It’s rare to find a long-duration breathing study. Typically, they examine effects lasting only minutes to hours. Then, it’s up to us to extrapolate the long-term benefits. This paper was different.
Effect Of Diaphragmatic Breathing On Heart Rate Variability In Ischemic Heart Disease With Diabetes
They asked participants to perform 10-15 minutes of slow deep breathing, twice a day, for one year. The researchers followed up with them at the 3 and 12 month marks.
(Side Note: This is basically what I have been doing for the past 2 years. I perform 15 minutes of slow breathing in the morning and ~5-10 in the evening before bed.)
The results were amazing.
Heart rate variability (HRV) increased significantly at the 3 and 12 month marks.
HbA1c dropped slightly at 3 months, and then significantly at 12 months.
The drop in HbA1c (3-month average blood sugar) was impressive, with one group experiencing a 2% decrease: They dropped from an average of 8.95% down to 6.95%. That’s like going from an average blood sugar of around 200 mg/dL down to 150 mg/dL. Even if you don’t have diabetes, you can appreciate the significance of these findings.
Participants who did not comply with the breathing protocol experienced a worsening of their HRV and HbA1c over time.
Of course, we need to take these results with a grain of salt. Over the course of the 1-year study, participants could have made other changes (diet, exercise, and so on) that would also influence the findings.
Nonetheless, this study is encouraging and corroborates the “N=1” experiment I have been performing on myself over the past few years.
The results also remind us that persistence is key. If they had stopped the study at 3 months, the improvements in HbA1c would not have been significant. It wasn’t until the 12 month follow-up that major improvements in blood sugars were observed.
Check out the full review to learn more.
In good breath,
Nick