As a surfer, I've done a few breathwork classes even though I've never been close to being in conditions that really needed it. There is a tremendous amount of training that you can do to basically change your conscious thoughts in an instant. Going from 180bpm heart rate and anxious panic to a static breath hold for up to a minute while being ragdolled and disoriented, is basically ego death. If you watch some gnarly big wave surfers talk about breathwork, they talk about rapidly flushing out your air in 3-4 big breaths, calming your heart rate, and even laughing, all right before or in anticipation of a pounding. Plus the whole Gerry Lopez yoga and meditation era of the 70s made it clear how important breathing and mental state were.
In any case, this is something every single surfer beyond a certain level is required to master, so I'd love to see data from that kind of cohort. The old lady freedivers of Jeju Island would be cool too.
For someone with no connection to surfing at all, could you elaborate? Why is surfing special, or different from other sports, in needing to control your breathing?
Because panicking when you're being rag-dolled by even smallish waves can kill you, let alone waves of consequence. I don't have the words to describe what it feels like to be pushed to the bottom of the ocean by a wave, then just as you feel like you're running out of air be pushed back down by the next wave, and the next wave. You have no idea which direction is up and which is down, or how long it's been since you stopped breathing. 30 seconds will feel like death if you're not properly trained. Your very large very stiff board will be tumbling with you and could knock you unconscious or split your head open at any time.
My girlfriend got to be a decent surfer (~5 years practice and a former competitive swimmer) but never invested in learning the ocean. In 2018 she went out in a break she didn't know, in conditions above her league. Nothing too big (maybe 5 feet) but strong and relentless. Conclusion: She got sucked into the washing machine during a set and nearly drowned. Had to have the water beaten out of her lungs to restart breathing. Now she has panic attacks just getting into a flat ocean for a swim.
The sea is no joke. I encourage everyone to try surfing, it's a great hobby. But less than 10% of it is riding waves.
"the sea is no joke"
trvth
I was blessed with "over" sized lungs, and like swimming underwater, and hiking in mountains, so have enjoyed bieng able to do those things with minimal effort.
When living in a city, I swam in an olympic size pool, and can go two lengths? (back and forth once+) undewater , but have no idea of how this actualy compares to an average.
Got into doing the ?wim hoffman? breathing and like that, but have never noticed any altered conciousness, but that might be because my lungs are so large that I will need to realy realy push it? dont know, but after a car accident I was xrayed, and they were very surprised that the xrays, had to be redone, in two parts, as my lungs dont fit on a standard xray.
I sing, and can hold a low note for a long time, and am kind of loud and boomy, unless I am carefull, which is a down side, as it is alarming
for people in enclosed spaces.
So breath work from the perspective of fine controll and exploring actual true limits, is something that is suddenly, looking like a good idea, for me.
consiousness and all that
You should try freediving. 2 length in a 50m pool without weights and fins is way above average. But please take a course first, free diving can be very safe but only if done with a properly trained buddy.
Or just join the foiling community and go 40% wave riding. 80+% if pure down winding. Entree is a little more expensive but you save on not having to travel exotic locations (or not at all).
I think you have got your emotions mixed up, what you mean is called being jealous :)
No, obviously, I understand the hate towards those foiling in a crowed point breaks. But, at least in my circle, most of it happens in places where nobody's surfing anyways. Downwinding is pretty much invisible. Surfing has fallen victim of its own success with overcrowded spots (people intentionally breaking each others surfboards, come on) and the necessary travelling isn't great for the planet either (nor is a carbon foil, obviously)
Not op, just an observation, when you are underwater e.g. diving these things are really loud. Of course jet skis etc are even worse but the latter is not permitted were I go diving. Maybe that's part of the resentment.
The only point being made is panicked breathing before disaster, versus a little training and a few controlled breaths before disaster. And that he also experienced maybe some of the same mind altering effects of breathing.
Since we all breath, I think in this type of thread we'll find lots of anecdotes around this subject.
Yes my wife and I were watching a group of hikers one time and we both looked at each other and talked about how none of them had even seen a demo on using an ice axe. It felt like walking into a kitchen and seeing the chefs juggling knives
At the end of my three full day avalanche training the instructor said “now remember, you are now the least qualified people to go into the backcountry.
Lie down, do a push up, then jump up to your feet, upright, arms raised (Burpee). Repeat in rapid succession twelve times, then immediately shut your mouth and close your nose with your hand. Hold it. Close your eyes and imagine you are under water and don‘t know how long it will take till you can resurface.
You will feel an immediate urge to breath, a very unpleasant feeling in your throat, nose, ears, etc, and an immediate feeling of panic. That feeling is AFAIK caused by heightened CO2 levels [1].
Imagine trying to fight your way to the surface, in a panic, but the turbulence of the wave is too strong and keeps you down. Instead you have to accept the feeling of panic without acting on it, converse your energy while being rag dolled and pounded, trying not to dislocate your joints, keep or regain your sense of orientation, and wait for the moment that the turbulence subsides to the point it is possible to surface again.
You have little control over when that moment finally comes. And while seconds start to feel like eternities you might start telling yourself to never go surfing again. As time drags on, your resolve increases, to the point you might act on it once, and if, you finally resurface.
> Lie down, do a push up, then jump up to your feet, upright, arms raised (Burpee). Repeat in rapid succession twelve times, then immediately shut your mouth and close your nose with your hand. Hold it. Close your eyes and imagine you are under water and don‘t know how long it will take till you can resurface.
you forget, ‘put a blindfold on and tie your leg to a doberman’s leash then fall down 3-6 flights of stairs’
pretty similar forces and sensory at play, or at least a similar thrashing to big Teahupo’o over a sharp reef.
A safe way to get a similar disorienting experience is hold your breath under water while in a tight ball and have someone spin you on every direction and reverse it until you can't stand it and then wait another ten seconds.
I recall being swallowed by a wave and while under for only a short period i thought it was annoying not knowing when I'd return to the surface.
You can get hit by multiple waves in succession while surfing, preventing you from breathing for up to a minute. If you're at 180bpm and not breathing for a minute, you won't be coming back up
If I need to hold my breath underwater for a longer period of time I'll hyperventilate on the surface just a little before diving. In my experience your lungs don't "burn" as quickly and so you can dive a little longer.
It’s dangerous, since hyperventilating removes co2 from your blood, and raised co2 level is primary trigger for the urge to breathe reflex. It may feel better to hyperventilate and dive longer but you’re risking suddenly blacking out. I’m a free diver and this is one of the first things you are trained not to do, as well as never to dive alone, for safety reasons.
Ah the wisdom has changed. This was more often taught when I was younger, which yes, was quite a while ago. The warnings given then were don't go for depth with this method, exhale occasionally while underwater, and manage your breath again immediately on the surface.
Freedivers are also taught not to exhale underwater, because it wastes oxygen and lowers your CO2 level, making it harder to know when you actually have to come back up. Your body can't sense the level of oxygen it has, so freedivers rely on CO2 levels as a proxy, so messing with it is dangerous.
I've only taken the SSI training but I guarantee none of the different freediving organizations will recommend the type of breathing you are discussing, and in fact a large part of the intro course hammers home that you don't breathe that way.
Any freediving course. You have to breathe normally for an extended time, then dive, then take an extended break, hyperventilation just makes it easier for you to get yourself killed.
The people around the pool and lake where I grew up? From what I'm reading while searching it seems that "hyperventilate" is probably a bad term for the type of breathing I was shown. We wouldn't do it until we felt a conscious change like dizziness but more like 4 to 8 good deep full and fast breaths before holding, enough to notice, but not so much that it presented the dangers I'm now reading about.
That is still considered hyperventilation as a freediver, even though you might not feel any symptoms. The suggestions you gave in your previous post are dangerous and should not be done. Please take a proper course to learn about free diving physiology and safety. Otherwise this sport can get dangerous very quickly.
So just curious. You do want to have the CO2 levels, so you get the trigger to breath? But to free dive don't you want to stay down longer? So is the method more about dealing with the urges? Mental ways to understand the urge to breath, but be able to block it?
