We ‘may’ have discovered a potential remedy for tinnitus

If you have slight tinnitus, you can use a white noise generator. What I've found that works really well at work to both keep loud colleagues from interfering and to reduce any high pitched noises I hear is this https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteNoiseGenerator.php?l=... , you can also try their datacenter one. In another life when I used to have to go to the DC and work directly on servers I found it actually quite relaxing.

> 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 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.

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 -- 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pcPr3266as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3We5SK-6Ic beating the heavenly drums

Your words of warning are warranted.

I once ran a large stump grinder without hearing protection. A huge mistake. I now have spotty hearing, especially in crowded rooms, and it is a huge disadvantage.

Protect your hearing! Easy to do, so worth the effort.