BY: LEAH LAGOS, Psy.D.
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4 THOUGHTS
1. Something Amazing Happens: Baroreflexes and Why Slow Breathing is So Powerful
“The baroreflex is one of the body’s mechanisms for maintaining blood pressure. … Every time you inhale, your heart rate increases, followed by a rise in blood pressure approximately 4 or 5 seconds later. When you exhale, your heart rate slows, this time followed by a drop in blood pressure approximately 4 or 5 seconds later. This cycle is mediated by specialized receptors in the walls of your aorta and carotid arteries called baroreceptors.
The baroreflex is fixed and almost entirely mediated by unconscious mechanisms, but we do have control over our breathing rate. Most of us breathe at a faster frequency than our baroreflex, but when we purposefully slow our breathing to match the frequency of our baroreflex, we strengthen our control over it.
It turns out there is a particular rate of breathing, called resonance frequency, that maximizes the amplitudes of heart rate oscillations. For some people, it’s 6 breaths a minute; for others it might be 5 or 7. Regardless of the specific number, when you breathe at this rate, something amazing happens: it strengthens the baroreflex, creating even greater overall increases in HRV.”
This is one of the best descriptions I’ve read of the relationship between slow breathing, the baroreceptors, and HRV. And it sets the stage for the entire premise of the book: When we breathe slowly, we maximize HRV, improving our physical and mental health.
Heart. Breath. Mind.
And the real magic happens when we have a consistent slow breathing practice: “As you train your heart by breathing at your personal resonance frequency, you are exercising your baroreflex, making it stronger and more efficient so that your HRV remains high even when you resume normal breathing.”
So breathe slowly, maximize HRV, and exercise those baroreflexes. This will translate into higher baseline HRV and thus a lower baseline stress level.
2. Breathing for Focus & the Noradrenaline Sweet Spot
“During times of stress, our brains secrete noradrenaline, a hormone that quickens heart rate and ramps up blood pressure because the body thinks it needs to prepare for a battle or escape. Noradrenaline is also released, though in different amounts, during times of intense focus, curiosity, or passion, promoting the growth of new connections in the brain. Researchers at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and the Global Brain Health Institute in Dublin, Ireland, found that slow, controlled, deep breathing helps the brain nail the noradrenaline “sweet spot,” heightening attention and getting people laser focused.”
A little more on the “Mind” in Heart Breath Mind. Dr. Lagos shares this fascinating research showing that slow breathing puts us into the “noradrenaline sweet spot,” which heightens our attention and gets us “laser focused.”
Of course, we all want more focus. (See the Book 411 on Stolen Focus for more on that.) Slow deep breathing is the simplest and most effective tool for getting it.
To summarize so far, when we breathe slowly, we maximize HRV and improve the functioning of our baroreceptors. This also enhances mental focus by optimizing noradrenaline.
It sounds pretty incredible, but it gets even better when we look at another aspect of the heart: feel-good chemicals.
3. Strengthening Your Heart May Have Antidepressive Effects
“Additionally, recent neurocardiology studies have revealed that the heart is capable of secreting feel-good chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, and norepinephrine, all of which help to counteract feelings of depression. For years, the prevailing consensus has been that these powerful compounds were released only by the brain; the notion that the heart can produce these neurochemicals is exciting on many levels. This suggests that strengthening the heart through HRV-strengthening practices could possibly yield mild antidepressive effects.”
By strengthening our hearts, we may improve our ability to release feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin. Sounds good to me.
It reminds me of some wisdom from Michael J Stephen, MD, in Breath Taking: “Deep breathing is a potent inducer of the parasympathetic nervous system. The release of acetylcholine not only calms our organs, it also stimulates the release of serotonin, dopamine, and prolactin, the feel-good hormones targeted by medicines like Prozac and Zoloft. But yoga and breathing exercises produce this effect naturally and without side effects.”
Together, we see that slow breathing uses several pathways to release feel-good chemicals that may help with depression.
Of course, we can’t just “breathe our way off of medications.” But, adding slow breathing to our daily routines seems like a no-brainer since it’s cheap, easy, and has basically no adverse side effects.
