Why do other mood improvement habits seem more approachable, like making a cup of tea or exercise or a shower, while sitting and breathing seems harder?

1) cyclic sighing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdhqBGqiMc 2) box breathing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEmt1Znux58

Couldn't find anything for hyperventilation with retention.

I have no idea if they match the exact mechanics that were tested so make of it what you will.

Here is the way I was taught.

1. relax.

2. deep inhale.

3. pause (1 count)

4. say 'O' (2 or 3 counts, you can stretch it further if you can). Here you are basically exhaling through mouth.

5. slowly transition from 'O' to 'M'. for a brief period in the transition try to say 'O' nasally. might need a bit of practice but basically you are slowly transitioning from exhaling via mouth to exhaling via nose.

6. as you completely switch to 'M' your mouth is shut and you are totally exhaling via nose. Stretch 'M' as long as you can.

7. repeat this cycle. Once you find the rhythm its quite mentally relaxing.

Coupled with the full body muscle engagement and cardiovascular training that comes along with it, it seems like the perfect exercise for those that have access to a pool.

https://youtu.be/vA50EK70whE

1) Box breathing

2) Yoganidra (even if I’m not trying to fall asleep)

https://www.singwise.com/articles/correct-breathing-and-supp...

> "It is also important to note that, in voice pedagogy, 'breathing from the diaphragm' and 'breathing from the belly' are not viewed as being synonymous. The breath support technique that is widely referred to as 'diaphragmatic breathing', (when correctly executed), should not be confused with 'belly breathing'. Unlike 'belly breathing', 'breathing from the diaphragm' involves no pushing or forceful expulsion of air, and is the natural, correct, safe, gentle, internationally accepted method of supporting the singing tone. In diaphragmatic breathing, the tone rides on a minimal and steady stream of air, which brings stability and consistency to the tone."

Musicians and athletes practice structured breathing as a way of building cardio and increasing lung capacity. Your lungs don't change, you just learn to control airflow better. The way "ancient traditions" are frequently framed makes me avoid and treat them like pseudoscience. Framing it from the persepctive of an athlete helped me evaluate it more seriously. Mindful meditation is beneficial but completely indepedent from breathing exercises and you don't need the former to get benefits from the latter.

I am not arguing the value or validity of "ancient techniques", I am sharing my initial bias when I was first introduced to pranayama, and how it's taught as if it exists in isolation. This post doesn't mention sports or singing/musicians once.

There's many techniques but box breathing where you take extra air in after you feel like your lungs are full, and a longer period exhaling than inhaling, is the primary technique I was taught for marching band/trombone. The "cyclic sighing" described in the paper, but with a longer inhale and exhale. We did, at ~80 bpm, 4 counts for inhale, 4 counts of holding, and 8 counts of exhale, with whatever extra "sip" of air we could manage to inhale during the hold. If you're not used to breathing exercises, doing 4+4+8 a few times can leave you light headed. It's normal to cough from the extra sip of air.

I also regularly practice Andrew Weil's 478 breathing https://routineshub.com/public/items/fb2c75bd-4d6d-424e-925a...

That, and plunging and holding my face in the cold water to try to trigger the mammalian diving response, has really had a positive effect on me (ofcourse only n=1).

Think I'll add 5 minutes of these breathing practices to my routine as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH40wdhzUuM

Its based on solid research - test groups that hum in the specific frequency were found to have increased their nitric oxide production a dozen or more times. Whereas control groups and groups that did the meditation in another frequency either did not produce any different amount or comparably low amounts.

It's such hard work that I decided to stop drinking for a year to make it more tolerable to exercise with the rowing machine.

One of my friends tried to beat my time on the rower and was so sore for 3 nights, he had nightmares about the rower ha.

Anyway, it obviously made me question should I be doing more for my body, including breathing exercises, but what this kind of thing also makes me really think about is how stupid air pollution is. What it would feel like not to have access to fresh clean air and how bad it would be to be suffocating. What a privilege it is to be able to breathe and it makes me feel like I want to go plant trees.

Has anyone else had similar thoughts during exercise / breathe training? If anything I think it's good to become aware of the breathe and air for this reason alone, it would make the world a better place.

I personally found that having physical markers for when to breathe in and out made it a lot easier to understand and practice. Tying yoga poses to the amount of time I hold air made is easier to track my improvements too. I imagine swimming similarly allows a more structured way to practice cyclic breathing. I was able to break an 8 minute 2k row when I did it with cyclic breathing. Nothing has improved my cardio as much as erg + controlled breathing, I use pretty short intervals.

Another place cyclic breathing was crucial was when I did marching band. I played trombone so it was mandatory that I have athletic lung capacity. I was told that the exercises aren't making your lungs bigger, you're getting used to having your lungs stay expanded for longer.

The most important thing was the extra breath you take after you feel like your lungs are completely full. Everyone coughs when you take in that extra bit of air after breathing in deeply, in the beginning. There's plastic ball valve things you can buy to observe your breathing but I never personally saw it as useful. A relative was given something similar after a heart attack in order to monitor lung strength during recovery.

It's also pretty common to recommend some type of cyclic breathing when handling anxiety. It helps control and lower the physical symptoms of anxiety like rapid heart rate.

Looking up box/cyclic breathing guides for athletes or music students might help, if you are looking for more structure guides. The cyclic breathing in this study is not the same as circular breathing.

The "coherent breathing" work that popped up sometime in the last ~15 years is pretty interesting, too.

So cyclic sighing can replace mindful meditation, except that it requires more use to reap the benefits.

