BY: INNA KHAZAN, PH.D.
4 THOUGHTS
1. Mindful Low-and-Slow Breathing is “Almost Always Helpful”
“Mindful low-and-slow breathing (Chapter 2) activates the parasympathetic (relaxation) nervous system and is therefore almost always helpful in reducing physiological arousal, including bringing down skin conductance. Reducing skin conductance with low-and-slow breathing is particularly helpful for a quick recovery break, between meetings, or as a break from challenging activities of the day.”
Mindful low-and-slow breathing is “almost always helpful in reducing physiological arousal.” <— sounds good to me.
Use it anytime, anywhere for a quick reset and recovery.
***
P.S. The reduction in skin conductance is particularly important. As Dr. Khazan also tells us, “As your sympathetic nervous system (the one responsible for the stress response) is activated, sweat glands become more active and produce more sweat. … the more moisture there is, the more conductive your skin is. Higher skin conductance indicates increased stress activation.” (my emphasis)
2. Perform Better Under Stress (plus lobsters and their shells)
“HRV is also strongly associated with our ability to perform at our best during times of increased stress or challenge. In fact, HRV is one of the best metrics of psychophysiological health and ability to perform we currently have.”
Dr. Khazan tells us that higher HRV is associated with better performance during stressful and challenging times <—sounds good to me 💪
And fortunately, training our HRV is as simple as starting a consistent slow breathing practice. As she also tells us, “Regular practice is crucial to biofeedback success. Practicing a skill once or twice or every once in a while is unlikely to benefit you. Once your biofeedback practice is established, practicing your skills 7 days a week for 20 minutes a day is ideal.”
However, it might be even easier. A systematic review published in 2021 found that we might be able to get by with just 10 min/day…that’s not too much to ask to enhance “one of the best metrics of psychophysiological health and ability to perform we currently have” and perform better under stress.
***
P.S. Many times, we think the goal of all this self-development stuff is to get rid of stress completely. I’m not sure if that’s possible : ) I think it’s more helpful to embrace that stress and learn to perform better under it.
Here’s an excellent analogy Dr. Khazan uses about lobsters:
“For the lobster, stress literally leads to growth—if the lobster did not feel stressed in the small shell, it would not know to get a bigger one and be able to continue growing. Stress provides you with the same opportunity to grow. If you don’t experience stress, you don’t move forward, you don’t challenge yourself, and you don’t get the opportunity to live a fulfilling, meaningful life.”
So, like lobsters, we need stress to grow, to “live a fulfilling, meaningful life.”
Stress—> Breathe—> Recover—> Grow—> Repeat Forever 💪🏋️♀️
3. Slow Breathing for Better Blood Flow
“Your fingers, toes, nose, and even ears may feel cold. The small blood vessels that constrict during the fight-or-flight activation have a large impact on your blood pressure. When these blood vessels are relaxed, more blood can flow freely through them. When they become constricted, the same amount of blood flows through a narrower space, increasing your blood pressure.”
This is one of the many things that happens when the sympathetic nervous system is activated. Slow breathing, on the other hand, activates the calming (rest-and-digest) parasympathetic nervous system. This relaxes the small blood vessels, lowers blood pressure, and improves blood flow.
This is a vital benefit of slow breathing because better blood flow is necessary for, well, just about everything (especially if you have a chronic disease).
Moreover, reducing blood pressure is also critical for just about everything, especially decreasing our risk of cardiovascular problems.
So, if you feel so inspired, give it a shot: sit and breathe at 5-6 breaths/min for 2 min. Feel for yourself the rapid boost in blood flow to your hands and/or feet.
***
P.S. I’ve had cold hands & feet for as long as I can remember (thanks, diabetes). Although it’s improved considerably, one of my favorite things about slow breathing is the warmth I feel in them during and after my practice.
4. Overbreathing, Electrolyte Imbalance, and Anxiety
“In addition, overbreathing and the resulting pH dysregulation also lead to electrolyte imbalances. Electrolytes, such as sodium (Na+), calcium (Ca+), and potassium (K+), are responsible for communication between cells through electrical impulses. When your pH becomes too alkaline, electrolytes migrate into muscle and brain cells instead of staying in the fluid outside of those cells. As a result, you may experience muscle spasms, weakness, and fatigue.”
This one was news to me. Aside from just dehydrating us, overbreathing can also disrupt electrolyte balance.
The fix? Since it’s hard to tell if you’re “technically” overbreathing without a capnometer, I think the most practical safeguard here is to simply breathe nasally, even during exercise.
***
P.S. Here’s another reason to stop overbreathing: it can cause or exacerbate anxiety and panic. Here’s how Dr. Khazan puts it: “All of these symptoms of overbreathing are also symptoms of a panic attack, and many of them are symptoms of anxiety in general. In fact, research shows that panic attacks almost always involve overbreathing. The tricky part about overbreathing is that, because it so closely resembles anxiety, its symptoms are often interpreted as anxiety, whether or not anxiety is actually present. Of course, once you think you are anxious, you become anxious. Sometimes anxiety does indeed provoke overbreathing.”
1 LIFE-CHANGING IDEA
How to Be Warm-Hearted: Slow Breathing and The 4 Elements of Compassion
“On a physiological level, compassion requires the following elements:
• Ability to orient and bring attention toward the person in need of compassion. […]
• Ability to engage socially with others in times of stress. […]
• Ability to feel safe while engaging with others. […]
• Ability to regulate our own physiology. […]
[…]
What all four of these points tell us is that HRV is central to the physiological foundations of compassion and self-compassion. HRV training improves your ability to pay attention, engage socially, feel safe, and regulate your own physiology and emotions in the presence of your own or others’ suffering.
[…]
But doing the structured, straightforward, and easily accessible HRV training will help you in developing and nurturing your ability to express and act with compassion toward others and self-compassion for yourself.”
Compassion is certainly something our world needs more of. And here, Dr. Khazan explains how HRV is essential to compassion and self-compassion. Thus, a simple slow breathing practice (see Thought #2 above) might be all we need to nurture compassion for ourselves and others. Life-changing, indeed.
1 STACK OF MEMORABLE QUOTES
“Many people believe that biofeedback is a way to learn to relax. While it is true that you can learn to relax using biofeedback, relaxation is not the main goal. The main goal is self-regulation, which means being able to activate your nervous system most optimally for action and being able to relax and recover after the action is complete.”
“You may use the principles of psychophysiology underlying biofeedback to strengthen your self-regulation and improve your health and performance without the use of biofeedback.”
“Self-regulation, when applied to humans, refers to your ability to monitor your physiological and emotional states and alter them in accordance with the demand of the situation or the environment you are in.”
“Use biofeedback skills as a way to respond to difficult experiences, not as a way to control them or make them go away.
[…]
Allow your body to produce the physiological changes you are looking for rather than trying to make them happen.”
“HRV reflects the parasympathetic nervous system’s ability to put on the brakes to sympathetic activation. Increasing HRV with training strengthens the parasympathetic brake.”
“After controlling for possible confounding factors, the researchers concluded that HRV is a better predictor of future cardiac events than blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and resting heart rate.”