The Influence of Breathing on the Central Nervous System | Hacker News Reader

The Influence of Breathing on the Central Nervous System

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

160 pointswhereistimbo51 comments

The domain and big words had me expecting a scientific paper; the fact that they jump from topic to topic without driving toward anything or saying how it's connected had me thinking GPT-3; the fact that the conclusion is "we can conclude with this reflection: Breath has patterns. Schemes create behavior. Breath is a behavior. Behavior represents the person. Breath reveals the person." has me thinking it might be some kind of planted article for fake yoga marketers to cite. Maybe I just skimmed too fast and didn't give it a chance.

Yea, this is not a peer-reviewed journal in the traditional sense.

> Cureus, also known as the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, is an open access general medical journal known for its use of crowdsourcing in its peer-review process and is among the growing number of journals using prepublication and postpublication peer review.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cureus

Thanks, I assumed from "nih.gov" that this was official journal of the National Institutes of Health or something.

It is pubmed, which is a NIH indexing service for healthcare articles.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/

They do only include limited journals, not garbage generally. Though I'm not sure where the line is drawn.

Yea, I think this is right on the line. They are attempting "crowd-sourced" peer review, which is the sort of thing that should be experimented with (so I wouldn't want to penalize them), but it's clearly not providing the kind of filter people expect of an academic journal.

When you see the writers are all osteopaths, it tells you all you need to know.

Seems like only 60% of the writers are osteopaths, so I guess this heuristic would find it 40% credible.

No you did not skim too fast, it is judt another example of low quality cargo cult science. It looks like science, may smell like it but definitely not science. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science

Related thread from two weeks ago: “The physiological effects of slow breathing in the healthy human”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24857356

If you have a strong (personal) need to understand how breathing impacts the body, a good source of info that can be found in layman's terms is stuff about altitude sickness and about what happens to the body at altitude even before it turns into altitude sickness. (This is probably especially valuable info if you have gut issues or blood health issues.)

"but there is no current, concrete data on the effects that the rehabilitative training or manual approaches could have on the patient; in particular, on his/her cognitive and cerebral aspects in general."

And the reason for this is surprisingly technical: Medical journals from all statistics and mathematics available in the world only accept randomised double-blind trials.

Now try and find a reference population of people with "skill and desire to train breathing techniques to improve their health". Administer half of those people a "placebo" technique, where both the trainer and the subject are convinced they are working on the "correct breathing technique". Measure the improved health condition. Deliver "statistically significant results" showing how the placebo group improved less than the actual test group.

> Stopping the diaphragm is extremely important because your egoic thoughts (or life situation) is tied to the diaphragm. The ego needs time to exist – a past or a future. You are consciousness and exist only in the present moment. I have not read this in a book or been told this by anyone, I have experienced this. I don’t understand all of it yet but I know my thought patterns have completely changed since activating my kundalini – time no longer exists in my thoughts. The only thing that matters to me is this present moment.

source: https://yogaforums.com/t/kundalini-and-the-breathless-state/...

Sounds very reminiscent of Eckhart Tolle ("The Power of Now"). Which I recommend.

OP (umunhum) in the linked post did read Eckhart Tolle book.

> You are consciousness and exist only in the present moment.

Perhaps not the time/place to ask but did anyone ever investigate how this can be true given that information needs a small amount of time to travel between neurons? Aren't we actually living in a time-interval rather than a time-point?

In my experience, gain control over a person's diaphragm means gain control over the person's ego.

Today I've learned that there are some places that might worth take a look for releasing emotional tension:

1. Diaphragm

2. area around clavicular

3. adam's apple (especially if there's fap habit)

4. unrelaxed jaw because of poor posture

5. tongue

6. larynx

7. area around bindu

8. abdominal

9. vajroli

10. chidakasha

11. area below eyes close to nose.

12. area below eyes

By the practice of Siddhasana, Sirshasana, Sarvangasana, Mula Bandha, Uddiyana Bandha, Maha Mudra, Yoga Mudra, Nauli, etc., a Hatha Yogi transmutes his seminal energy into Ojas-Sakti. By the practice of Navavidha Bhakti (Sravana, Kirtana, Smarana, Padasevana, Archana, Vandana, Sakhya, Dasya, Atmanivedana) and Japa, a Bhakta destroys the impurity of his mind and fixes it on God.

Today I've learned that tension around adam's apple or cricoid cartilage can be relieved using ujjayi pranayama.

