> You can also use those grip strengtheners and hold it for 2 minutes. Repeat a few times. Supposed to reduce blood pressure.
Is there a study backing this up? The OP is research on people actually using the device. Lots of things, without studies, are mentioned on the Internet as providing health benefits.
Its weird that they are showing mouth breathing with a device. Just do nose breathing and slow down the exhale and the inhale for a total of about 5-6 breathes per minute.
Go to google and search on "breathing exercise" and you get a little app that will help you dial in this pace. This too will lower your blood pressure, help you focus and reduce anxiety!
The exercise is for breathing in.
You probably could add resistance by pursing your lips but with a device results will be more reproducible. I have an Ultrabreath (made in UK) from Amazon that seems to be the simple analog equivalent if the fancy electronic device in the video. Now that I know that it might help with blood pressure I will try using it seriously.
(Edit: spelling)
I have sometimes high blood pressure. 5-10 minutes of slow focused breathing almost always bring it down from "you may need to see a doctor" to "maybe think about possibly getting some regular cardio". It's amazing. The only other thing that does it as much is alcohol, and that has a number of negative side effects later.
If anyone here has an Apple watch, they likely experienced the "intrusiveness" of the breathing app.
At first, it did indeed caught me off guard... why was Apple, a company whose products I equate to be the pinnacle of principled UI design, so pushy and so annoying with notifications that I take a moment to breathe.
But then I observed something truly remarkably: it wasn't just randomly, aimlessly spamming me with the notifications... it was giving me these notifications at very key times. It gave notifications during times of acute distress, times when I was feeling off one way or another. And by golly, when I did then stop and take its suggestion to stop and do its guided breathing exercise, wow, it helped.
I don’t think it’s actually tied to stress. That’s not documented anywhere. I think it’s more or less random, albeit you have to already be sitting still to get a notification.
Child post posed question about what measurement is being used to decide whether or not to give breathe notification, I googled around and saw that it's not documented as you say, but I think it's Apple being coy and secretive here, there's definitely something going on here.
My guess is it's some combination of pulse reading and lowered blood oxygenation level. The blood oxygenation measurement is probably more highly weighted.
When we are stressed out, we start taking shallow breaths, and taking shallow breaths is bad because it's then we start to lose a balance of oxygen/CO_2, and when that happens we're not at your best, we feel dizzy, we feel tired, our judgement is perhaps not optimal, so this is the right time to take a moment to relax and inhale deep to get some good air in, and exhale exhaustively and repeat a couple of times.
For my part the notifications seem almost completely random except that they come when I’m sitting down. I have not noticed them happening when I’m particularly stressed. You’ll notice in the app that you can specify how many notifications you get per day, further suggesting that it’s not tied to stress indicators in vital signs.
> You’ll notice in the app that you can specify how many notifications you get per day, further suggesting that it’s not tied to stress indicators in vital signs.
You make a very compelling point that an option of choosing how many times you get notified is suggestive of it being random/unrelated to vital signs, and I actually didn't know you could set this (I see now mine is set to 2 times a day).
But I still maintain it's more than that, it does use some measurement to trigger a notification, and the max limit exists so as to not burden the user with these notifications lest they start becoming a source of stress themselves.
The reason I'm so strongly convinced of this is that I seem to almost be able to trigger it in a sense, this all first got to me when I realized that notification would appear when I thought about something particular in a certain way during a rough time. Anyway, I'll be paying extra attention to this now and will report back with results after a couple of days! :)
Oh wow. I always just assumed they were throwing these at regular intervals during the day! You’re saying they’re actually giving you these based on your pulse or smthg?
for me its just the opposite, those reminders during stressfull times make me MORE stressed and i just toss the watch into a box for the rest of the day...
Thats good. The world isnt run by yoga gurus and zen monks for very good reasons. Not all stress is bad.
And people who dont have life experience or the right people around them can easily be misled by receiving the wrong signals about how to cope with stress.
"They told me to move to the back of the bus. I got so angry but my apple watch told me to breath and I calmed down..."
Rosa Parks did not act in the heat of the moment when she refused to give up her seat. It was a carefully planned moment with multiple parties involved in the planning, intending to have a specific effect and executed calmly. Being calm was an asset.
Calmness would just help you think logically. You can take a second to breathe and make better decisions. Maybe you would have made the same decision in the end and you just wasted those few seconds to take a breath but more often, life isn't so rushed that you don't have time to breathe and think for a moment.
I want to agree with you on some level, not all negative emotions are bad. It definitely seems like a lot of people pushing 'mindfulness' are pushing some utopian, culty good vibes version where we try to ignore or subdue all negative emotion.
