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One hour of slow breathing changed my life

theguardian.com

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Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#121

Post by graeme »

dmje wrote: post #57

No one seems to have mentioned Wim Hoff here ( https://www.wimhofmethod.com/ ). He’s got some claims that verge on the suspicious but the actual method itself is worth doing purely if you’re an interested sort. Before, I can do about 40 seconds held on an out breath, after, about 2:40. That’s kinda interesting. I’d also recommend trying it if you’re a meditator. Do a WH session first, then sit. It’s really great for…

Are you referring to the hyperventilation technique? I ended up at one of his workshops randomly and tried that.

It’s actually an old technique to increase the ability to hold the breath. The hyperventilation clears carbon dioxide from the system (hypocapnia). That’s what the buzz is.

Never ever ever ever ever do this underwater or you have a serious risk of death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freediving_blackout#Shallow_wa...

Hof did not warn of this at the time, though I believe he does now after someone died using the technique while swimming.

As for the cold resistance, Hof’s twin brother Andre displayed the same physiological traits that Hof has, despite not having undergone the same training: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

The one interesting thing I have seen related to Hof is that he apparently was able to suppress the immune response to an endotoxin. Though it would be interesting to see that same study done on his twin.

This is a reasonably good article: https://www.pepijnvanerp.nl/2016/01/wim-hof-method/#andre

I think Hof is well intentioned, sincere, a poor communicator, and prone to both mystical thinking but also interested in scientific verification.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#122

Post by bob1029 »

jniedrauer wrote: post #34

I wonder every time I see things like this whether more conventional exercise will also do the same thing. I'm a recreational runner, and as I become more fit, I notice that my body is capable of entering deeper and deeper states of relaxation. When I go to sleep at night, my breathing and heart rate slow to rates that I never could have sustained before getting in shape. Being conscious and in control of my breath i…

Exercise will certainly accomplish similar objectives. After a few months of intense circuit training, I started to realize that I could get away with breathing a lot less frequently. Once my resting heart rate dropped below 50BPM, it was like having a mental switch I could throw on demand to enter into a state of calm. Just a few seconds of focus and I could deal with a monster of a stressful situation with ease. I really need to get back into it. The time investment is substantial, but exercise always pays really good dividends.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#123

Post by alfiedotwtf »

konaraddi wrote: post #15

This article is very relevant to what I've recently experienced. I haven't experienced the sweating but I've experienced the serenity that follows controlled breathing. I'm reading an English translation of Ramana Maharshi's Upadesa Sara with commentary and verses 11-14 talk about controlling the breath (pranayama). A few relevant points made in those verses: * Controlling your breath can help quieten the mind. * The…

> Observing the breath before sleep has made it easier to fall asleep.

Every night when I go to bed, I deliberately slow my breathing.... I find that it immediately gets me into a meditative state and more likely fall into a hypnagogic state

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#124

Post by krrrh »

dmje wrote: post #57

No one seems to have mentioned Wim Hoff here ( https://www.wimhofmethod.com/ ). He’s got some claims that verge on the suspicious but the actual method itself is worth doing purely if you’re an interested sort. Before, I can do about 40 seconds held on an out breath, after, about 2:40. That’s kinda interesting. I’d also recommend trying it if you’re a meditator. Do a WH session first, then sit. It’s really great for…

The claims do sound pretty loopy at first blush, but there have been several studies at this point, and the science PDF they host on his website is pretty interesting.

https://explore.wimhofmethod.com/wp-content/uploads/ebook-th...

Edit: The PDF is actually a bit out of date, the more recent studies are summarized here: https://www.wimhofmethod.com/science

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#125

Post by rolleiflex »

Izkata wrote: post #99
crazygringo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not actually true. If you research it, you'll find that most people's nostrils alternately dilate and contract (the tissues reduce/swell). Most of us breathe primarily through only one nostril at a time, and it switches approximately every half hour. This is entirely unconscious and we're generally not aware of it. There is a little bit of airflow in the constricted nostril, but nowhere near comparable to the…

> (Note that a minority of people do not have this.) I'm probably one of them then, because I've tested this on and off for years whenever someone makes the claim, and it's never true for me. It's just really annoying how many people say with absolute certainty that everyone does it.

It’s more like one nostril is high-velocity and the other is low-velocity, not that one is completely blocked. The evolutionary reason is thought to be that it aids the perception of low PPM volatile organic compounds (i.e. bad smells = rot, toxic chemicals) because the ‘blocked’ nostril is used as a sense chamber which lets the air spend more time within, thus increase the effective sensitivity of your sense of smell.

If you do not have this behaviour (which can disappear with certain neurological diseases or just idiopathically not exist) you also likely have a reduced sense of smell.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#126

Post by Buttons840 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #106
perfmode wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why don’t you simply try it and see?

How do you handle the placebo effect?

Just don't handle it. The placebo effect tells us that some things that have no reason for working, work anyways.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#127

Post by james_s_tayler »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #38
abendy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people with anxieties or other fear-based conditions typically will breathe way too much. So what happens when you breathe that much is you're constantly putting yourself into a state of stress. So you're stimulating that sympathetic side of the nervous system https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/27/8629631... > you can over breathe when people at a gym or when people are jogging you see them really go…

That first one feels very chicken and egg - if you're anxious your sympathetic nervous system is going without the breathing. Can breath be used to relax you? Absolutely, but that's as much about focusing the brain on the breathing instead of the anxious thoughts as anything else.

Breathing is directly connected to the autonomic nervous system. Inhaling activates your sympathetic nervous system speeding up your heart rate and increasing the amount of electrodermal activity in your skin. Exhaling activates the parasympathetic nervous system slowing down your heart rate and decreasing the amount of electrodermal activity in your skin.

You can measure it with HRV and skin conductance sensors.

Re: One hour of slow breathing changed my life

#129

Post by james_s_tayler »

jniedrauer wrote: post #34

I wonder every time I see things like this whether more conventional exercise will also do the same thing. I'm a recreational runner, and as I become more fit, I notice that my body is capable of entering deeper and deeper states of relaxation. When I go to sleep at night, my breathing and heart rate slow to rates that I never could have sustained before getting in shape. Being conscious and in control of my breath i…

I think it makes sense you would be able to enter deeper states of relaxation. I've heard in animal studies they've shown that if you disable the parasympathetic nerve into the heart then it just beats a constant, quite high rate. Marathon runners have considerably lower resting heart rate. It seems to be the parasympathetic nervous system acts as a brake that pumps on an off (connected to inhalation/exhalation) to keep it lower than it's default max speed. So that it's constantly lower means more parasympathetic bias?
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