5-min breathing workout lowers blood pressure as much as exercise, drugs (2021)

After reading Wim Hof and James Nestor a couple years ago during the pandemic, I used their techniques in full while battling long Covid.<p>I had a blood pressure monitor and pulse oximeter on my bedside table that I would experiment with doing these various techniques and seeing my heart rate go down, my blood pressure go down, my anxiety would disappear, lung&#x2F;chest inflammation would settle, and even oxygen levels increase up to 5%.<p>I did this primarily because Covid reduced my average running mile time by around 20%. I was hopeful that I could make a full recovery which I did and then some.<p>This new tool I believe saved my life, and I’m excited to use it for the rest of it.

&gt; <i>not necessarily meant to replace exercise</i><p>I&#x27;m hoping someone can answer a question to which I&#x27;ve never heard a really satisfactory answer: Why does human health benefit from exercise whereas any kind of simple machine wears out with exercise? For example, doing a hundred stretches per day improves my health whereas stretching an elastic band 100 times per day will cause it to lose elasticity and soon destroy it. So what&#x27;s the low-level mechanism by which exercise improves health in people but not in simple machines?

If you want to learn more about breathing I recommend checking out the book The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick Mckeown. It&#x27;s got a bunch of different breathing exercises and ways to measure progress. It basically reteaches you how to breath too, which is fascinating on its own. Worth checking out for sure.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Oxygen-Advantage-Scientifically-Breathing-Techniques&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0062349473&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Oxygen-Advantage-Scientifically-Breat...</a>

Fun things to try with breathing:<p>- When lightly exercising, close eyes and focus on breathing. Note effects on heart rate.<p>- Get into an uncomfortable (but safe) position such as a deep squat, crab position, etc. Close eyes and focus on breathing. Note effects on feelings of discomfort, and effort to maintain the position.

I don&#x27;t fully get the &quot;lowers blood pressure&quot; claim. Doesn&#x27;t Table S2 in the paper say that blood pressure stayed roughly the same for people doing high-resistance IMST and went up for the control&#x2F;sham group doing low-resistance IMST? The question in my mind is &quot;why does low-resistance IMST increase blood pressure?&quot; Am I missing something?

This is interesting, and is a pre-regisetered double blind study; still it was 18 participants in each condition, which is on the low end of what I&#x27;d find acceptable.

Okay, so I have some straight up anecdotal evidence done with a real blood pressure cuff by a trained medical professional for a related phenomenon.<p>I have to get a buprenorphine injection monthly.<p>As a part of this, they take my blood pressure.<p>I was talking to the nurse, animatedly about the silly policies our state government has around electric scooters, as she was taking my blood pressure.<p>She didn&#x27;t read out both for me, but I initially had &quot;135&quot; as the result.<p>The nurse got me to take 5 minutes doing a guided (heavy) breathing and relaxation protocol, and sure enough, on running the blood pressure test again, I got &quot;118&quot;

Anecdote. My mother had asthma since age of 30 and my father developed high bp at age of 50. Mother had a very strict diet ( inhaler weren&#x27;t popular in Indian middle class) and father was supposed to take a pill for life.<p>They started following breathing exercises (Pranayam) as told by Indian yog Guru Ramdev on television for 30-60 mins a day and they have mostly controlled it now for last 18 years.<p>For anyone searching on youtube, he and other gurus make lot of tall claims and say irrational things, sell snake oil and are in general against western medicines, you&#x27;ll have to ignore it.

I do this 11 min Pranayama it helps a lot <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;vhmbnsXOhx8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;vhmbnsXOhx8</a>

The article mentions that the device is used during the inhale. Doesn&#x27;t clarify if it&#x27;s also used during the exhale or not.<p>(I just rolled-up my fist and breathed through it. And it provided lots of resistance. So it looks like I might be able to make this work with just my fist.)<p>If anyone knows, please hit reply and let me know.

Swimming also restrict air flow to the lungs: you must inhale quickly and hold your breath during parts of the strokes. Possibly the effect shown here contributes to swimming being such a good exercise and might be useful in comparing the physiology of swimming with that of similar sports (e.g., rowing).<p>Would this regimen improve the blood pressure of swimmers? Swimmers are already breathing under restrictive conditions (possibly as much as an hour or two each day) so my guess is &quot;No&quot;.<p>But if I can get any significant part of a swimming workout in minutes per day, I&#x27;ll take it!

I&#x27;ve been using a Powerbreathe for inspiratory muscle training. The daily exercise only takes a few minutes. But it requires occasional cleaning, and the spring valve sometimes gets stuck closed. I haven&#x27;t noticed any obvious decrease in blood pressure.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.powerbreathe.com&#x2F;product-category&#x2F;breathing-trainers&#x2F;plus&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.powerbreathe.com&#x2F;product-category&#x2F;breathing-trai...</a>

I wonder if you can stack the breathing exercises (9pt reduction) with grip strength exercises (10% reduction) for even more benefit.<p>Edit: People are disagreeing with this? Why?