But overall, being able to focus on your breathing (and control your anger, and control the consequences of your emotions) is a good thing, and it doesn't demand that you ignore whatever it was that made you feel stress in the first place.
I have a Fitbit, and I've had to shut off as many of the notifications as I can. I really hope the trend goes toward simplicity rather than cutesy rewards and notifications..
Except while drinking it. You can measure it yourself if you have a blood pressure cuff and the presence of mind to take some readings. The next few days will send it pretty high and it'll level off a bit higher after.
Time‐Efficient Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training Lowers Blood Pressure and Improves Endothelial Function, NO Bioavailability, and Oxidative Stress in Midlife/Older Adults With Above‐Normal Blood Pressure
"We performed a double‐blind, randomized, sham‐controlled trial to investigate whether 6 weeks of IMST (30 breaths/day, 6 days/week) improves blood pressure, endothelial function, and arterial stiffness in midlife/older adults ...
Thirty‐six participants completed high‐resistance IMST (75% maximal inspiratory pressure, n=18) or low‐resistance sham training (15% maximal inspiratory pressure, n=18)..
Casual systolic blood pressure decreased from 135±2 mm Hg to 126±3 mm Hg (P<0.01) with IMST, which was ≈75% sustained 6 weeks after IMST (P<0.01), whereas IMST modestly decreased casual diastolic blood pressure (79±2 mm Hg to 77±2 mm Hg, P=0.03);"
You'll have to explain this to me (I must be statistically challenged). I read it as the 18 on the high level setting decreased about 9. The control group decreased by 2.
'A five-minute workout that scientists call “strength training for your breathing muscles” is proving to lower blood pressure as well as or even better than traditional exercise and prescription drugs.'
This article appears to be a re-print of something published a year or two ago, but I can't find the original atm. I bought the device based on the research, but found the "exercise" to be poorly defined, as with most meditative breathing exercises, and never did it. Was hoping further research was done or the study was replicated, which doesn't appear to be the case, unfortunately.
Honest question: why do they need an electronic device for this? If the goal is just to provide resistance against breathing, wouldn't it work just as well to suck air through, say, a narrow straw?
They needed an electrical one because studies like data to analyze. You can easily buy a non-electrical one like the Power Breathe, The Breather, PowerLung, etc. Just look up "Breathing Trainers" at Amazon or similar.
As to using "a narrow straw," no, because these resist both your inhale AND exhale, and while it is easy to exhale through a narrow straw trying to inhale just causes the straw to collapse (or you won't get enough air and will have to stop/pass out). They're designed to resist but not limit.
After having tried a breathing trainer, it definitely feels like real exercise even just at your desk, and I cannot imagine doing it for 15-minute sessions via a narrow straw.
With a metal straw, you solve collapse, but you don't solve restrictive airflow.
I'd just buy a breathing trainer with adjustable resistance (start low, set a time goal (e.g. 15 minutes once a day), and increase it one level every session until you fail, then move back one, do a few sessions, then try to move up, repeat).
Actually my father just has one half lung left and regularly sees a physio for lung training. One of the excercises they do is breathing through a straw so yes it does work and is being used.
What your father is doing is known as Straw Breathing, you inhale normally, then exhale via a drinking straw. Repeat for five minutes.
We're discussing bi-direction breathing training, wherein resistive inhaling is a significant part of the exercise regimen and one not offered in [easier] Straw Breathing.
If you have a study that compares Straw Breathing to using a Breathing Trainer it would be a welcome addition to the discussion. But currently straw breathing is primarily aimed at bringing people from below back to normal lung function, whereas breathing training is meant to improve lung function above normal.
Is there a workout routine that you follow? I got a similar trainer a few years ago, but couldn't find a program that wouldn't be too hard for me to follow.
Claim: "The K series devices all feature a unique, patented, electronically tapered flow resistive loading valve. This means the resistance is constantly monitored and tapered to match your reducing strength throughout the breath thus allowing greater flow and maximum volume rather than cutting off half way through the breath."
Huh. My hiccup remedy has never once failed me:
- Sit upright, and ignore any hiccups till they're gone.
- 1. Inhale and exhale normally for a couple breaths.
- 2. Inhale extremely deeply, filling lungs to max capacity, and hold it (lungs full) for a slow 5-count.
- 3. Forcibly exhale steadily until lungs are completely empty, and hold it (lungs empty) for a slow 5-count.
- 4. Steadily inhale (repeating step 2).
If they're stubborn you may need to repeat the fill/empty cycle 2 or 3 times. 100% success rate for me and my family and friends. I guess the it helps relax the diaphram to take control of it and put it through its paces.