There are two gases that need to be exchanged when you breathe. You need to get rid of CO2 and you need to get O2. When you hyperventilate, you purge CO2, but don't really change your O2 content.
This matters only because CO2 is what triggers your desire to breathe, but O2 is what causes you to actually pass out or not. So what happens is that you might pass out before you realize you need to come up for air.
Correct. You can deal with the urge to breathe with your brain. High co2 has additional benefits for your metabolism, you just need to deal with it.
If that sounds interesting take a free diving course its a great way to learn more about this fascinating sport.
Personal anecdote: I do freediving, so CO2 tolerance training is common, and I've done it on and off. Basically you do breath holds to train your body to get used to high leves of CO2.
I've found that brief high C02 levels are very good for activation, and to get out of a lethargic state. I don't know if a mix of cortisol and vasoconstriction and dive reflex triggered by the CO2, but I feel like it's a tool I have on my toolbox whenever I need to so something difficult or that requires a lot of will power.
It's not for everyone tho, because many people can't get past the initial urge to breathe, and would probably freak out with the first involuntary contraction.
I also tend to use my freediving experience for the opposite, when I'm highly stressed I tend to do one or two short (full exhale) breath holds to calm down. This works amazingly quickly and let's me refocus.
Note, this will probably not work for untrained individuals.
I wouldn't characterize it as a near death experience but an activation of the mammalian dive reflex. It's a pretty profound physiological set of changes that most people have never experienced, oddly.
You don't get near death experiences just by holding breath, not even close. You might eventually be able to make yourself pass out though, so never ever practice long breath hold under circumstances where a loss of consciousness would be a danger, e.g., while driving, close or in water, close to streets or high drops or stairs, etc.
Lethargic states stop you from doing what you want to do and to manage your time effectively. Allocate time being in such states for resting or sleeping hours.
I've had this described to me as basically the combination of neuro+psychological effects of hyperventilation (respiratory alkalosis) in a peaceful/positive environment (as opposed to anxiety-attack-driven or etc.), plus the meditative effects of deep breathing, plus the meditative/brain-entrainment effects of rhythmic movement of a major central/core muscle (diaphragm). Together, those often cause euphoria, altered states of consciousness, and cognitive shifts not too far off from psychedelics.
Could someone who is more familiar with it affirm, adjust, or deny that as a general (medically-grounded/secular) summary of breathwork?
I have a degree in building science, so maybe I can chime in. Note of caution: you will find yourself breathing heavily after reading this. It's normal.
We do a terrible job at ventilating our indoor spaces. As a cave-dwelling species our brains are quite comfortable with tuning out bad smells and tolerating stale air -- but the effect of it on our mode and well-being is almost immediate. You don't notice the effect, but it is there.
That's why they tell you if the airplane's cabin depressurizes, put on your own mask first. People who don't manage to that quickly enough their eyes stay open, they don't even feel anything is wrong, but they are physically unable to put on their masks until they pass out.
If not eating proper food kills you in 3 weeks, not breathing proper air kills you in 3 minutes. Yet, people spend thousands of dollars on a new diet, but have no idea what kind of stuff are going into their lungs.
The situation is not life and death. It's feeling nice versus feeling low. People end up with indoor air that is often stale and full of volatile compounds. We often make it worse by using essential oil diffusers and not using the vent hood when cooking.
When you do a breathing exercise, all of a sudden you are giving your starving brain a dose of what it could be like. When you have a walk in the nature, you do the same.
So yes, breathing exercises are great, but it's even better if we fix our indoor environments to feel great at all times.
The FAA puts on workshops around the country with a portable reduced oxygen training enclosure (PROTE). You sit in the enclosure (looks like a sealed vinyl tent), they reduce the available oxygen and simulate hypoxia. You've got a clipboard with some basic math problems, a maze to trace, etc. The trainers continually engage you for 3-4 minutes as you slowly get more hypoxic.
As a pilot, it was eye opening to see first-hand what happens to me when experiencing hypoxia. The trainers were talking to me, and I was replying, but was unable to tell them what 17 minus 4.5 was. My pulse oximeter was in the low 70s. Two sips of oxygen from a mask and I was right back to normal. I learned that my first symptom (the clue that something is really going wrong in the cockpit) is tunnel vision.
Destin from Smarter Every Day (YouTube) has a wonderful video demonstrating this effect [0]. I’d recommend watching the whole thing, but you can see how much of an effect it has starting around the 6:00 mark.
Our current understanding is that no amount of CO2 is dangerous as long as everything else is fine, but in reality CO2 acts like the canary in the coal mine. When it climbs, it shows accumulation of stuff you don't want to deal with.
Measurement of compounds is best done using a monitor like Aranet, but incidental bumps in different values don't mean much. Long trends matter. If Radon is an issue in your region, a detector for that. Mold testing kits are readily available in market indicating moisture issues and you can get lead and other hazmat testing done diy/professionally
You say, "Our current understanding is that no amount of CO2 is dangerous as long as everything else is fine," but I don't think that is correct. Like any other non-oxygen gas, carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant, and it is routinely used as such to kill rats, but it has significant toxicity even at much lower levels. NIOSH says:
> Signs of intoxication have been produced by a 30-minute exposure at 50,000 ppm [Aero 1953], and a few minutes exposure at 70,000 to 100,000 ppm produces unconsciousness [Flury and Zernik 1931]. It has been reported that submarine personnel exposed continuously at 30,000 ppm were only slightly affected, provided the oxygen content of the air was maintained at normal concentrations [Schaefer 1951]. It has been reported that 100,000 ppm is the atmospheric concentration immediately dangerous to life [AIHA 1971] and that exposure to 100,000 ppm for only a few minutes can cause loss of consciousness [Hunter 1975].
100,000 ppm is 10%, so at that point the carbon dioxide has reduced the oxygen in your air from 21% to 19%, far from asphyxiation conditions.
Even at much lower levels, carbon dioxide can produce drowsiness and mental impairment.
On the other hand, reaching 5% or 10% carbon dioxide by oxidizing carbon with oxygen from the air, for example by breathing or having a fire, will reduce the oxygen content of the air to an extent that is more dangerous than the carbon monoxide. So carbon dioxide toxicity is generally not the thing to worry about with respect to indoor air safety. But that doesn't mean it's not real.
It's good to keep in mind that in your home the CO2 usually ranges from 400ppm to say 2,000 ppm. Getting to something like 100,000 ppm is not really plausible for a typical home. I get how in a submarine the conditions are different.
The point is that in the scenarios you described CO2 increases at the cost of oxygen, which is obviously not good, and that's what GP was referring to as "everything else is fine". It would be interesting to see what happens if instead some of the nitrogen in the air is replaced by CO2. But that's obviously not what usually happens. And there are far more damaging air contents to worry about. Like mold spores.
A crucial difference to CO is that CO2 doesn't cause permanent damage as long as oxygen supply is restored in time. Compared to that, hemoglobine touched by CO becomes essentially useless for the body since CO has a similarly high binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen. Recovering from that pretty much requires replacing the affected red blood cells.
> It would be interesting to see what happens if instead some of the nitrogen in the air is replaced by [CO₂].
Well, if you think it would be interesting, click the NIOSH link I provided and read the references, because that's pretty much what they're talking about.
> A crucial difference to CO is that [CO₂] doesn't cause permanent damage as long as oxygen supply is restored in time.
This is not correct; CO₂ poisoning can cause permanent injuries, including death, even when oxygen supply is never cut off, much less when it is restored in time. The comment you are replying to explained this in some detail and provided (abbreviated) references.
> [hemoglobin] touched by CO becomes essentially useless for the body since CO has a similarly high binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen. Recovering from that pretty much requires replacing the affected red blood cells.