Today I've learned what I've been thinking as please in my genital is actually a tension. Vajroli mudra seems to help to alleviate this tension.

Today I've learned that tension lined up in thyroid-adam's apple-clavicular can be released by sheetali pranayama with head in matsyasana position.

Today I've learned that when I failed to release tension on my body, I had found out that my part that close to sahasrara in (presumably gray matter area) brain is tensed up. When I just relaxed and didn't obsessively release tension on my body, the part that got tension was relaxed.

I've also found out that I've got tension on area orund ears. Coincidentally the somatic nervous system in the brain was close to my left ear, and when I relaxed my left ear somehow the part close to where somatic nervous system located were relaxed too.

Today I've observed that tension that causes yawning and sneezing can be alleviated by assuming bhujangasana position, tilt head all the way up till it touch the neck, open up mouth till the back of the throat relaxed.

Today I've observed I can relax a muscle that is responsible for pulling the tongue out of mouth by open up the mouth and tilt the head until I feel the muscle relaxed.

Today I've observed that I can relax my testicles by assuming marjari asana and lean my waist forward until I can relax my testicles. I can also relax my genital by performing squat and rest my buttock which is important for brahmacharya. I can relax my back of the neck which might be responsible for something that control my body that resembles another person by lie down on the belly and relax the head on a thing tilted down. I adjust the thing until the back of the neck relaxed as there is brainstem behind the back of the neck.

Today when the bottom area of my chin was massaged, my mouth was speaking Indonesian thing like "aku ga mau makan, aku ga mau minum, aku ga bisa apa-apa".

I actually tried to sign up to yogaforums yesterday and I could not get the verification email.

Breathing is such an interesting aspect of life that we don’t explore a lot in popular culture.

I've been interested in it for the last 2 or 3 years, and pleasantly surprised that it's showing up on HN a lot.

Here's a surprising claim that has scientific concensus: Basically ALL humans have problems breathing. That is, apes and other mammals don't have these problems.

The two main reasons are the anatomical changes due to the evolution of speech, and the advent of agriculture, which completely changed our diets and thus the structure of our jaw.

Previous comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435964

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24247066

More comments about nestor's recent book Breath:

https://www.google.com/search?q=nestor+site%3Anews.ycombinat...

The book is very good, but it's not "conclusive". It's a good exploration of many facets of breathing. It is a big subject and everyone is a little different.

However it's been eye opening to me how many "minor" unexplained chronic health problems are ultimately caused by bad breathing. (And these turn into major problems over 10 or 20 years.) If you go to the doctor, you'll get treatment for the symptoms and not the cause (this has happened to many people in my family, and many people I know)

> Here's a surprising claim that has scientific concensus: Basically ALL humans have problems breathing

I believe this might be true. Do you have a citation, paper or source?

Thank you for the resources you linked!

How could I explore breathing (mine or generally)?

I would say the best popular/scientific books are Breath by Nestor (released this year), and Jaws by Kahn (2018). It's coming into public consciousness, although the books show that this knowledge was available in the 1930's and forgotten, and in the 1700's and forgotten, etc.

If you prefer video, here's an in-depth interview with Nestor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5o9b2RVC2E

The shorter clips extracted from this interview are compelling.

For more specific medical advice, there is "Sleep, Interrupted" by Park, and "The 8 hour sleep paradox" by Burhenne.

It's a big area because breath affects so many parts of your physiology, but all these people are saying overlapping things, coming from their own professional viewpoint. There is a particular focus on the relation to teeth, and that is one of the most common correlations.

But there are also correlations with sinus problems, acid reflux, anxiety, ADD, high blood pressure, weight gain and obesity, and bad sleep. That is, extremely common things that most people just live with for years. But they don't have to.

Also, if you have children, you have to answer the question: why do so many children need orthodontic work? What happened 1000 years ago when there were no orthodontists?

The answer is that our diets changed drastically in the last 200 years, and also ~10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture. If you don't believe that, the question still needs an answer!

Same with the causes of all these minor chronic problems. Most people just live with the symptoms, and for some reason don't ask for the fundamental reasons why. Like food, breath is at the the base of your physiology, so it makes sense as a candidate.

-----

If you want a whole bunch of studies, I have this book (recommended by my dentist) and there are 140 scientific papers cited in the back.

https://www.amazon.com/Airway-Management-Solution-Health-Cri...