My routine is similar, except that my step 3 is a further “sipping” inhale, repeating your step 2 and my step 3 until I can’t take in any more air or hold my breath any longer. I’ve found that the initial “max capacity inhale” really isn’t that, but it takes some seconds holding that much air in at rest, with the trachea closed, in order to further inhale.
I think my version works because the diaphragm can’t spasm when it’s stretched (or contracted, not sure which) so far out from its neutral position. If I think of it next time, I’ll have to try your method out!
This might just end up doing the same thing with extra steps but for me the most effective has been holding breath until it starts to become slightly uncomfortable and then start drinking a full glass of water while allowing myself to take short breaths of air as necessary between swallows. Something about the swallowing motion combined with short breaths seems to "reset" the diaphragm like a champ for me. Breathe slow and relaxed for the minute after to ensure it's really gone :)
Anecdotally, a friend's mother can stop pretty much all hiccups by putting pressure somewhere on the wrist. I'm not sure about how it works, but it does.
> If the goal is just to provide resistance against breathing, wouldn't it work just as well to suck air through
There's something a lot of people (including myself) do which sounds a lot like Darth Vader, which is to cup your open mouth and breathe in while getting stressed about things.
You probably don't need a device at all to do breathing exercises (like a kapalbhati in Hindu tantric traditions, though the whole exercise involves stuff you need a tub for).
The electronic device is probably better for a medical setting , because it will not just measure, it will track the activity in some way - the numbers matter because the medical practice is evidence based in a good way, the goal being to titrate a dosage, even for exercise interventions.
You can buy purely mechanical versions with adjustable resistance. I got one a couple of years ago.
Breathing sounds easy but it is real exercise if you set the resistance high enough. I found it unpleasant and stopped doing it, especially because the device gets kind of gross and needs frequent disassembly for washing according to the manual. But I really should probably start again given the low time investment and multiple studies that show a large blood pressure benefit relative to other interventions.
Has a little yellow flowmeter on the left side that has to stay within a particular range. On this version, it is a smiley face, but on other models there are three ranges, the slowest intake being the best.
Does the device have to create negative pressure or does a constricted airway have the same effect?
I'm no expert - but it seems to me that, so long as you're able to breathing at same rate and resistance, a small negative pressure (ex. with a powered fan) would be aerodynamically equivalent to a constricted airway (ex. breathing through a tube).
Is a powered device meaningfully different than just breathing through a boba straw or similar (would be much cheaper...)
A Russian High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) technique: https://youtu.be/yPAYTeoWsiI (unfortunately, only narrated in Russian). IMST is weird at first, typically you synchronise exhalation with the greatest strain but it’s reversed in IMST. And rapid inhaling really means rapid in an IMST exercise.
I doubt this is the same thing, but in Jr High, I was complaining that my side hurt doing the mile run and the coach had me breathe through my nose instead of my mouth; sure enough the pain went away.
That's a very interesting idea. I've always breathed through my mouth while running due to not getting "enough" air through my nose, and also fight with abdominal pains whilst running as well. I'll give this a shot tonight actually, in theory it seems very similar to any other kind of resistance training.
Apparently yes, nasal breathing is hugely beneficial. This book was a life changer for me — James Nestor’s Breath:
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art: Nestor, James: 9780735213616: Amazon.com: Books
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art: Nestor, James: 9780735213616: Amazon.com: Books https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735213615
Yes, yes, we all know Pranayama and other ancient sciences already “covered” it, but at least for me, I was totally unaware of the importance and wide ranging benefits of nasal breathing, until I read this book.
For me the key take away was: when running, follow 2 simple rules: always breath through your nose, And make your out breath last (much) longer than your in breaths. I started with 2 steps for out, 3 for in, then 2/5, And now i can do 2/7. I use the nasal breathing rule as a guideline to know when I’m running too fast - if you can’t just breath through your nose then you’re running too fast. Over a few weeks of running 3 times/week I was able to increase my distance from 2 to 5 miles.
Breathing exercises work great. I have run across a few things that interact with the vagus nerve. Another technique I didn't expect to work was rubbing my eyes. I only get about 5 points reduction in systolic, but it's something. If you have a BP monitor, try it out. If you get lab-coat hypertension, try it at the doctors office.
Some sports people have been known to wear medical facemasks as it's harder to breathe and the increased fitness. I believe some boxers have been known to use this method.
I think that the title mangler struck again—the headline is "5-minute breathing exercise lowers blood pressure". The article doesn't seem to refer to "min breathing", so having that as the article title seems to be an error.
Not sure how this works since I post like 3 articles a year, but I posted the title as "5 Min Breathing Exercise Lowers Blood Pressure" initially and something or someone changed it.
The thing that would reduce my blood pressure the most is quitting my job.