This contains two major errors. First, CO binds much more strongly to hemoglobin than oxygen, about 240× as strongly; if it didn't, CO levels would have to be almost as high as oxygen levels to have an effect, but in fact 0.4% CO in the atmosphere is enough to kill you in half an hour. The second error, contradicting the first, is your claim that recovering from CO poisoning requires replacing the affected red blood cells. While CO binds to hemoglobin more strongly than oxygen, it isn't that strong; the carboxyhemoglobin thus produced can in fact release its CO and become functional hemoglobin again, with a half-life of about 5 hours. If replacing the affected red blood cells were required, it would be eliminated in about 30 days rather than about 5 hours. If, on the other hand, CO had a similarly high binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen, as you said it did, then it would be eliminated in about a minute rather than 5 hours.
Aren't there several studies showing markedly worse performance at tasks at CO2 levels easily reached in a home? Or you just mean you won't die as the meaning of not dangerous?
Studies have shown correlation with CO2 levels and performance but pinpointing the effect to CO2 alone hasn't been established. In fact, CO2's presence chemically helps with the oxygenation of the blood.
CO2 is an indicator. I don't let it climb in my home, and you shouldn't either. The problem is when people fixate on the CO2 levels. For example, you paint your walls with high VOC compounds, your flooring/furniture off-gas a lot, your vacuum cleaner doesn't have the proper filtration but you don't recognize your issues because your CO2 monitor shows 700ppm. That 700ppm can be a lot worse than a 700ppm your see in a home that has all of those considered.
People seem fixated on measuring CO2 specifically and often purchase expensive sensors ($$+) or devices ($$$) to measure CO2 levels.
There are inexpensive sensors ($) that detect a variety of VOCs but cannot distinguish between them and CO2. They'll never give you exact concentrations but they are consistent, broad spectrum, and will alert you of change. IMO these are a better option.
I don't get why they're so expensive. You can buy the ndir co2 sensor on AliExpress for around $10. And yet they want $180 for that thing. And measuring humidity and barometric pressure is a component that costs $4 or $5 for you or I to buy.
They’re not using a $10 sensor. They’re being very careful which $40 sensor they use. And they’re calibrating the rest of the device to produce an accurate reading across its range.
Quality CO₂ sensors are pricey. I previously had two from AliExpress, but both were unreliable and eventually broke. I finally got an Aranet4, and it’s been flawless for over a year so far.
Both particle measures and co2 sensors are somewhat affordable especially if buying raw sensors.
The up shot of it is ventilate frequently and dry heat cooking that browns anything (think steak in pan) releases a shit ton of particle so hood and open window
>Together, those often cause euphoria, altered states of consciousness, and cognitive shifts not too far off from psychedelics.
It must vary between people, because no matter the environment if I breath too eager, whether on purpose or accidentally (like working out) it just becomes really hard to think, everything starts to tingle and all my muscles lock up. A very not-fun time. Also dangerous with weights.
The tingles and muscle cramps (tetany) are a normal byproduct (basically your neurons on your smallest muscles and under your skin get more excitable due to a molecular rube goldber machine set off by lower CO2 balance in your blood). It's uncomfortable, but unless you are suffering from epilepsy not dangerous and there's no lasting effects.
That said when facilitate breathwork sessions i trade the peaceful hippie music for edm (and it actually works better because it encourages people to stay with the rhythm and get into the same mildly trance-like state you might get into while exercising to repetitive music).
What you described is indeed true. There are breathing sessions at the Lifetime gym provide exactly the condition. People involved were amazed by the effect on their metal state.
I'm a philosopher, not a medical professional. But I can tell you that philosophy and deep breathing are inextricably linked. Breathing deeply in of itself is a philosophical exercise, one that centers and grounds oneself in the here and now of the universe that surrounds you, and the universe that lies deep within you. It's a cosmic balance between the metaphysical and the empirical. As a philosopher, one must be able to breathe deeply, so one can breathe in, hold, and spew out the deepest and most esoteric pearls of knowledge unto the masses.
i am a (former) neuroscientist and breathwork facilitator (mostly conscious connected breath) — AMA.
the effect of decreased co2 concentration on vasoconstrictions (and also alkalosis-induced tetany, ie your muscles cramping, which happens a lot during breathwork) are well known [1], but i've never seen them quantified in such a clear way. It's cool to see mainstream science give it a closer look!
This is a bit off topic, but what do you think about people doing nitrous recreationally? It's always concerned me that people are inhaling close to pure nitrous oxide and holding it in. I've always wondered if this creates damaging low-oxygen conditions without the normal reflexes kicking in, and if this can cause brain/neuronal damage.
I believe in medical settings it's delivered in a mixture with O2, but in recreational settings it's usually inhaled directly.
I see a lot more talk about the risks of vitamin B12 depletion, and not much talk about O2 deprivation, so not sure if everyone else is crazy or if it's me who is the crazy one.
I'm not one to tell people not to have fun, but i also lost a friend to respiratory failure after prolonged nitrous abuse, and had more then one start having auditory hallucinations. I think it's waning in popularity compared to 10 years ago, but maybe I'm just out of touch with what the kids get high on these days
In zero tolerance Sweden, nitrous is oddly perfectly legal. In fact, I recently got a cheerful flyer from our municipal waste disposal company announcing that empty 1L nitrous bottles can now be left with common household hazardous waste.
I was being treated with nitrous medically. I asked the anaesthesiologist about how it works recreationally and his answer was that yes, it was mostly just hypoxia.
This is easily falsified by a cursory internet search about the physiological mechanism behind nitrous oxide's effects. It is appalling that a medical professional would so confidently give you an uneducated, crackpot answer. The exact same mechanism which knocks you out gives you euphoria at lower doses.
If someone holds their breath long enough to cause hypoxia when inhaling nitrous oxide, they have other problems. You can easily hold your breath 1-2 minutes while sitting on a couch without experiencing hypoxia. If you're experiencing euphoria as strong as what nitrous oxide causes from hypoxia, you're basically about to die.
This is why you shouldn't trust experts on stuff outside their speciality, this answer is just wrong.
You don't even need to research it, the lived experience of being in a dentist office with mixed oxygen and nitrous produces the recreational effects - if it was mostly hypoxia, having oxygen mixed in would have a greatly diminished "recreational" effect.
I mean, it is true most people doing it recreationally are giving themselves mild to severe hypoxia, but that doesn't mean the effect is caused by hypoxia
You don't get half the oxygen. You get as much oxygen as you would during normal calm breathing, which is pretty shallow. Basically, you take a normal breath, which is about 50% lung volume, and then fill your lung up to max capacity with n2o.
But you know what? Pulse oximeters are pretty cheap nowadays. Try it for yourself.
As a Neuroscientist and breathwork facilitator, do you think there is any harm in intentional apnea (e.g. free diving, static holds, ect)?
At what point does cell damage (not necessarily death), kick in? As someone involved in these sports, I operate under the assumption that any damage would kick in after loss of consciousness. For example, if I hold my breath, even for 4 or 5 minutes but dont pass out, that is an indication I am still in the range of safe practice. Anecdotally, I know many people who have spent their lives doing breathholds, and they dont seem any worse for wear.
Are there any high quality studies that look at potential brain damage prior to loss of consciousness?
Does this help? I am a physicist with interest in these subjects and have always been wary of breathwork because of tetany and the following studies. What do experts closer to this field make of these?
Ref. [2] is especially concerning to me in pushing in any sort of static apnea training or breathwork: "The time to complete the interference card test was positively correlated with maximal static apnea duration (r = 0.73, p < 0.05) and the number of years of breath-hold diving training (r = 0.79, p < 0.001)."
So the tetany in breathwork is generally caused by the decreased CO2 concentration causing respiratory alkalosis (ie blood gets more alkaline and has a ph balance of > 7.5), which in turn causes the protein albumin to bind more strongly to calcium and not release it as it's supposed to, and calcium is an important regulator in voltage gated ion channels in neurons.
Long story short, your neurons get just a tad bit more excitable because calcium that usually acts like the bouncer to the hot club is busy snogging albumin. That has very little effect in places in the body, but in motor neurons that control your smallest muscles (face and hand), and in sensory neurons under your skin it does move the needle — that causes the muscles to contract and your skin to feel tingly, both exactly the same cause.