"Airway dentistry" is actually its own separate subfield, which is weird because a lot of practicing dentists seem only dimly aware of it! But at least in the United States you can find "sleep dentists" or "airway dentists" in most major cities. But somehow I went 20+ years being completely unaware of their existence.

The evidence that's cited over and over for the agriculture thesis is the collection of skulls at U Penn. Modern humans have drastically different skulls than humans before agriculture. That is described in "Breath" and "Jaws".

I don't recall a primary source for the speech thesis, but it's mentioned in "Sleep, Interrupted", "Jaws", and "Breath". Although actually I just googled and it was easy to find a reference:

https://dentalsleeppractice.com/ce-articles/evolution-human-...

Significant evolutionary changes to the human head are flat face, smaller chin, shorter oral cavity, changes in jaw function, repositioning of ears behind jaws, ascent of the uvula and descent of the epiglottis, right angle bend in tongue, creation of compliant, combined, flexible airway-foodway, and speech.9

9. “Reconstructing Human Origins”, Conroy, GC; 2nd ed. WW Norton, NewYork, 2005.

I haven't heard of this book but it seems legit: https://www.amazon.com/Reconstructing-Human-Origins-Modern-S...

Anyway I think there is plenty of scientific evidence. What really matters is that this knowledge makes its way into popular culture and common medical practice. That appears to be happening, but it's surprisingly uneven!

Hope that helps, and feel free to follow up with questions... I'm thinking of starting a blog on this subject, based on reading several books, and talking to many doctors who seem completely unaware of this.

Nestor's book explains why doctors are unaware of it, and why most people get poor treatment for these issues: because doctors are specialists, and they are used to fixing severe problems. They are trained to see their part of the equation. Breathing is more holistic because it affects everything: your teeth, mouth, eyes, brain, heart, etc. And bad breathing kills you over 20 years. It doesn't cause an emergency in most cases.

What do we know about the area behind the nose? Is that the sinuses? Is the book “Jaws” discussing the sinuses? It sounds to me like Jaws is about the mouth area, not the areas behind the nose.

But, thank you a lot for these resources, I am excited to learn about this topic as I see it affects my (and others) life a lot

All those books definitely talk to some degree about those areas. I forget which ones, but they say the anatomy of the maxilla (the upper jawbone which forms the nose) is key to breathing. And dentists talk about a "constricted arch" which I think is a related issue. I don't think I have these issues so I didn't pay particular attention there.

The way I think about it is that breathing is a big geometry problem, and everyone is a little different, and every medical provider has their own viewpoint, and set of solutions they can apply. For example I don't think Nestor has the same problems that I have. He talks about his problems in the YouTube video and in the book.

So you will probably have to look around a lot. It's a big topic. But the common point is that almost all humans have problems breathing, but it manifests in different ways depending on the unique geometry of their head.

It's kind of like if you crushed 100 pumpkins, not all of them are going to be crushed in the same way, but they'll all have some problem ...

And it depends on medical history -- a lot of people seem to have bad breathing because of childhood orthodontic work.

e.g. I found this person through Google:

https://www.righttogrow.org/mf_s_story

When I was a young girl I had orthodontic extractions and wore a cervical headgear that pulled my upper jaw back and made my oral cavity much smaller than nature intended it to be. Before this treatment, I was a fit and healthy child who had no problems sleeping and waking up. After extractions and headgear, part of my vitality went away and I lived a life of constant fatigue, plagued with fainting spells and low energy for more than twenty years

Feel free to reach out by e-mail if you learn anything interesting about your case!

Babies have the proper breathing and posture. Chairs and stresses of the daily life is probably where the issue is.

Babies have drastically different skulls, but there are infants who snore. My understanding is that this is increasingly common (if you ask doctors), and it's caused by the same anatomical problems that cause sleep apnea in adults.

People used to think snoring is benign, but others will say that infants should never snore.

The common adenoids surgery in children is also due to a small airway, although people will tell you it's because they have "large adenoids"!

Your second sentence doesn't follow. Babies exhibit fewer of these problems, but that doesn't mean that evolutionary changes and agriculture aren't the cause of the problem in adults. Babies don't have developed jaws, and one of the main points is that jaw development isn't primarily genetic; it's shaped by the "environment" of the jaw, which is essentially the diet.

If braces can shape the jaw, then so can 10 years of eating soft foods, industrial cooking, etc.