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P.S. I purposefully haven’t included specific breathing exercises yet…but they’re coming in the life-changing thought.
4. Exhale Fully (unless you enjoy anxiety and tension)
“Dr. Peper and another researcher trained 35 volunteers in slow belly breathing. The volunteers were then instructed to rein in their breathing, exhaling only about 70 percent of the air in their lungs with every exhale. After just 30 seconds of this subpar breathing, almost every subject reported a climb in unpleasant symptoms, including anxiety, dizziness, light-headedness, and neck and shoulder tension. Bringing themselves back to the slow belly breathing counteracted those symptoms, and stress levels returned to normal.”
Just 30 seconds of short exhales leads to anxiety, dizziness, and tension.
Luckily, there’s an easy fix: Slow belly breathing with a longer exhale than inhale.
The life-changing idea will provide Dr. Lagos’s precise formula for doing this.
1 LIFE-CHANGING IDEA
Slow Breathing and the 60/40 Rule
“The standard rate that works for most individuals is to inhale for 4 seconds and exhale for 6 seconds with no pause in between. This is a 10-second breath, or, technically speaking, a frequency of 0.1 Hz. Breathing at this rate will result in 6 breaths per minute. For context, most adults breathe at a rate of 12 breaths per minute.
The magic ratio here is 40:60—you spend 40 percent of each breath inhaling and 60 percent exhaling.”
This passage was life-changing in its simplicity. I’ve used this concept basically every day in my life since learning of it. Thus, I can attest that it lives up to this “life-changing” title.
And although I’m not a fan of breathing “rules,” this is about as useful as it gets.
Want to breathe at 5 breaths per minute? Start with the 60/40 approach (which comes out to a 4.8 sec inhale and 7.2 sec exhale). What about 4 breaths per minute? Same thing, 60/40.
And even more life-changing is the first sentence in that passage: “The standard rate that works for most individuals is to inhale for 4 seconds and exhale for 6 seconds with no pause in between.”
So, if you don’t know where to start or are working with a new client, this is it. Four seconds in, six seconds out. It's safe, easy, and effective.
1 STACK OF MEMORABLE QUOTES
“There is, however, a scientifically proven, safe, natural way to rewire your body’s baseline stress response and optimize your health and performance. The breathing exercises and peak performance strategies described in Heart Breath Mind will take you on a journey from merely surviving stress to thriving despite it.”
“We’ll start by using technology to help you find your ideal breathing rate, but with dedicated practice, you’ll be able to breathe without the technology, accessing your best self on demand and linking together your heart, breath, and mind in the way nature intended.”
“Most people are under the impression that their heart beats with the monotony and repetitiveness of a metronome. On the contrary, when you inhale, your heart rate (the number of times your heart beats per minute) naturally rises; when you exhale, it slows down again. This is true for everyone.”
“But when you breathe at your resonance frequency, your heart rate oscillations become perfectly in phase with your breath. You enter a state called resonance, or flow.”
“Subjects with a higher daytime HRV took less time to fall asleep, woke up fewer times during the night, and rated their sleep as feeling more restful than those with lower daytime HRVs.”
“University of North Carolina psychologists Barbara Frederickson, PhD, and Bethany Kok, PhD, demonstrated this beautifully when they asked 52 adults to track their positive emotions—awe, gratitude, joy—for 9 weeks. They found that the higher a subject’s HRV was at the beginning, the easier and more quickly he or she could experience positive feelings over the next 9 weeks.”
“Recent research found that baseline HRV level predicted working memory performance under high-pressure circumstances, suggesting that HRV training can be used to prevent the choking-under-pressure phenomenon.”
“All these physiological improvements have their roots in the body’s relaxation response, but there’s also special magic in the act of counting. Counting is handled by the same area of the brain that’s responsible for worrying. It’s difficult to do both at the same time, so counting is exceptionally effective at crowding out stress, calming a busy brain, and enhancing focus.”
“The average person takes about 20,000 breaths a day. You’d think we would be pros at it by now. We’re not.”