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Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

psychologytoday.com

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Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#61

Post by crpatino »

leg100 wrote: post #16
mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

As someone who has practiced yoga for 40 years and started qigong a few years ago, the advice in the article seems fairly obvious. Still, great to see the article in the front page of HN! I had not thought of deep belly breathing helping calm and relax me during meetings - will try that.

Yup, I do this as part of tai chi and qi gong (referred to as 'dan tian' breathing). Seems to be a thing of the west to take elements of yoga, tai chi, daoism et al, and distill them - mindfulness comes to mind - and as devices they're good, but together they amount to so much more than the sum of their parts, hence the eastern penchant for a 'holistic' approach.

> Seems to be a thing of the west to take elements of yoga, tai chi, daoism et al, and distill them

Well, traditional systems take actual effort. You cannot market to the masses if 90% of your customers are going to stop coming after a handful of sessions.

... Unless you do a January promotion, pay the full year and get 50+% off. In that case, the wannabes subsidize the actual students.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#62

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #22
montrose wrote: post #21

My yoga teacher always says this is the most important part of yoga. She says it's why she rarely gets sick. She was delighted to hear it was one of the top stories on HN.

Make sure to tell her that I also rarely get sick, without the bother of doing yoga.

[deleted]

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#63

Post by colmvp »

portofcall wrote: post #20
gerbilly wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been programming for 20 years, and experienced a lot of stress from it, it seems to be like I have been unwittingly practising 'anti yoga.' When I code difficult problems, my breathing becomes light and shallow and from the chest: almost the way you would breathe if nervously anticipating some outcome. The physical posture is more often than not slumped in a chair, and locked into a narrow range of…

It’s not easy, it takes time and effort, but it can be overcome. Mindfulness, setting periodic alarm reminders (at first frequently and then less so) to sit up straight and breathe deeply, meditation, all help a lot. The problem is that it can take a while to start to see results, and people often give up. They’ll come back to it when they pull something or herniate a disc, but until then posture and breathing are no…

> The problem is that it can take a while to start to see results, and people often give up.

I recall listening to two pretty well known experts in mindfulness meditation, and they said it can take thousands of hours of practice before you start to see profound results. Like anything, it requires practice and patience.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#64

Post by HillaryBriss »

FWIW, Andrew Weil took what he calls the "4-7-8" breathing exercise from ancient India. Video demonstration: https://www.drweil.com/videos-features/videos/the-4-7-8-brea...

It bears some resemblance to the breathing exercise described by the author of the Psych Today article.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#65

Post by IAmGraydon »

csours wrote: post #48
jackhack wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're locked in an airtight space (or small closet, etc) high CO2 should not be a concern whatsoever. Any normal living space is going to be fine. Even a relatively "tight" super-efficient modern home changes air over several times per hour (and have fresh-air injectors on the heating/cooling systems to introduce fresh air and prevent staleness). Even there, a house full of people wall-to-wall could not signi…

What about a dancehall/disco packed with people dancing?

In that particular case, have a drink instead of rubbing your stomach and making deep oooohhm noises.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#66

Post by pauldw »

jackhack wrote: post #38
tandav wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One note: fresh and clean airflow is important, don't do this indoor with high co2 ppm (high co2 is basically poison)

Unless you're locked in an airtight space (or small closet, etc) high CO2 should not be a concern whatsoever. Any normal living space is going to be fine. Even a relatively "tight" super-efficient modern home changes air over several times per hour (and have fresh-air injectors on the heating/cooling systems to introduce fresh air and prevent staleness). Even there, a house full of people wall-to-wall could not signi…

It might not be a health risk, but I found this study [1] interesting. It showed impaired decision making at CO2 levels that you could encounter indoors.

[1] "Is CO2 an Indoor Pollutant? Direct Effects of Low-to-Moderate CO2 Concentrations on Human Decision-Making Performance" . https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548274/

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#67

Post by agumonkey »

lhorie wrote: post #53
nsouth wrote: post #5

Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…

> that's when the doorway to the inner world opens Sorry the metaphor is lost on me. What does that mean in layman terms?

You're less caught up by external influences that may distract or pain your mind. IIUC you're in a introspective state, exploring your sensations, ideas and emotions.

Grief forced me to learn that, it's an effort at first, and absurd because you're forcing not to move mentally, in the end you drop most your thoughts and a calmer part of you may fill the room.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#68

Post by abledon »

l_t wrote: post #17
nsouth wrote: post #5

Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…

What kind of negative side-effects are you referring to? I've heard a fair number of people talk about high-level Yoga stuff being dangerous, but I've never really understood what they meant. Is it related to the suspension of breath, like risk of unconsciousness? Long term joint damage? (BTW, thanks for the book rec -- Kundalini Exposed looks pretty interesting).

"""What kind of negative side-effects are you referring to?"""

When one enters that stage of yoga, if they've been a good little yogi and done the preliminary physical preparations (which may take decades (or you hit the jackpot and are born into a magnificent constitution, maybe a few years)), they can begin the real 'yoga', which is mainly just seated meditation. It is akin to performing surgery on the central nervous system and most importantly, its main channel running along the spinal column(shushumna).

If one is not prepared correctly, as an inexperienced surgon performing brain surgery, cutting the wrong cords or becoming stressed/frightened at the wrong time could be disasterous when operating on your subconscious autonomic nervous sytem (and even deeper!) there is a reason everyday humans cant control that stuff voluntarily!

joint damage etc pale in comparison to cutting the wrong wires on that low level state in the nervous system. Think voluntarily giving yourself psychosis or Multiple Sclerosis or launching a schizophrenic rogue subroutine in your body that randomly regulates temperature, making you icy cold one moment, pulling blankets over you, then burning hot 3 minutes later, as you run for the cool bathroom tile floor in the basement to lie down on.

But hey, what else are you going to do in life?

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#69

Post by beamatronic »

jackhack wrote: post #58
csours wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a dancehall/disco packed with people dancing?

Oxygen consumption increases with activity, obviously. Air handling is rated on square footage, structure design and intended purpose. A home is going to carry a very different set of requirements than a factory floor or a restaurant (which often has high CFM exhaust hoods and requires a large amount of fresh-air infiltration to make up for exhausted air). Max occupancy permits as based on these factors, and often li…

Are you implying that a responsible club DJ should be modulating the crowd’s activity level based on the rated CFM of the air handler as well as the current CO2 PPM?

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#70

Post by manmal »

abledon wrote: post #68
l_t wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of negative side-effects are you referring to? I've heard a fair number of people talk about high-level Yoga stuff being dangerous, but I've never really understood what they meant. Is it related to the suspension of breath, like risk of unconsciousness? Long term joint damage? (BTW, thanks for the book rec -- Kundalini Exposed looks pretty interesting).

"""What kind of negative side-effects are you referring to?""" When one enters that stage of yoga, if they've been a good little yogi and done the preliminary physical preparations (which may take decades (or you hit the jackpot and are born into a magnificent constitution, maybe a few years)), they can begin the real 'yoga', which is mainly just seated meditation. It is akin to performing surgery on the central nerv…

This sounds.. I don’t know, made up? Giving yourself MS by meditating? Isn’t it more likely that in such cases the vague nerve got damaged or a forgotten trauma reactivated? Do you have any references you can point me to?
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