Is this the same article from 2019?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.colorado.edu&#x2F;today&#x2F;2019&#x2F;02&#x2F;25&#x2F;novel-workout-improves-health" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.colorado.edu&#x2F;today&#x2F;2019&#x2F;02&#x2F;25&#x2F;novel-workout-impr...</a>

My wife has white coat syndrome.<p>There was a time (~7 years ago). We were living in NYC. The doctors office was at the top of 5 flights of stairs and the elevator was out. Having just climbed 5 flights of stairs and telling the doctor she has white coat syndrome, they _immediately_ take her blood pressure. Noting it’s (unsurprisingly) high, suggests she go on blood pressure medication. A decision that would surely have damaged her health.<p>4 years ago, we told her OBGYN she had white coat syndrome. We got a blood pressure cuff to use at home that recorded every reading (including date&#x2F;time) so we could bring it in to her. Every reading at home, out and about, was good - even borderline low. At the doctors office, it was always high. The doctor, knowing this, STILL tried to suggest we induce early labor.<p>TL;DR - doctors will kill you. Your health is your own - don’t delegate the most important decision in your life.

Anyone know if breath is also connected to specific body parts? Really crude contrived example to illustrate what I mean: deep breathing affecting the left arm, shallow breathing affecting the right arm?<p>I always felt there must be some connection but never really understood how to even investigate. I definitely noticed that certain deep breathing was extraordinarily useful for alleviating IBS symptoms... basically the physical expansion of the lungs (contracting the diaphragm) clearly physically pressed upon the intestinal tract and massaged it (this is personal experience, anecdotal)... I have always wondered if this principle was extendable further?<p>Everything I&#x27;ve seen about the lungs is always about what it does for oxygen&#x2F;co2 regulation in the blood... feels like this really underestimates whats going on

&gt; “We have identified a novel form of therapy that lowers blood pressure without giving people pharmacological compounds and with much higher adherence than aerobic exercise,” said senior author Doug Seals, a Distinguished Professor of Integrative Physiology<p>I laugh at the term &quot;novel&quot; here, and am frustrated that we feel we need to make up a new technique and a new gadget when we could be teaching breathing practices that have been around for millenia. Try &quot;nadi shodhana&quot; or alternate-nostril breathing, using one&#x27;s own hand to apply pressure (see the appendix of the book Breath by James Nestor; though I&#x27;m sure there are other references, that&#x27;s what I&#x27;ve read and feel confident recommending).

Just for context, I posted this study since I was intrigued by this[0] recent HN comment about an anecdotal apnea training effect on weight and then came across this study. I&#x27;m using the Apnea Trainer app on iOS, but too early to say how it affects my weight.<p>I&#x27;m going to get a PowerBreathe device[1] as used here, since I am also dealing with hypertension.<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30617118#30624918" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30617118#30624918</a><p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.powerbreathe.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;powerbreathe-plus-medium-resistance&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.powerbreathe.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;powerbreathe-plus-mediu...</a>

Interesting. I’m currently trying to lower blood pressure naturally and have found typical “in through nose, out through mouth” breathing exercises will drop mine a few points. Also, hand weights- 2 reps of 10 in each arm- will drop significantly. I have a lingering concern though that these are just ways to hack the test. In me, the drop has been temporary- by the afternoon it’s back up if that’s all I do. It is encouraging that this study seems to say there are long term benefits, but I still wonder if that’s because the treatments are allowing for better traditional cardio. In the video he kind of hints at that.

Of course this should not stop you from exercising where possible. It could be very useful in case of arthritis or similar conditions inhibiting exercise.

Eating garlic works even better for lowering blood pressure: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthline.com&#x2F;nutrition&#x2F;garlic-for-blood-pressure" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.healthline.com&#x2F;nutrition&#x2F;garlic-for-blood-pressu...</a> But combining garlic with breathing exercises might lead to unwanted side effects ;-)

This is called Pranayam. We are doing this in India since ages... Good to see that &#x27;experts&#x27; from Western countries taking baby steps to learn. Good for you guys! Keep it up.<p>Note 1: Some &#x27;expert&#x27; took my comment on their ego and downvoted my comment. Guys, my comment was encouraging. Taking it on your ego is your personal choice.

Does this mean that wearing a mask with a proper seal and filtration has been improving my cardiovascular health?

&gt;...the IMST group saw their systolic blood pressure (the top number) dip nine points on average, a reduction which generally exceeds that achieved by walking 30 minutes a day five days a week.<p>Walking isn&#x27;t very aerobic. I think you would have to walk&#x2F;jog up a hill for some sort of meaningful comparison.

This is exactly what is prescribed in yoga. Very interesting.

Any idea on how to do this without the device?<p>Probably someone with Pranayama can comment - to me this seems a modification of anuloma-viloma (alternate nostril breathing).

I am worried about the risk of pneumothorax with uncontrolled use of such devices. If you are at risk I would be careful.

So where can I buy this simple machine?<p>Or do I need a prescription and paying US healthcare level prices?

guess I will stop ignoring those breathing sessions my watch recommends

I wonder if they got the idea from watching Wim Hoff videos on YouTube.

Which device was used in the study? Any buying recommendations?

I guess this would help some truly disabled people, but traditional exercise, even in similar time frames, offers so many additional health benefits than breathing techniques.

Where can I buy one?

The lack of skepticism in this comment section is so depressing.

Doctors hate him

If you do the exercise right you won&#x27;t even need the breathing.<p>Run 45 minutes a day, doesn&#x27;t have to be fast, just consistent.<p>My blood pressure and pulse is actually too low sometimes and have to make sure I take enough salt.

What is the obsession of looking for a cheap way out if you are able bodied. Literally just go for a walk, run, or ride. I highly doubt doing some small activity can really compare to the full health benefits of some daily exercise.