Breathing exercise lowers blood pressure better than working out, medication
studyfinds.org
studyfinds.org
The thing that would reduce my blood pressure the most is quitting my job.
where (and whom with) you spend your time matters a lot
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.
https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/...
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!
> Having more than three drinks in one sitting temporarily raises your blood pressure, but repeated binge drinking can lead to long-term increases.
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.
There are some situations of acute stress where one can’t take a 1 min pause, but in most scenarios it helps.
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..."
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.
Hint: the goal of Buddhism is to reduce suffering in the world. It’s not a bad idea to start with yourself.
Kind of like the whoop minus the 30/month subscription...
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.
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! :)
"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);"
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.121.020980
So 18 participants, with a drop in diastolic by 2 mm Hg.
Much hype.
Essentially clickbait for the statistically challenged.
Check out 'The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath' - http://www.yogebooks.com/english/atkinson/1903sciencebreath....
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.
Links to this (also recent) article: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.121.020980
Which links to https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03266510?term=NCT...
Which might be from 2017? Or study began in 2017, updated May 2021?
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.
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.
What about just using a metal straw?
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).
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.
Lowering Blood Pressure in 5 Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KueabH8B8M
Never tried it, but it is firmly planted in my head as random trivia.
[1] https://malct32.blogspot.com/2011/03/rectal-stimulation-to-c...
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.
1. Inhale until lungs are at full capacity.
2. Hold your breath as long as you manage comfortably.
3. Breathe in and out slowly for a couple of breaths. I.e. don't gasp for air.
I also long suspected it may work by reducing the activity/stimulation of the diaphragm.
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!
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."
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.
https://lamusainstrumentos.es/en/smile-plus.html
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.
Fun times.
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...)
[0] https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a33993505/nasal-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.
Novel 5-minute workout improves blood pressure, may boost your brain (2019-02-15) https://www.colorado.edu/today/2019/02/25/novel-workout-impr...
Lowering Blood Pressure in 5 Minutes (2019-02-24) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KueabH8B8M University of Colorado Boulder
CBD only, for extra society points!
I can picture what they mean, but this is terribly awkward wording.