This is the reason people with epilepsy should _NOT_ do breathwork, but for otherwise healthy adults there are no negative long term effects of respiratory alkalosis — a few normal breaths to balance out your co2 and the symptoms will go away.
Could you please explain more about the Ref[2], what does it mean beyond what is in article and how serious is it?
"These findings suggest that breath-hold diving training over several years may cause mild, but persistent, short-term memory impairments"
Can you tell more about recreational nitrous oxide and when does the "damage occur"?
Is there the same thing with wim hof?
(like for example with oximeter 80 Sp02 or below?)
I got in wimhof/oxide around 80 Sp02 the interesting thing is I got this feeling with fighting to hold my breath but below 90 I kinda needed to convince myself that I should breath in both cases,
Being a non-expert I can't attempt to speculate on your questions in good faith! All I was suggesting to the parent is that perhaps these articles offer as evidence of damage being done without pushing to the point of unconsciousness? Feedback is definitely welcome by an expert.
In a medical setting, where I am more familiar with it, tetany is never good. Personally it is also wildly uncomfortable. Perhaps it's fine and somehow pushing through it is part of the "experience", but if I want an altered consciousness I'll stick to a psilocybin-based retreat every 5-10 years and my meditation practice in between :D.
Worth noting that a decrease in end-tidal CO2 pressure (i.e., decreased amount of Co2 in an exhalation) is not in itself a statement about the amount of Co2 in tissues. A rudimentary analysis might even say that lower Co2 as measured in exhalation implies that more Co2 is retained in the tissues.
Bohr effect and others corroborate the idea that Co2 is not just a "waste gas" produced by respiration but has an important biological role in its own right.
Ingestion of baking soda, which supplies Co2 to tissues, is so effective at countering the effects of lactic acid from muscle overexertion that its administration is banned in horse racing.
It stands to reason that higher Co2 can protect against lactate throughout tissues, perhaps even including the brain, especially in a condition where the brain favors fermentation over respiration (as in cancer, per Warburg effect, and depending on who you ask, in mental illness/depression)
Intense but did you get any lasting change from it? Are you still practicing? I did some breathwork and disturbed something with my natural breathing pattern. For about two weeks I had insomnias and was constantly lightheaded. Im reluctant to try again..
I used to teach various pranayama’s (yogic breathwork) and we tend to go easy, especially if you are not going to go into a 3 year seclusion as a lifetime yogi.
All practices were 3 breaths only. If you really enjoyed one or the other, you can do them a few times a day.
Because exactly as you say, you don’t want to disturb the natural pattern. If you have an unhealthy breathing pattern, the idea is that yoga, rest and relaxation will take care of the rest.
Beyond that we are not doctors, so if I noticed something peculiar with someone’s breathing, or it came up, I would direct them to a professional.
I never liked the Hof method, it works on the wrong side of the nervous system for me, as it’s too activated. I feel it’s good perhaps if you got to do something stressful and you need resilience.
Yeah the Wim Hof breathing feels more like a challenge or test that you come down from than a relaxing thing. Consistent with his "jump in ice water" thing.
I did it when I was really working on myself emotionally and it was for a limited time. It could be a bit scary because of the extreme feeling of lightheadedness. But it did cause a pseudo euphoric feeling too. Afterward I felt invigorated.
But yeah it had a layer of
unpleasantness that made me not continue long term.
Circular but without outside supervision. Not sure if I did something wrong or if I need some customized practice. I am often running out of breath/out of sync breathwise when singing, often getting lightheaded effect which I do not like at all.
I rarely practised breathwork in my life but during my final year of high school I was basically locked in my house, and got a vitamin D deficiencey (quelle surprise) so I took up doing breathing meditation in a public park, and that really worked for me in a highly stressful period of time in my life, which got me some very good results, aced my exams, got into a decent college. I don't think I have applied myself as dedicated to anything as intensely as I did. I regret not making it a daily habit in my life, unlike gymming. Although I still sort of deep exhalations in highly stressful situations but thats about it. Also if you count breathing in and out during heavy lifts, that helps a lot too in my form, especially during squats.
What kind of breathwork? Is it kind of the same as box breathing? That’s breathing in for four seconds, holding it in for four, exhaling and pausing all for four seconds.
I've experimented with holotropic breathwork, and was quite amazed at the experience. Unfortunately, as much as I've tried to re-create the experience while not lead, I find my mind just doesn't want to go beyond about 5-10 minutes of breathing, vs the 30 minutes I did in breathwork sessions.
Having said that, I think the design of this study could be much improved. It shouldn't be too difficult to create a double blind group environment using headphones (think like a silent disco) where both participants and researchers don't know who is listening to guided or not.
I'm also not sure if the biomarkers are the best. DMT can apparently be detected in saliva, and I believe the theory is that during holotropic breathwork, the pineal gland releases more DMT than normal.
" find my mind just doesn't want to go beyond about 5-10 minutes of breathing, vs the 30 minutes I did in breathwork sessions."
Same for me. I did a workshop with Wim Hof and the breathing exercises were great with really profound effects. But I couldn't make myself practicing at home with the same intensity regularly. I also developed a pretty bad cough after a few weeks. Probably from the dry air where I live.
it's an incredibly hard workout, depending on the style you're actually using a lot of muscles that you don't typically exercise, so your body wants to naturally give up after a while. it took me probably 6-8 sessions until I could reliably do one myself.
I hate getting startled, even when I realize right away that there is nothing to worry about. But the physiological effects, once set in motion, carry on. My heart seems to skip a beat and then rev up to a high rate and it's uncomfortable, taking some time to come back down to normal.
Some years ago, I discovered a technique to suppress the effect of being startled. I just breathe in sharply, using mostly my diagphragm, before my heartrate goes up and it keeps things normal as usual. I wonder if this is also using the vagus nerve to suppress being startled?
> I wonder if this is also using the vagus nerve to suppress being startled?
I don't know about vagus nerve, but I can propose a different explanation. Emotions can change the state of your body, your brain feels the state and triggers emotions. It can become a self-reinforcing loop. In particular, diaphragm contractions or tension can be such a state. For example, I have sometimes issues with getting rid of anxiety, and when it happens, it is because of my diaphragm. It becomes tensed, I feel it and so I feel anxious. To get rid of anxiety I need to a) rationalize it away and b) keep my diaphragm relaxed.
When you overload your diaphragm with some irrelevant activity you may be breaking the self-reinforcing loop. Or maybe this movements of your diaphragm trigger some other response that wins. As a wild guess, your organism expect that after a deep breath you'll hold your breath for some time, and so it limits the heart-rate to not burn oxygen too fast.
This is btw the whole idea behind Vipassana. The idea is that most of your suffering comes from your unconscious reaction to bodily sensations and you can train yourself to become more aware and equanimous.
You know, I studied psychology and I still feel sadness that undergraduate course will discuss Galen and his humors determining different types of personality (only to mock the very idea of typologies), but it keep silence about buddhism, which is still is a source of insight for "western" psychologists, because it was ahead of them by centuries or even millennia.
Modern historians like to attack Eurocentrism of the history, but why psychologists are afraid to admit that psychology was started in Asia, that western psychologists still have something to learn from buddhists.
It seems that Western psychology doesn’t look much into on how you can train your mind? Maybe because it is hard to test? In eastern psychology you have practitioners who have trained a specific technique for decades and then share their experience. It’s a completely different way of researching.
Western psychology tried that. In its special way, but still. Introspection was a big thing in XIX century. To become a subject of a psychological experiment you'd need to get a special education and training. There was that guy, Titchener that invented structuralism based on his introspective research.
It didn't work though. I can't remember why exactly it didn't work, can only guess.
