable walking at 0 degrees. Your comment sounded good until that sentence, I sweat profusely in anything approaching normal temperatures and wouldn't want to lower my "starting to sweat" temperature (which now is at about 20 C) by another ten degrees...
- dennyabraham 6y agoI felt the same, but, having tried it, I can say it works in both directions. I can comfortably tolerate both hotter and colder temperatures than before.
- StavrosK 6y agoHuh, that's promising, thanks. Is there an easy resource on the method? I downloaded the android app but it needed a sign up so I uninstalled it.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agoLooks like some videos are coming up with a DDG search: https://youtu.be/nzCaZQqAs9I https://youtu.be/nzCaZQqAs9I
- dcolkitt 6y agoOne thing I wonder is if the mechanism that underlies the physiological benefits of slow breathing is the same as caloric restriction. This is very speculative, and I'm not even fully sold on slow breathing conclusively having benefits. But it's looking more likely, and there seems to be a deep parallel with the very well-documented benefits of caloric restriction. In both cases, a crucial metabolic input is being rate-limited to just above the baseline amount required for survival. Oxygen in one case, glucose in another. Much of aging seems to be the result of oxidative stress caused by metabolic waste products. Sustainably reducing the total amount of metabolic activity seems to substantially slow the accumulated damaged accompanying aging. One way to do that is to simply set a hard limit on one of the critical ingredients in the process.
- crazynick4 6y agoThe most convincing explanation that I heard was that by building up a tolerance in your body to carbon dioxide, you actually train your body to oxygenate itself better. CO2 dilates blood vessels and helps transport oxygen where it needs to go so it's not just a waste product. When you're short on breath, the feeling is not actually due to a lack of oxygen but due to an excess of carbon dioxide. This is why just by starting to exhale after holding your breath, you immediately feel better, despite not having inhaled any additional oxygen. By holding your breath all the time you teach yourself to tolerate more CO2. For some weeks I'd practice holding my breath all the time say while I'm driving or working, holding on each breath (maybe 20-30 seconds until my diaphragm starts to try to breathe involuntarily), maybe an hour at a time or more, but I find you need at least 20 minutes or so to feel an effect that lasts longer than a few minutes. You do get to a point where you really feel different throughout the whole day and your breathing slows down naturally. I don't see why science is so resistant to researching disciplines involving the breath. Breathing is literally your most important source of energy, common sense would tell you there is something there to unpack.
- yetanotherjosh 6y agoI've deeply wondered about the question regarding why science and modern medicine have largely ignored breath as a topic of health. Part of the explanation I believe is that it doesn't make anyone any money. But, this can't be the total explanation. It's frankly astonishing. Studying someone's breathing habits should be part of routine medical exams and general wellness check ups. No M.D. that I have ever been to has ever brought it up, and when I've asked them about it, they shrug and give me a weird look, as if I'd asked them about UFO sightings. It's phenomenally strange.
- girishso 6y agoThey say in India, When we are born, we are given a certain number of breaths. The quicker we spend our breaths, the sooner we die. Tortoise breaths 4 times per minute and lives for ~300 years.
- jml7c5 6y agoThere are similar sayings around number of heartbeats. It's fun to imagine, but it's not particularly scientific.
- garren 6y agoI’ve heard something similar in the past, and there are at least a couple studies that support the idea [0][1] “...humans have on average a heart rate of around 60 to 70 beats per minute, give or take. We live roughly 70 or so years, giving us just over 2 billion beats all up.”[2] Other animals follow a similar trend, according to [2], and I find that to be much more interesting. [0] https://heart.bmj.com/content/99/12/882 https://heart.bmj.com/content/99/12/882 [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1741826710394274 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/174182671039427... [2] https://www.sciencealert.com/relationship-between-heart-beat-and-life-expectancy https://www.sciencealert.com/relationship-between-heart-beat...
- girishso 6y agoBut we do not have direct control over heart to make it beat slower. Maybe slow breathing is a way to slow the heart beats.
- tomcat27 6y agoWhat's the executive summary of this paper?
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoRecently a user submitted, 'Make me breathe properly'[1] after watching James Nestor's talk to my problem validation platform. I assumed, upcoming Apple Watch(then) would be able to measure breathing rate (i.e. Number of breaths/minute) with pulse oximeter and EKG (Apple has a patent for this) which should solve this problem as Apple watch already had a breathe app. Needless to say, Apple Watch Series 6 doesn't seem to have this feature and I assume that the accuracy was an issue as off the shelf pulse-oximeters which claim to measure both SpO2 and breath rate do a bad job at the latter. [1] https://needgap.com/problems/155-make-me-breathe-properly-health-respiration https://needgap.com/problems/155-make-me-breathe-properly-he...
- tacocataco 6y agoBreathing exercises were a big part of the taoism books I studied. IIRC, because breathing is voluntary and involuntary at the same time. This is where the Spirit and the body meet. Breathing exercises help move your "inner energy" through your body. The book I'd recommend is the Tao Te Ching if you're interested.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agothanks for the recommendation. I'll admit I haven't looked since I read your comment but I do not remember seeing breathing exercises in the Tao Te Ching.
- ChuckMcM 6y agoMy daughter, who got her Masters in biology relatively recently, suggested that this appears to be the "expected" way that mammals purge stress. I was told during my meditation classes that, during slow breathing, the amplitude of various waves on an EEG change. Waves that are associated with sleeping/resting gaining amplitude, while those associated with stress decrease in amplitude. I know from my own experience that it works for me to calm down stage fright prior to public speaking or important presentations :-).