So now Cyclic Sighing, Mindful Meditation and Binaural Beats are techniques I can call upon in times of stress.

Cheers

> Participants were informed they should sit down in a chair or, if they preferred, to lie down, and then to set a timer for 5 min. Then they were told to close their eyes and to start breathing while focusing their mental attention on their forehead region between their two eyes. They were told that if their focus drifted from that location to re-recenter their attention by focusing back first on their breath and then on the forehead region between their eyes. They were told that as thoughts arise, to recognize that as normal, refocus their attention back to their forehead region and to continue the practice until time has elapsed.

Is this a legit expression of mindfulness meditation? It lacks any sort of breath modification.

How would one learn how to do it properly? I don't think a random Youtube video has enough credibility.

Regarding the criticisms of this study;

Firstly, the small sample size is based on volunteers, so folks already believed there was going to be a payoff from something that is 75% breathwork.

Secondly, there is no "sham intervention" class to counter the placebo effects from this.

Thirdly, their mindfulness instruction is atypical; it should have been passive focus on breath rather than a visual/somatic cue on the forehead to be comperable with breath work vs breath focus.

Finally, their exclusion criteria makes it too restricted;

> For health and safety reasons, we excluded those with self-reported moderate to severe psychiatric or medical conditions that could be exacerbated by study participation, such as heart disease, glaucoma, history of seizures, pregnancy, psychosis, suicidality, bipolar disorder, or substance use disorders.

I find it annoying that the list is not exhaustive but we could reasonably assume they also had to exclude moderate and above depression and anxiety disorders, not to mention panic disorder[1]. Anxious folks are particularly sensitive to breathwork, and even 10% of their "healthy" population reported anxiety as a result of these practices (highest ingroup rate is 17%, in the favorite "sighing" group)

Besides the anxiety inducing vs reducing effect of all breathwork had more variance than the mindfulness intervention, which puts into question whether the cost/benefit of the intervention (not to mention it's wide scale applicability) is sufficient.

What Huberman is popular for is known as a "nutrientism" of sorts; as in assemble vitamins a, b, c..., this and that macronutrient plus this and that micronutrient and you will have a full nutritional profile. Not saying he is all bs at all, e.g his circadian light stuff is solid, but more often than not after the 50th episode these turn into bite sized oversold interventions mostly as an illusion of "doing something good for me so that I don't have to do anything else".

As a final note, mindfulness meditation traditionally has never been an emotion regulation tool, it is an education tool as a part of wisdom traditions, none of which had "good affect in one month" as the primary metric of their success.

[1] The panic disorder population is even more interesting. 50% of the panic disordered people do not suffer from hyperventilatory or otherwise respiratory phenomena. Not only that, the hyperventilators are suffering from hypocapnia, as in a drop in CO2 and not O2, which is completely opposite to Huberman's "dumping CO2 and therefore relaxing" magic/logic.

Read "Altered Traits" - two western scientists trying to pump up meditation self-report that they can't find any tangible benefits and resort to BP control meditation because they can't even reduce their BP, let alone anything else. "Anxiety and mood" are pretty subjective. Just sitting there drops pulse too.

I follow these simple rules for breathing

  1. Breathe to stomach not chest.
  2. Breathe by nose (unless swimming or underwater).
  3. Inhalation time and exhalation time should be equal and gap between inhalation and exhalation should be sum of it. If it takes x seconds to inhale exhalation should begin after 2x seconds and should finish in x seconds

 Retention (2x) = inhalation time (x) + exhalation time (x).

* Yes, this is an odd sort of sighing, but it isn't that different from spontaneous sighing. And people also hyperventilate on their own, but mostly preparatory to diving or holding their breath for some other reason.

I do sigh a lot in meetings, and am (perhaps mistakenly) believed to be very patient with people... Oh well.

"Breathwork improves mood and physiological arousal more than mindfulness meditation"

Headline states that it reduces physiological arousal.

Sure, mindfulness may help with anxiety in the long term, but during the first 30 days? Anecdotally, some folks I know felt overwhelming anxiety during their first few sessions.

I heard that somewhere before.

> Participants were informed they should sit down in a chair or, if they prefer, to lie down, and to set a timer for 5 min. Then they were told to inhale slowly, and that once their lungs were expanded, to inhale again once more to maximally fill their lungs -- even if the second inhale was shorter in duration and smaller in volume than the first, and then to slowly and fully exhale all their breath. They were told to repeat this pattern of breathing for 5 min. They were also informed that ideally, both inhales would be performed via their nose and the exhale would be performed via their mouth, but that if they preferred, they were welcome to do the breathing entirely through their nose. They were also informed that it is normal for the second inhale to be briefer than the first.

Breathing is a minute-to-minute vital life function. You can hurt yourself, perhaps seriously, with breathing changes. But wait -- holding your breathe is harmless and this is stupid that you warn me about it, one person wrote after a similar comment like this here on YNews. really? I don't know you but I guarantee you are not six years old right now.

Hold the breathe like a babe in arms, gently, with complete awareness... You tri-athletes, you too..

yes, I agree this is annoying to see Western Medicine "discover" this .. but please work with experienced people, not alone, not with a video or PDF from somewhere.. to health!

> Interestingly, those who felt the greatest boost in mood also experienced the biggest drop in heart rate variability.

A drop in HRV isn't generally good. So I check the paper, and found this:

> No significant changes were found in heart rate variability or resting heart rate over the course of the study in either of the groups (Figures 4C and 4D)

There was a reduction respiratory rate for those an increase in daily positive affect. Bottom line, unclear if this particular study points to a positive health outcome other than feeling happier.