Slow Breathing Really Does Help Everything, According to a 2020 Study

Listen to this post:

Hey,

It’s a fun post this week. Lots of good info, plus one of the best real-life breathing videos you’ll ever see.

I hope you enjoy it!

4 Thoughts

1. Slow Breathing Really Does Help Everything, According to a 2020 Study

“The results of this review provide evidence that HRVB and PB at approximately six breaths per minute have positive effects on a variety of physical, behavioral, and cognitive conditions.”
- Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Improves Emotional and Physical Health and Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis

Good news. I’m not crazy, which is how I often feel after every paper I read leads me to say that “slow breathing helps with just about everything.”

But, that’s also the conclusion of a recent 2020 meta-analysis.

They found that, like we discuss all the time, slow breathing won’t “cure” any one particular thing. But, it does help many different things in small ways:

“The overall effect sizes are modest but highly significant, suggesting that these methods may not be sufficient for treating any one problem but may be useful as a complementary intervention.”

Amen to that. And like you already know, when combined and compounded, these small improvements add up to overall better health.

To learn more, click here and read my short summary of the study.

Or better yet, don’t read it. Instead, spend those few minutes breathing slowly and experiencing the positive benefits for yourself : )

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2. Diabetes Really Does Hurt Everything, According to Our 2020 Life Experience

Just kidding. Well, kinda.

But I believe the meta-analysis above in thought #1 highlights why slow breathing can be so beneficial for diabetes.

As we know, when not properly managed, diabetes hurts just about every aspect of health and wellness:

Anxiety
Distress
Autonomic function
Emotional regulation
Cardiovascular function
And on & on

So, if slow breathing helps many of these, even modestly, they’re still going to add up to considerable benefits for our diabetes control.

Of course, it’s not a cure-all. But slow breathing is possibly the simplest, safest, and most effective thing we can do to address many diabetic problems.

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3. Breathing Exercises for Kids: Everything Parents Need to Know

“The cure? Take a deep breath. That sounds like a useless platitude. It’s not.”
- Breathing Exercises for Kids: Everything Parents Need to Know

Wow, this was a surprisingly good article. Quick and easy, and full of good information. It did have one typo about CO2, but I’ll let it slide since they provided so many awesome breathing books I can now get my daughter : )

And since they also provided this excellent advice for our children, nieces and nephews, and really just everyone in general:

“You practice every day, you slow breathe every day, even when you’re not anxious, and then even though you become a little bit anxious, you have the bandwidth to not fall off the edge.”
- Dr. Umakanth Katwa,
Director, Sleep Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital
Professor at Harvard Medical School

Sounds good to me.

Enjoy the excellent read!

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Related: Watch this in action.

This is perhaps the best real-world 21-second breathing video ever recorded.

4. Words Are Not Always Adequate, or Important

“Again, the likely explanation is that what is most easily put into words is not necessarily what is most important.”
- Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

This is certainly true for breathing.

Heart rate variability, autonomic function, blood pressure, blood flow, anxiety, distress. Slow breathing helps them all, and they all sound good.

But are they what’s truly most important?

I think that 21-second YouTube video above is what’s most important.

And I don’t have words for that.

1 Quote

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

1 Answer

Answer: Over 1.1 million children and adolescents below the age of 20 have this chronic disease, increasing their likelihood of anxiety and depression.

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(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)

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Question: What is type-1 diabetes?

In good breath,

Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
Diabetes is Tiny. You are Mighty.

P.S. WELL WHAT TIME DOES HE GET OFF?

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Each Monday, I curate and synthesize information from scientific journals, books, articles, and podcasts to share 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer (like "Jeopardy!") related to breathing. It’s a fun way to learn something new each week.