I wonder if there's a vagal nerve effect from the increased chest pressure while holding your breath in.
I do the 'double sharp inhale' method for the anxiolytic effect occasionally - not really something you can do at the office however.
I do the 'double sharp inhale' method for the anxiolytic effect occasionally - not really something you can do at the office however.
Some years ago, I discovered a technique to suppress the effect of being startled. I just breathe in sharply, using mostly my diagphragm, before my heartrate goes up and it keeps things normal as usual. I wonder if this is also using the vagus nerve to suppress being startled?
I don't know about vagus nerve, but I can propose a different explanation. Emotions can change the state of your body, your brain feels the state and triggers emotions. It can become a self-reinforcing loop. In particular, diaphragm contractions or tension can be such a state. For example, I have sometimes issues with getting rid of anxiety, and when it happens, it is because of my diaphragm. It becomes tensed, I feel it and so I feel anxious. To get rid of anxiety I need to a) rationalize it away and b) keep my diaphragm relaxed.
When you overload your diaphragm with some irrelevant activity you may be breaking the self-reinforcing loop. Or maybe this movements of your diaphragm trigger some other response that wins. As a wild guess, your organism expect that after a deep breath you'll hold your breath for some time, and so it limits the heart-rate to not burn oxygen too fast.
Modern historians like to attack Eurocentrism of the history, but why psychologists are afraid to admit that psychology was started in Asia, that western psychologists still have something to learn from buddhists.
It didn't work though. I can't remember why exactly it didn't work, can only guess.