See my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25024626

"It's a start." I find it fascinating and very hopeful that Western scientific methods are beginning to be used to understand the significance of breathing.

Breathing is one of only two (or three) physiological processes that are both autonomic and volitional. (The other is blinking. I think there might be a third one but I forget what it is.)

It's a weird blind spot to have, eh? I mean, once you see it, it's weird that we (in the West) haven't been more interested in a systematic way in the effects of deliberate modulation of breath.

Why would we evolve to have volitional control over our breathing?

>> I think there might be a third one but I forget what it is.)

Swallowing perhaps. As for why breathing is volitional, I can think of avoiding drowning and controlling the noise you make while hunting or being hunted. Same reason anything is volitional, our higher planning abilities can do a better job in many situations versus a hard-wired process.

Drowning usually happens in situations of panic and it's better if the defence mechanisms are controlled by autonomous reflexes, of which the most important one is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex

Eating, swimming, running, and other exercises require precise control of your breathing.

Is breathing truly volitional? I somehow doubt it and even if we can control it at times, it largely defaults to automatic mode. We have the power to modify the automatic mode through practice and the power of habit.

When I was younger I had a really bad experience with practicing breathing exercises, I was doing them unattended by an professional and perhaps excessively. It was a very very bad experience, momentarily I lost the ability to automatic breathing and was either forgetting to inhale or was hyperbentilating. It took about a month to go back to normal and made my life miserable during all that. I’ve since done it in a controlled fashion at a yoga center and the experience is different: one is aware of their breathing but doesn’t attempt to control it for more than one minute and if so perhaps gently for the duration of the exercise. Our brains pick that up and automatic breathing can and does get better

> The other is blinking. I think there might be a third one but I forget what it is

There are reports of being able to predetermine when we wake before we sleep; I don’t know if those are anecdotal or properly studied.

I assume anything related to stress, anger, or sexual responses are also consciously triggerable, given we can make ourselves stressed, angry, or horny by thinking about the right things.

> There are reports of being able to predetermine when we wake before we sleep

FWIW I can do that. At one point in my life I had to wake up a specific times (that varied day to day) and was using an alarm clock and I noticed I kept waking up exactly two minutes before the alarm was set to go off. I stopped using the alarm clock but kept waking up at the right time. It was like once I noticed I could do it I "had faith" that it would work and it did.

> I assume anything related to stress, anger, or sexual responses are also consciously triggerable, given we can make ourselves stressed, angry, or horny by thinking about the right things.

That's a good point, and it's broader than you say, that is, pretty much every physiological response can be controlled through self-hypnosis, "thinking about the right things". But that's different than the volitional control over breathing and blinking. Every normal person can choose to control their breathing or their eyelids at will in a way that they can't choose to control e.g their digestion or the rate of hair growth or their body temperature, etc.

> Why would we evolve to have volitional control over our breathing

Eating, mainly, I'd assume

If it were only that, it could still be autonomic (breathe while not swallowing). The hypotheses in this thread seem likely: speaking, or hiding from by predators/prey.

Is there any interest in the effects of deliberate modulation of blinking?

For speaking.

>"It's a start." I find it fascinating and very hopeful that Western scientific methods are beginning to be used to understand the significance of breathing.

Sure, but this article isn't it. It's a BS article, on a faux-journal, by faux-doctors. Take it with a homeopathic grain of salt in 20 cubic meters of water...

shatkarma:

1. breathing (agnisar kriya, kapalbhati)

2. blinking (trataka)

3. tongue (talabya kriya, kechari mudra)

Taking care of my breathing pattern, among other things, is what helped me reduce/eliminate anxiety - especially while programming. I always had some anxiety and social awkardness after working. Taking care of my breathing, posture, being in sync with the breath, this is what helped me eliminate these issues. The mind is more cooled down, detached and objective, whereas previously, the mind was at the whim of whatever thoughts were running through - which was the source of anxiety.

Psychosomatic diseases are real, and asana pranayama mudra bandha shatkarma are exist to alleviate them.

I can recommend this Yoga series. Namaste Yoga. Not only is it shot in beautiful destinations. But it gives you prompts when to inhale and when to exhale. Its basically a 20 minute breathing exercise combination Yoga, you can do from home, during the lockdown. Actually, if you take a hot bath before doing the exercises, its feels even more amazing because your body is warmed up. So its basically synchronized movement with breath, to relaxing music.

Here's one of their episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJ8Siv-u8U

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