In the occult community altered states of consciousness are something we regularly pursue in order to affect consciousness on an ongoing basis after a return to baseline. The sort of breathwork talked about in this article (tummo/bellows breath) are big parts of a lot of people's practices, myself included. We also do physical ordeals, flow states, and psychoactive drugs in efforts to take manual control of our perceptions of things. Personally, I meditate for about 20 minutes, then lift heavy weights or do medium-distance high intensity cardio (20-30 minutes of going as hard as I can) then smoke marijuana, then play hand drums and hyperventilate in an effort to induce a ritual mindset, then use mantras and sigils to try to create a mindset that's more conducive to my goals. I can't say empirically that it works, of course, but anecdotally before I started doing this I was a 30 year old obese, hopeless college drop-out pillhead living in my childhood bedroom and now I'm a 40 year old married homeowner full stack engineer with 10 years off pills who can benchpress his dad and I've learned to play the banjo and the drums in the mean time. All of those good things I've listed came to me through tons of mundane effort, smart decisions and good luck but also at least correlated with me using the ritual structure I outlined above to choose them as goals to focus on and rewrite myself into the kind of person who picks goals, focuses on them and completes them.
> "Our findings identify physiological boundary conditions for ASCs to arise in a non-pharmacological context, shedding light on the functional mechanisms of breathwork as well as its potential as a psychotherapeutic tool."
Such a great topic for study; these findings are unsurprising to me, but I'm delighted to see them published by Nature.com
This reminds me of James Nestor book on breathing, I should give it another go. While the evidence in the article are not that clear, the book really helped with my sleep and if anything I believe controlled breathing plays a huge role in health.
From my personal experience, nothing scientific or proven here.
I sit in a small office since last few years. A year or so ago I started to get less mentally active, as in things were going on in automatic mode.
And I did not feel good in general, a friend who practices Yoga advised me to do breathing exercises.
15-30 mins of deep breaths in open space in early morning, after shower, before breakfast. Followed by 3-5 min of rapid breathing. And finishing with taking as much air as I can and holding it for 30 sec to a min and repeating it for 2-3 times.
I do feel active after that, I wonder if it's related to these studies.
I encourage you and everyone else interested to attend a Holotropic Breathwork session to truly grasp the profound impact your breath can have on your mind. This is nothing like your regular five-minute yoga breathing exercise, boxed breathing, or even the Wim Hof breathing. It's a completely different level. These sessions typically last 3 to 5 hours and take place in a safe, supportive setting with a dedicated sitter and experienced facilitators.
For several years in a row, I was living every day suffering from severe sleep deprivation. I was not merely homeless, but living on the streets, and I became really intent on walking around all night, rather than trespass or sit down for a rest, in someplace where I didn't belong. Or I would sit in the IHOP, and drink 2 pots of coffee and stare, zombie-like, until the Sun rose. So I lost a lot of sleep and I dozed whenever possible, and not in a bed, but often seated at a table, with my arms folded, and my face buried in those folded arms, while others made chit-chat and the music played around me.
Well, I'd get into an enclosed space with lots of people, and I'd begin to pass out. It happened a lot in church. We'd be singing and standing and sitting and kneeling, and I'd be just ready to conk out and go to sleep. And I would do crazy things like, lunging for the thermostat because it felt so warm and close in there. I thought everyone was feeling the same stale, stuffy air as I was. I don't know. It would also happen in the coffeehouses, but sleep was guaranteed to overcome me during liturgies.
But I came to believe that it was a CO2 buildup sort of situation. With a lot of human bodies in a closed space, and we were all vocalizing for an hour or so, and it was winter so perhaps the heat was on, or the air conditioning was turned off. And so CO2 buildups were the most likely thing.
Once I was housed, and able to catch up on sleep, it doesn't happen anymore. I did complain to my doctor and I asked him if I may have COPD. He insisted that I breathed better than he did. He brought in two young Medical Assistant ladies to do this breathing exercise so that he could prove there's nothing wrong with me. Of course we didn't get to that point of discussing sleep deprivation, because you can't medicate that. Well, a psychiatrist could try, with extra-drowsy meds. And they did try. I resented that.
Surveying people is pretty important in a study like this, and valid science.
Regardless, if you read the paper, you'd learn that they did do objective measurements, namely etCO2 levels and bio-markers from saliva.
Of note: "when etCO2 fell below approx. 20 mmHg, it was virtually guaranteed to trigger at least some (and often a strong) departure from ordinary waking consciousness. This effect is particularly intriguing because in non-breathwork-related circumstances, an etCO2 of 20 mmHg or less would be considered a sign of severe physiological malfunctions, e.g. of the heart or lungs"
But anyone who tried breathwork, especially in group settings with accompanying music, knows such practices can lead to intense trance-like states.
In yoga breath work which happens there is directly tied into the rest of the practice. it isn’t taught enough in America, but if you find an actual good teacher, of which there do not seem to be many, the benefits are wonderful.
Anecdotally and from personal experience, they say that when beginning a consistent practice you will often feel a great euphoria after practicing for 60 or 90 minutes. Can confirm; and it lasts for a couple hours also.
At what level do you experience euphoria? Say on a scale of a low dose of codeine to a standard dose of heroin? Or is it more like the euphoria you get from running? Or the euphoria you get from tripping? Or the euphoria associated with some strains of cannabis? Or the euphoria associated with amphetamines? Or the euphoria associated with ethanol consumption?
I don't understand: shouldn't hypocapnia or respiratory alkalosis in all forms lead to reports of altered states of consciousness if decreased CO2 saturation is believed to be the cause of this breathwork's effect?
I'm not sure about other forms of respiratory alkalosis, but I do know that it's quite common for people to claim that breath work leads to altered states of consciousness.
I would argue that at least a shitload of people don't get enough air via breathing and that's why they are in whatever state of consciousness they are in.
Shitty posture, 'toxic' (compared to, again, default) air, water, soil, food and constantly being pounded by annoying stuff on the peripheral of perception disrupts our CNS.
I believe we skipped a few important beats in our cognitive evolution because of that and a lot of people would be a lot smoother ... at least less pretentiously pre-modern-evolution "animalistic", or less obedient to and uncritical about liquidity-and-status-based hierarchies, and other stuff that obviously has a net-negative impact on pretty much everything ... ( lots of which has already been quantified ... multiple times over multiple decades )
.. but peeps just laugh and call this world a gangsters paradise or something ...
At some point the reductive paradigm fails: you cannot reduce conscious experience to reproducible isolatable variables. A more wholistic approach is required and I believe Western science can eventually accommodate that.
Advances in AI and big data may help that: a collection of seemingly disparate variables may define a space that correlates with qualia.
Very unlikely. Here's a back of the envelope calculation: The human energy requirement per day is about 9MJ. This corresponds to about 500g sugar (or starch), which releases around 750g CO2. Metabolic activity is reduced at night, so 250g CO2 is the upper limit for a full night's sleep. At typical temperature and pressure, this is < 0.14 m^2 of CO2. Assuming a very small (20 m^3) and hermetically sealed bedroom, you'll end up with a concentration of 0.7%, or less. Serious physiological studies (with divers and submariners) show that CO2 has a measurable effect starting at about 1% concentration and only becomes pronounced at 3% or so. This is consistent with the fact that exhaled air contains about 4% CO2 during normal breathing and can go much higher (>10%) during breath holds. In summary, sleeping in a stuffy room might give you respiratory problems, but no improved CO2 tolerance.
Those astronauts maintain normal CO2 levels, and divers can experience increased CO2 buildup if they don't exhale properly, which is the opposite.
It's not made up. Plenty of people here who tried breathwork can attest to its power to bring you in strong trance-like states.
Try it yourself. Ideally in group setting, because doing this on your own (with a YouTube video or whatever) won't give you the same experience at all, and could be dangerous if you take it too far.
Good observation! Lower co2 concentration isn't caused by simply inhaling more oxygen, but rather by blowing off too much co2.
Co2 is produced by the body, and the rate at which it is produced doesn't change much if you breathe pure oxygen. it's how we get rid of the co2 is what is being modulated during breathwork.
