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Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

nature.com

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Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#31

Post by doctor_eval »

Daishiman wrote: post #24
Baeocystin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, this might be a stupid question. I am asking it honestly, though. Speaking as someone who has sleep apnea, my doctors have really hammered home how bad apnea events are for my general health. Does that not apply to this kind of training?

Apnea is bad because it kills long deep REM cycles that are essential for your body’s recovery.

I don’t think that’s the whole story, or even the most important part. My understanding is that blood pressure rises significantly during an apnea event and that over time this can cause all sorts of physical problems, especially blood vessel damage, leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

I’d guess that lack of REM would cause symptoms like daytime drowsiness, but it’s the physiological effects that are gonna kill ya.

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#32

Post by mmaunder »

m3kw9 wrote: post #23
mmaunder wrote: post #6

I’ve been doing O2 and CO2 “tables” which are breath hold exercises for free diving. For co2 you hold for 2 mins, breathe for 2, hold for 2, breathe for 1:45, hold for 2, breathe for 1:30 and keep reducing the breathing until you’re at 15 seconds. It’s getting you used to co2 building up. Much more to it than that but the feeling during and after is incredible. Been doing yoga for 6 years and never had a feeling of c…

It’s probably your brain about to tap out but you have this dizzy feeling of being “calm”

Lol I’m wearing a pulse oximeter and it never drops below 90%

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#33

Post by rdmirza »

Gimpei wrote: post #26

I’m no expert on meta-analyses, but if the total pooled samples is 785 and there are 12 studies. That seems like quite a small average sample size per study. Is this not underpowered? An average of junk is still junk.

Small individual study sample size does not necessarily mean junk. Junk is a product of poor methodology. The main concern with sample sizes may be overestimates of effects if the event is rare, or poor precision (ie large confidence intervals).

However you’re right to presume that small studies are likely to be lower quality, often because they’r observational as opposed to randomized studies.

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#34

Post by Nicholas_C »

tra3 wrote: post #10
Nicholas_C wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Stamina, I use this app for apnea training for surfing. Wim Hof also produces a similar calming feeling, there are some good guided Wim Hof videos on youtube that are easy to follow.

Are there any videos in particular that you can recommend?

Here is a good one guided by Wim Hof himself: https://youtu.be/tybOi4hjZFQ?si

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#35

Post by esquivalience »

balfirevic wrote: post #29
nhumrich wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its called the abstract. And its the first section of every official paper. Right at the end of the abstract: > Overall, results showed that breathwork may be effective for improving stress and mental health. However, we urge caution and advocate for nuanced research approaches with low risk-of-bias study designs to avoid a miscalibration between hype and evidence.

> However, we urge caution and advocate for nuanced research approaches with low risk-of-bias study designs to avoid a miscalibration between hype and evidence. It's interesting to think about the information conveyed by this sentence. Would anyone seriously propose non-nuanced research approach with high risk of bias that easily confuses hype for evidence?

Yes, all the time. Every time anyone posts a comment here or reads an article to form a opinion, without instituting a blind study behind it, they are deciding to proceed without nuanced research. The point is that in doing so we are at risk of confusing hype for evidence.

As in the abstract here, often the signal comes just as much from the fact that something needs to be said at all - not just the content of what is said

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#36

Post by agos »

mmaunder wrote: post #32
m3kw9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably your brain about to tap out but you have this dizzy feeling of being “calm”

Lol I’m wearing a pulse oximeter and it never drops below 90%

at 90% you're bordering on sever hypoxia, I would not recommend this for the general public

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#37

Post by pjerem »

doctor_eval wrote: post #31
Daishiman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apnea is bad because it kills long deep REM cycles that are essential for your body’s recovery.

I don’t think that’s the whole story, or even the most important part. My understanding is that blood pressure rises significantly during an apnea event and that over time this can cause all sorts of physical problems, especially blood vessel damage, leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I’d guess that lack of REM would cause symptoms like daytime drowsiness, but it’s the physiological effects that ar…

Maybe but, correct me if I’m wrong, temporary high blood pressure isn’t really harmful.

My understanding is that bad sleep will induce chronic stress and chronic stress will induce high blood pressure.

So yes, bad sleep will dangerously increase blood pressure but it’s not a direct effect.

(That’s my interpretation, maybe it’s false)

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#38

Post by huijzer »

> Overall, results showed that breathwork may be effective for improving stress and mental health. However, we urge caution and advocate for nuanced research approaches with low risk-of-bias study designs to avoid a miscalibration between hype and evidence.

So after searching through 1325 papers and systematically summarizing 12 randomized controlled trials, this is the result? This has kept multiple professors busy for months and all we learned is "breathwork may be effective"?

It doesn't matter anyway. The professors have a Nature publication and Nature has some readers. Everybody happy.

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#39

Post by doctor_eval »

pjerem wrote: post #37
doctor_eval wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s the whole story, or even the most important part. My understanding is that blood pressure rises significantly during an apnea event and that over time this can cause all sorts of physical problems, especially blood vessel damage, leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I’d guess that lack of REM would cause symptoms like daytime drowsiness, but it’s the physiological effects that ar…

Maybe but, correct me if I’m wrong, temporary high blood pressure isn’t really harmful. My understanding is that bad sleep will induce chronic stress and chronic stress will induce high blood pressure. So yes, bad sleep will dangerously increase blood pressure but it’s not a direct effect. (That’s my interpretation, maybe it’s false)

It’s physically harmful in the long term, can lead to serious vascular problems if left untreated.

In fact it turns out that REM sleep can sometimes compensate for apnea in some people, that is, the onset of REM can happen more quickly. Some people can get enough REM sleep even with apnea.

To be clear, ultimately all of these things can become problems, I’m just disputing that lost REM is the main health concern. It’s one concern, but AFAIK, in the long term venous damage is what will kill you.

Re: Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of RCTs

#40

Post by kylebenzle »

eep_social wrote: post #5
LegitShady wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I propose we call this the tl;dr

I like it but maybe we need a non-abbreviation, maybe we could call it something like “abstract” or “executive summary” depending whether our audience is academic or commercial.

It could be like a summary of what follows. Oh, and what about like a SUPER short summary above that, like just one sentence about what its about, call it like a, "leader" or "header" or something like that?
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