95% of cases of high blood pressure have no known cause.
That is, there is not a kidney, lung or circulatory problem that is causing blood pressure to be high.
The conventional treatment is medication, but more and more is needed as the body adapts. Medication does not reach the true cause of this kind of high blood pressure.
But mindful slow deep breathing looks promising.
Just watch a baby breathe. The whole abdomen will go up and down with inhalation and exhalation. This is natural breathing. But somewhere a lot of us have forgotten how to breathe naturally.
Turn your attention to watch an adult, especially a tense adult, breathe. I’ll bet it is coming from the chest, with even their shoulders moving up and down. I’ll bet this kind of adult has high blood pressure.
Just by breathing mindfully – that is, slowly, deeply, and rhythmically, other body processes assist in blood circulation and the heart and blood vessels do not have to work so hard in order to circulate blood. Therefore, blood pressure does not need to be high in order to circulate the blood.This is according to Stephen Elliott, who promotes what he calls “Coherent Breathing” – slow, deep rhythmical breaths.
He finds that if blood pressure is relatively high, and if significant positive changes in blood volume variability through using the diaphragm in breathing can be facilitated, blood pressure will almost certainly be reduced over the course of 8-12 minutes of “coherent” breathing.
How it works
The research lead by Stephen Elliott finds that breathing to affect blood pressure is achieved through what is called the “thoracic pump.”
The big picture is that inhalation helps suck blood into the lungs where it gets oxygenated because of lower pressure in the thorax, or chest. Then, exhalation generates more pressure in the thorax, ejecting the blood from the lungs back through the heart and out into the arteries of the body.
Medical texts call this “the respiratory arterial pressure wave.” The amount of blood in this wave can be on the order of 100’s out of 5,000 or so milliliters of blood in the human body. It is a significant change in blood volume, enough to trigger the lowering of blood pressure in those in which it is high.
The slow, deep, and rhythmical breathing gives much of the work to the diaphragm instead of the heart. And the diaphragm is a much bigger muscle. The heart gets to rest during inhalation because the diaphragm is facilitating blood flow to the heart and the heart gets to rest during exhalation because the diaphragm is facilitating blood flow away from the heart.
When the diaphragm is not contributing through the thoracic pump, the job of maintaining blood flow and pressure falls to the heart and vascular system.
And this just may be the problem of most people with high blood pressure. They are not breathing adequately to power their circulation this way.
Just how deep is adequate breathing?
Physiologists tell us that the adult diaphragm muscle has a maximum range of movement of 10 centimeters.
However, most adults in their usual breathing pattern only moves their diaphragm 1 centimeter. That is only 10% of its potential!
The good news is that retraining the diaphragm to move at least 50% of its capacity is enough to engage the thoracic pump in order to maintain healthy blood pressure.
This retraining is done through mindful breathing. Slow rhythmical breathing lead to deep breaths, using more of the potential movement of the diaphragm.
How slow do I need to breathe?
First, let’s get a reality check.
Get a timepiece with a second hand, or some way to measure exactly a minute. As you pause from sitting here reading, count your breaths for exactly a minute, 60 seconds.
Most people breathe in and out every 2 – 3 seconds, which is 8 to 16, or 12 to 20 breaths per minute, depending on who you ask.
How many breaths did you have in a minute?
The rate of breathing to retrain a proper thoracic pump is more like 5 breaths per minute, or inhaling for 6 seconds, and exhaling for 6 seconds, instead.
This kind of controlled breathing is part of traditional yoga and meditation. However, while these disciplines have other benefits, you do not need those practices to lower high blood pressure. Simply by slowing down breathing, you can get profound effects on blood pressure. That is not to mention on the nervous system and your health.
What else can this type of breathing help?
Research into the effects of coherent breathing is just beginning. However, practitioners find that it can help:
- insomnia
- anxiety
- depressive symptoms
- stress
- immune system response
- alertness
- concentration
- vitality
- post-traumatic stress disorder
- attention deficit disorder
These are all related to activating the parasympathetic rest-and-digest system and turning down the sympathetic fight-or-flight system.
Exactly how do I do coherent breathing?
In a Huffington Post stress-less challenge, it was described this way:
According to Gerbarg, who, along with Richard P. Brown, M.D., associate professor in Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, authored the book The Healing Power of Breath, is intimately familiar with what’s called Coherent Breathing, a breathing method that promotes relaxation and balance.
- Lie down with eyes closed.
- With the mouth closed, breathe in gently and smoothly through the nose for six seconds. “It is not necessary to overfill your lungs,” says Gerbarg. “The breathing should be as gentle as possible.”
- Breathe out just as gently and smoothly; there’s no need to “expel air forcefully” she says, also for six seconds. Try an iPhone app, CD or MP3 to help you keep the pace. (You can find examples at coherence.com.)
- Continue this pattern for five or 10 minutes. “Then just lie there with your eyes closed and notice how you feel.”
Try this exercise every day, or multiple times a day during periods of stress, Gerbarg recommends.
I would add, if you have high blood pressure, monitor the effect on it.
Please comment below when you have given this a go for at least two weeks.