I don't mean to be too critical, but why is breathwork/meditation so popular in Atheist circles? When I would presume rationality is the goal, and this seems like it would alter it in a negative way. (depriving your brain of oxygen, presumably decreases its ability to think rationally, or at least run at full capacity)
I get that someone like Sam Harris, makes bank promoting his meditation app. But his atheist audience is very receptive.
If you presume rationality is the goal, then the rational mind should point to decades of research and anecdotal evidence that shows the positive effeccts of meditation and breathwork on mental well-being. Why are you assuming depriving your brain of oxygen for a short period of time is decreases the ability to think rationally? That could be a short term effect, but a long term adaptive effect could be the brain thinks more clearly. Same with fasting from food, etc.
Well, if one's thoughts can be altered depending on the amount of oxygen the brain receives. How can you possibly be sure about your own rationality. Couldn't you rationally start to question anything you've come to a conclusion about before, as just a byproduct of your brain's oxygen levels at that time.
The best part about true things is they are still true whether you believe and understand them or not. Seeking truth isn't limited by your ability to understand everything.
I believe by "true things" what is meant is "as good as a real world experience as one can get", rather than "logically sound".
It is certainly reasonable to argue about whether logic stands on its own without an observer, but not to doubt that there is a true world out there to be experienced.
Oddly enough becoming a serious athlete, changing my diet and training as my job, completely changed who I am and remembering my thought processes and overall mental state of the previous lifestyle is bizarre as though that person is truly alien to my current self.
So increasing your VO2 max, has improved how your brain functions. A few years ago, I read an article where they improved kids Math scores by having them exercise on a treadmill before class.
I used Harris's app, and was a bit surprised to hear him use language that he'd savage anyone else for.
I get the problem there; you're trying to teach what something feels like, and there just aren't words.
It's not surprising that you can alter the brain by various exercises, or that those exercises are counterintuitive. The brain is complicated and our tools for manipulating it are baroque. Still, it was a little weird to hear Harris give in without apparently reconsidering other forms of mental exercise from that standpoint.
Think of meditation more as a physical exercise for the brain, like yoga. Is yoga a religion, even if it strengthens your core? Many people do it without any religious ideas.
Same with breathing, 'low CO2' sounds bad, but we do have the next breath, the goals isn't continued low CO2, it can lead to increased oxygen later.
As to rationality. Meditation helps declutter thoughts, so that helps with rationality doesn't it? Why would being strung out and stressed be more rational?
Atheism isn't specifically "a goal of rationality" it's just not believing in a deity (usually because of a rejection of "trust me bro, now pay your tithing" style pitches). I expect for most people the choice to believe or not believe stories with no evidence is orthogonal to the choice of an altered mind.
It looks like you put atheism and agnosticism in the same boat. There’s a certain belief, trust and conviction to lack of a deity in atheism. Not in agnosticism. That state of mind is orthogonal to belief is mostly true. On the other hand , there is also a motivation to explain away religious experience as physiological process, which explains the overlap in group membership.
> There’s a certain belief, trust and conviction to lack of a deity in atheism
Atheism means a lack of belief in a god. Just because many atheists go a step further or the word agnostic exists, that doesn't change the meaning.
I have yet to see an "official" source that says it's definitely belief of absence and not absence of belief. Agnosticism works just as well if you view it as subcategory of atheism.
My understanding is atheism is not believing in a deity (a - without, theism - belief in deity) and agnosticism is about not knowing (sometimes not knowing if it's possible to know). It gets messy because plenty of folks play games with the words like "clearly I don't believe the major, self-contradicting religions but maybe there is some deity out there somehow that had an influence beyond 'natural processes'" or that Einstein quote about calling the beauty of physics and the universe "god".
Similar to what you said about me, I think you're perhaps putting faith/religious dogma and spirituality/holding things sacred in the same boat. I think having awe or wonder or a feeling of being part of something bigger is again orthogonal to belief in a particular god. I don't even think religion is the dividing line here - religion and ritual exists all over without an overarching deity.
I liked the underlying idea to what you said about motivation to explain away religious experience as physiological process; I think there is something interesting there. I expect this is a result of what people already believe, not a cause, but I like the concept of how people take in new information and default to directing it to "knowable, let's figure it out" or some version of "unknowable".
tl;dr - not believing in a god seems separate from spirituality and religious experience. Theist and atheist are extremely high level (and one dimensional) labels and there is a LOT of diverse (and overlapping) belief and experience under each.
I study cognitive neuroscience. Meditation is extremely evidence-based. It is literally one of the most evidence-based things there is in terms of actions you can take to improve mood, executive function, focus, general cognition, etc., it's almost as backed as physical exercise. Of course, there is also a lot of woo-woo spiritual stuff around it, but you can just ignore that side and use it effectively. Not sure about breathwork, I'm moderately skeptical of many the claims made about it, but I haven't looked super far into it comparatively.
As a surfer, I've done a few breathwork classes even though I've never been close to being in conditions that really needed it. There is a tremendous amount of training that you can do to basically change your conscious thoughts in an instant. Going from 180bpm heart rate and anxious panic to a static breath hold for up to a minute while being ragdolled and disoriented, is basically ego death. If you watch some gnarly big wave surfers talk about breathwork, they talk about rapidly flushing out your air in 3-4 big breaths, calming your heart rate, and even laughing, all right before or in anticipation of a pounding. Plus the whole Gerry Lopez yoga and meditation era of the 70s made it clear how important breathing and mental state were.
In any case, this is something every single surfer beyond a certain level is required to master, so I'd love to see data from that kind of cohort. The old lady freedivers of Jeju Island would be cool too.
For someone with no connection to surfing at all, could you elaborate? Why is surfing special, or different from other sports, in needing to control your breathing?
Because panicking when you're being rag-dolled by even smallish waves can kill you, let alone waves of consequence. I don't have the words to describe what it feels like to be pushed to the bottom of the ocean by a wave, then just as you feel like you're running out of air be pushed back down by the next wave, and the next wave. You have no idea which direction is up and which is down, or how long it's been since you stopped breathing. 30 seconds will feel like death if you're not properly trained. Your very large very stiff board will be tumbling with you and could knock you unconscious or split your head open at any time.
My girlfriend got to be a decent surfer (~5 years practice and a former competitive swimmer) but never invested in learning the ocean. In 2018 she went out in a break she didn't know, in conditions above her league. Nothing too big (maybe 5 feet) but strong and relentless. Conclusion: She got sucked into the washing machine during a set and nearly drowned. Had to have the water beaten out of her lungs to restart breathing. Now she has panic attacks just getting into a flat ocean for a swim.
The sea is no joke. I encourage everyone to try surfing, it's a great hobby. But less than 10% of it is riding waves.
"the sea is no joke" trvth I was blessed with "over" sized lungs, and like swimming underwater, and hiking in mountains, so have enjoyed bieng able to do those things with minimal effort. When living in a city, I swam in an olympic size pool, and can go two lengths? (back and forth once+) undewater , but have no idea of how this actualy compares to an average. Got into doing the ?wim hoffman? breathing and like that, but have never noticed any altered conciousness, but that might be because my lungs are so large that I will need to realy realy push it? dont know, but after a car accident I was xrayed, and they were very surprised that the xrays, had to be redone, in two parts, as my lungs dont fit on a standard xray. I sing, and can hold a low note for a long time, and am kind of loud and boomy, unless I am carefull, which is a down side, as it is alarming for people in enclosed spaces. So breath work from the perspective of fine controll and exploring actual true limits, is something that is suddenly, looking like a good idea, for me. consiousness and all that
You should try freediving. 2 length in a 50m pool without weights and fins is way above average. But please take a course first, free diving can be very safe but only if done with a properly trained buddy.
Or just join the foiling community and go 40% wave riding. 80+% if pure down winding. Entree is a little more expensive but you save on not having to travel exotic locations (or not at all).
The one time I see surfing mentioned on HN and of course HN squeezes out the most nerdy take on surfing possible
Literally why I'm here
Everyone else in the water will hate you though. Everyone. Even the sea janitors are above you in social standing.
