Slow breathing modulates brain function and risk behavior
119 points by croes 8 hours ago | 25 comments

Sam6late 2 hours ago
Slow breathing is also recommended for novices before public speaking, as it helps speakers overcome irrational physiological fear of facing people, the risk-taking shift is useful as it helps you speak more confidently, not more cautiously. Slow breathing can calm nerves quickly; bottom-up regulation: body tells brain “you’re safe”.
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cryzinger 4 hours ago
Parasympathetic nervous activation increased risk-taking behavior? That's interesting/unexpected (at least to me). Also, this part caught my eye:

> The selective impact of prolonged exhalation breathing on reward responsiveness has important implications for clinical contexts, such as anxiety, panic disorder, and depression, given their distinct autonomic signatures and maladaptive reward processing. By enhancing cardiac parasympathetic modulation through prolonged exhalation techniques, individuals may restore reward processing, a valuable pathway for emotional recalibration. Prolonged exhalation harbors the potential for a low-cost, low-risk, easily applicable intervention to be incorporated into therapy or rehabilitation programs, especially to support pharmacological treatments.

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thisoneisreal 3 hours ago
I agree it's counterintuitive, but it makes sense when I think about how, for example, it's the least neurotic people who do high-risk activities like base jumping or mountain climbing. Fear drives you away from threatening things, lack of fear allows you to move toward them more comfortably.
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cryzinger 42 minutes ago
Ah, that does make a lot of sense!
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isomorphic 22 minutes ago
"Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear." (George Addair)
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culopatin 2 hours ago
Makes sense to me. The only way I can dip in a snow melt lake is if I slow down my breathing, slow my thinking and dip.
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gcanyon 4 hours ago
Yeah, I was expecting some sort of "slow breathing produces calmness/more considered behavior" conclusion. But, the exact opposite? Everyone knows what party monsters those zen meditators are? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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runlaszlorun 3 hours ago
Zen party monster... Reporting for duty!
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chopete3 5 hours ago
"When you feel so mad that you want to roar, take a breath and count to four." - Daniel Tiger's mom
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gorgoiler 40 minutes ago
My favourite of these is.

“If you feel jealous, talk about it, then we’ll figure something out”

In which one of the children wants the other one’s cool toy so the parent’s response is to encourage them to ask for it to be shared. Except they aren’t siblings and it’s the mom from the other family teaching their own jealous kid to go ask.

How about this?: Back off cat family, you fair weather commies — that’s Daniel’s bubble wand, not yours. At least share some of your own crap before asking for someone else’s:

”If you feel jealous: shut the fuck up, you can’t just have someone else’s stuff nor should you feel entitled to guilt them into sharing it just because you asked nicely.”

Slightly tongue-in-cheek. Slightly.

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uberex 2 hours ago
Also try to make decisions ahead of time too. E.g. figure out what your opinion is before the meeting. Think like a pilot, don't let the plane do something you hadn't anticipated 5 minutes before (or in case of life 5 days 5 weeks 5 months or sometimes 5 years!)

Cant do this for everything but examples are supermarket lists, home viewing (know your price, questions, decision criteria)

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storus 3 hours ago
Weren't 90s of deep breathing supposed to remove all cortisol in the blood? This seems like an opposite result. Also a single prolonged breath was supposed to reset autonomic nervous system. Which research should I trust now?
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ansk 5 hours ago
I've found breathing exercises to be effective for the duration of the exercise, but I'm more interested in the possibility of training myself to adjust my respiration patterns over sustained durations. Would it be beneficial -- or even possible at all -- to adjust my body's default/subconscious breathing patterns to match those mentioned in the article?

Tangentially related, are there any wearable devices that allow for high resolution respiration monitoring? I'm imagining some measurement of lung expansion over time (probably at least 10 Hz) so that I can quantify the deepness/shallowness of my breaths as well as the phase of inhalation/exhalation cycles.

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RossBencina 4 hours ago
I have read that skilled mindfulness practitioners maintain constant awareness of their breathing pattern throughout all other waking activities. Something to aspire to perhaps.
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jzig 2 hours ago
Indeed, a lot of aspiration there.
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NopIdoN 3 hours ago
Sounds like hell.

Remember to blink!

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zo7 3 hours ago
Awareness of breathing does not mean controlling your breathing, it just means noticing the sensations associated with it. Breathing can be incredibly pleasant!
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zo7 3 hours ago
It's possible to train your breathing patterns, look up Buteyko breathing.
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Nevermark 4 hours ago
> Would it be beneficial -- or even possible at all -- to adjust my body's default/subconscious breathing patterns to match those mentioned in the article?

Common physical reflexes, autonomous responses, and subconscious regulation, are there as aids to us. The fact that they are not universally beneficial is one of the purposes of having higher level control. Not to universally suppress responses, but to notice and cope when they misfire.

It would be interesting to have a map of breathing patterns across a wide variety of situations, to identify the range of situations where prolonged exhalation is adaptive.

My guess, based on the common reflexes of mouth clamping and breath holding before great physical exertion, is that prolonged exhalation is part of an adaptive psychological orchestrator for when we prepare to take on something difficult, risky (but necessary), or that needs a fast strong response.

Our fast acting emotions, and slower acting moods, are similar guides. Patterns of stimulus and response from our baseline physiology and psychological, that we absorb into our higher level operation, as generalized guides for analogous responses to contexts at higher abstraction levels.

With minor maladaptive responses inevitable, if we don't pay attention. And severe maladaptive responses often ingrained as overcompensation for situational or developmental traumas.

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MajorTakeaway 3 hours ago
The craziest thing I noticed about a breathing pattern and risk taking was when a murderer was in an interrogation room with a police officer when after they couldn't find his gun; he had stowed it on his ankle. The suspect took a deep inhale after reaching for his gun while the officer was focused on the computer screen in front of him, exhaled and swiftly aimed at the officers temple and fired. Then he broke out of custody and was caught shortly after.
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jaypatelani 2 hours ago
So doing this Sudarshan Kriya helps ? Or we should avoid it ?

https://www.aolresearch.org/published-research

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iknownthing 54 minutes ago
I've never found it to make a difference
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k__o 3 hours ago
i developed a health issue that has affected my breathing over the past few years and i am cognitively and emotionally destroyed, it has made me realize that breathing is really important
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jondwillis 26 minutes ago
Cmon tell us what it is
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0ckpuppet 2 hours ago
like inhaling a cigarette and slowly exhaling smoke.
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