I think you have got your emotions mixed up, what you mean is called being jealous :)
No, obviously, I understand the hate towards those foiling in a crowed point breaks. But, at least in my circle, most of it happens in places where nobody's surfing anyways. Downwinding is pretty much invisible. Surfing has fallen victim of its own success with overcrowded spots (people intentionally breaking each others surfboards, come on) and the necessary travelling isn't great for the planet either (nor is a carbon foil, obviously)
Not op, just an observation, when you are underwater e.g. diving these things are really loud. Of course jet skis etc are even worse but the latter is not permitted were I go diving. Maybe that's part of the resentment.
Interesting but makes sense, TIL
Why?
Nothin personnel
Not the most convincing advertisement
Surfers try to scare away would-be-surfers. Less waves for thee, more waves for me. I don't even have a girlfriend.
THAT’s where I knew to not believe you!
He's using an anecdote. So, yeah, not a study.
The only point being made is panicked breathing before disaster, versus a little training and a few controlled breaths before disaster. And that he also experienced maybe some of the same mind altering effects of breathing.
Since we all breath, I think in this type of thread we'll find lots of anecdotes around this subject.
Just a different type of fun. I find avalanche training to have a similar effect for backcountry.
For some it's sobering, for others it's terrifying.
Yes my wife and I were watching a group of hikers one time and we both looked at each other and talked about how none of them had even seen a demo on using an ice axe. It felt like walking into a kitchen and seeing the chefs juggling knives
Yep, and sadly it's a typical story in the backcountry, sometimes ending tragically.
At the end of my three full day avalanche training the instructor said “now remember, you are now the least qualified people to go into the backcountry.
That stuck with me.
I find it highly motivating
You can somewhat simulate it yourself.
Lie down, do a push up, then jump up to your feet, upright, arms raised (Burpee). Repeat in rapid succession twelve times, then immediately shut your mouth and close your nose with your hand. Hold it. Close your eyes and imagine you are under water and don‘t know how long it will take till you can resurface.
You will feel an immediate urge to breath, a very unpleasant feeling in your throat, nose, ears, etc, and an immediate feeling of panic. That feeling is AFAIK caused by heightened CO2 levels [1].
Imagine trying to fight your way to the surface, in a panic, but the turbulence of the wave is too strong and keeps you down. Instead you have to accept the feeling of panic without acting on it, converse your energy while being rag dolled and pounded, trying not to dislocate your joints, keep or regain your sense of orientation, and wait for the moment that the turbulence subsides to the point it is possible to surface again.
You have little control over when that moment finally comes. And while seconds start to feel like eternities you might start telling yourself to never go surfing again. As time drags on, your resolve increases, to the point you might act on it once, and if, you finally resurface.
[1] I have no expertise but this is what I was told and this source seems to somewhat confirm https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3138667/#:~:text=In...
> Lie down, do a push up, then jump up to your feet, upright, arms raised (Burpee). Repeat in rapid succession twelve times, then immediately shut your mouth and close your nose with your hand. Hold it. Close your eyes and imagine you are under water and don‘t know how long it will take till you can resurface.
you forget, ‘put a blindfold on and tie your leg to a doberman’s leash then fall down 3-6 flights of stairs’
pretty similar forces and sensory at play, or at least a similar thrashing to big Teahupo’o over a sharp reef.
A safe way to get a similar disorienting experience is hold your breath under water while in a tight ball and have someone spin you on every direction and reverse it until you can't stand it and then wait another ten seconds.
I recall being swallowed by a wave and while under for only a short period i thought it was annoying not knowing when I'd return to the surface.
You can get hit by multiple waves in succession while surfing, preventing you from breathing for up to a minute. If you're at 180bpm and not breathing for a minute, you won't be coming back up
If I need to hold my breath underwater for a longer period of time I'll hyperventilate on the surface just a little before diving. In my experience your lungs don't "burn" as quickly and so you can dive a little longer.
It’s dangerous, since hyperventilating removes co2 from your blood, and raised co2 level is primary trigger for the urge to breathe reflex. It may feel better to hyperventilate and dive longer but you’re risking suddenly blacking out. I’m a free diver and this is one of the first things you are trained not to do, as well as never to dive alone, for safety reasons.
Ah the wisdom has changed. This was more often taught when I was younger, which yes, was quite a while ago. The warnings given then were don't go for depth with this method, exhale occasionally while underwater, and manage your breath again immediately on the surface.
Freedivers are also taught not to exhale underwater, because it wastes oxygen and lowers your CO2 level, making it harder to know when you actually have to come back up. Your body can't sense the level of oxygen it has, so freedivers rely on CO2 levels as a proxy, so messing with it is dangerous.
And you also becoming much less buoyant and will not surface without actively swimming or pulling the line.
Interesting. Got a good source? I should definitely look into this again.
https://www.divessi.com/en/get-certified/freediving https://www.padi.com/education/freediving https://www.freedivinginstructors.com/ https://www.aidainternational.org/Education/AIDAFreedivingCo...
I've only taken the SSI training but I guarantee none of the different freediving organizations will recommend the type of breathing you are discussing, and in fact a large part of the intro course hammers home that you don't breathe that way.
Any freediving course. You have to breathe normally for an extended time, then dive, then take an extended break, hyperventilation just makes it easier for you to get yourself killed.
The people around the pool and lake where I grew up? From what I'm reading while searching it seems that "hyperventilate" is probably a bad term for the type of breathing I was shown. We wouldn't do it until we felt a conscious change like dizziness but more like 4 to 8 good deep full and fast breaths before holding, enough to notice, but not so much that it presented the dangers I'm now reading about.
That is still considered hyperventilation as a freediver, even though you might not feel any symptoms. The suggestions you gave in your previous post are dangerous and should not be done. Please take a proper course to learn about free diving physiology and safety. Otherwise this sport can get dangerous very quickly.
So just curious. You do want to have the CO2 levels, so you get the trigger to breath? But to free dive don't you want to stay down longer? So is the method more about dealing with the urges? Mental ways to understand the urge to breath, but be able to block it?
There are two gases that need to be exchanged when you breathe. You need to get rid of CO2 and you need to get O2. When you hyperventilate, you purge CO2, but don't really change your O2 content.
This matters only because CO2 is what triggers your desire to breathe, but O2 is what causes you to actually pass out or not. So what happens is that you might pass out before you realize you need to come up for air.
Correct. You can deal with the urge to breathe with your brain. High co2 has additional benefits for your metabolism, you just need to deal with it. If that sounds interesting take a free diving course its a great way to learn more about this fascinating sport.
Personal anecdote: I do freediving, so CO2 tolerance training is common, and I've done it on and off. Basically you do breath holds to train your body to get used to high leves of CO2.
I've found that brief high C02 levels are very good for activation, and to get out of a lethargic state. I don't know if a mix of cortisol and vasoconstriction and dive reflex triggered by the CO2, but I feel like it's a tool I have on my toolbox whenever I need to so something difficult or that requires a lot of will power.
It's not for everyone tho, because many people can't get past the initial urge to breathe, and would probably freak out with the first involuntary contraction.
I also tend to use my freediving experience for the opposite, when I'm highly stressed I tend to do one or two short (full exhale) breath holds to calm down. This works amazingly quickly and let's me refocus. Note, this will probably not work for untrained individuals.
I'm in a bad spot because I love swimming but I can barely hold my breath for 20s.
Is it healthy to get into a near death experience just to get something done?
Why is it "bad" to be in a lethargic state?
Have you ever asked yourself these questions?
I wouldn't characterize it as a near death experience but an activation of the mammalian dive reflex. It's a pretty profound physiological set of changes that most people have never experienced, oddly.
You don't get near death experiences just by holding breath, not even close. You might eventually be able to make yourself pass out though, so never ever practice long breath hold under circumstances where a loss of consciousness would be a danger, e.g., while driving, close or in water, close to streets or high drops or stairs, etc.
Lethargic states stop you from doing what you want to do and to manage your time effectively. Allocate time being in such states for resting or sleeping hours.
What makes you say that breath holding for diving is a "near death experience"? It's pretty safe from what I can see?
I've had this described to me as basically the combination of neuro+psychological effects of hyperventilation (respiratory alkalosis) in a peaceful/positive environment (as opposed to anxiety-attack-driven or etc.), plus the meditative effects of deep breathing, plus the meditative/brain-entrainment effects of rhythmic movement of a major central/core muscle (diaphragm). Together, those often cause euphoria, altered states of consciousness, and cognitive shifts not too far off from psychedelics.
Could someone who is more familiar with it affirm, adjust, or deny that as a general (medically-grounded/secular) summary of breathwork?
I have a degree in building science, so maybe I can chime in. Note of caution: you will find yourself breathing heavily after reading this. It's normal.
We do a terrible job at ventilating our indoor spaces. As a cave-dwelling species our brains are quite comfortable with tuning out bad smells and tolerating stale air -- but the effect of it on our mode and well-being is almost immediate. You don't notice the effect, but it is there.
That's why they tell you if the airplane's cabin depressurizes, put on your own mask first. People who don't manage to that quickly enough their eyes stay open, they don't even feel anything is wrong, but they are physically unable to put on their masks until they pass out.
If not eating proper food kills you in 3 weeks, not breathing proper air kills you in 3 minutes. Yet, people spend thousands of dollars on a new diet, but have no idea what kind of stuff are going into their lungs.
The situation is not life and death. It's feeling nice versus feeling low. People end up with indoor air that is often stale and full of volatile compounds. We often make it worse by using essential oil diffusers and not using the vent hood when cooking.
When you do a breathing exercise, all of a sudden you are giving your starving brain a dose of what it could be like. When you have a walk in the nature, you do the same.
So yes, breathing exercises are great, but it's even better if we fix our indoor environments to feel great at all times.
The FAA puts on workshops around the country with a portable reduced oxygen training enclosure (PROTE). You sit in the enclosure (looks like a sealed vinyl tent), they reduce the available oxygen and simulate hypoxia. You've got a clipboard with some basic math problems, a maze to trace, etc. The trainers continually engage you for 3-4 minutes as you slowly get more hypoxic.
As a pilot, it was eye opening to see first-hand what happens to me when experiencing hypoxia. The trainers were talking to me, and I was replying, but was unable to tell them what 17 minus 4.5 was. My pulse oximeter was in the low 70s. Two sips of oxygen from a mask and I was right back to normal. I learned that my first symptom (the clue that something is really going wrong in the cockpit) is tunnel vision.
Destin from Smarter Every Day (YouTube) has a wonderful video demonstrating this effect [0]. I’d recommend watching the whole thing, but you can see how much of an effect it has starting around the 6:00 mark.
[0] https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?si=LRDtSJSy7jiTIpzy
How do you measure indoor air quality? CO2 levels?
Our current understanding is that no amount of CO2 is dangerous as long as everything else is fine, but in reality CO2 acts like the canary in the coal mine. When it climbs, it shows accumulation of stuff you don't want to deal with.
Measurement of compounds is best done using a monitor like Aranet, but incidental bumps in different values don't mean much. Long trends matter. If Radon is an issue in your region, a detector for that. Mold testing kits are readily available in market indicating moisture issues and you can get lead and other hazmat testing done diy/professionally
You say, "Our current understanding is that no amount of CO2 is dangerous as long as everything else is fine," but I don't think that is correct. Like any other non-oxygen gas, carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant, and it is routinely used as such to kill rats, but it has significant toxicity even at much lower levels. NIOSH says:
> Signs of intoxication have been produced by a 30-minute exposure at 50,000 ppm [Aero 1953], and a few minutes exposure at 70,000 to 100,000 ppm produces unconsciousness [Flury and Zernik 1931]. It has been reported that submarine personnel exposed continuously at 30,000 ppm were only slightly affected, provided the oxygen content of the air was maintained at normal concentrations [Schaefer 1951]. It has been reported that 100,000 ppm is the atmospheric concentration immediately dangerous to life [AIHA 1971] and that exposure to 100,000 ppm for only a few minutes can cause loss of consciousness [Hunter 1975].
(https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/124389.html)
100,000 ppm is 10%, so at that point the carbon dioxide has reduced the oxygen in your air from 21% to 19%, far from asphyxiation conditions.
Even at much lower levels, carbon dioxide can produce drowsiness and mental impairment.
On the other hand, reaching 5% or 10% carbon dioxide by oxidizing carbon with oxygen from the air, for example by breathing or having a fire, will reduce the oxygen content of the air to an extent that is more dangerous than the carbon monoxide. So carbon dioxide toxicity is generally not the thing to worry about with respect to indoor air safety. But that doesn't mean it's not real.
It's good to keep in mind that in your home the CO2 usually ranges from 400ppm to say 2,000 ppm. Getting to something like 100,000 ppm is not really plausible for a typical home. I get how in a submarine the conditions are different.
From 9:50 onwards of this video explains what I meant: https://youtu.be/CkGDN85I29U?t=590
The point is that in the scenarios you described CO2 increases at the cost of oxygen, which is obviously not good, and that's what GP was referring to as "everything else is fine". It would be interesting to see what happens if instead some of the nitrogen in the air is replaced by CO2. But that's obviously not what usually happens. And there are far more damaging air contents to worry about. Like mold spores.
A crucial difference to CO is that CO2 doesn't cause permanent damage as long as oxygen supply is restored in time. Compared to that, hemoglobine touched by CO becomes essentially useless for the body since CO has a similarly high binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen. Recovering from that pretty much requires replacing the affected red blood cells.
> It would be interesting to see what happens if instead some of the nitrogen in the air is replaced by [CO₂].
Well, if you think it would be interesting, click the NIOSH link I provided and read the references, because that's pretty much what they're talking about.
> A crucial difference to CO is that [CO₂] doesn't cause permanent damage as long as oxygen supply is restored in time.
This is not correct; CO₂ poisoning can cause permanent injuries, including death, even when oxygen supply is never cut off, much less when it is restored in time. The comment you are replying to explained this in some detail and provided (abbreviated) references.
> [hemoglobin] touched by CO becomes essentially useless for the body since CO has a similarly high binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen. Recovering from that pretty much requires replacing the affected red blood cells.
This contains two major errors. First, CO binds much more strongly to hemoglobin than oxygen, about 240× as strongly; if it didn't, CO levels would have to be almost as high as oxygen levels to have an effect, but in fact 0.4% CO in the atmosphere is enough to kill you in half an hour. The second error, contradicting the first, is your claim that recovering from CO poisoning requires replacing the affected red blood cells. While CO binds to hemoglobin more strongly than oxygen, it isn't that strong; the carboxyhemoglobin thus produced can in fact release its CO and become functional hemoglobin again, with a half-life of about 5 hours. If replacing the affected red blood cells were required, it would be eliminated in about 30 days rather than about 5 hours. If, on the other hand, CO had a similarly high binding affinity to hemoglobin as oxygen, as you said it did, then it would be eliminated in about a minute rather than 5 hours.
Aren't there several studies showing markedly worse performance at tasks at CO2 levels easily reached in a home? Or you just mean you won't die as the meaning of not dangerous?
Studies have shown correlation with CO2 levels and performance but pinpointing the effect to CO2 alone hasn't been established. In fact, CO2's presence chemically helps with the oxygenation of the blood.
CO2 is an indicator. I don't let it climb in my home, and you shouldn't either. The problem is when people fixate on the CO2 levels. For example, you paint your walls with high VOC compounds, your flooring/furniture off-gas a lot, your vacuum cleaner doesn't have the proper filtration but you don't recognize your issues because your CO2 monitor shows 700ppm. That 700ppm can be a lot worse than a 700ppm your see in a home that has all of those considered.
Buy an air quality monitor. There are tons on Amazon. Here’s an example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZHJSQ7Z/
People seem fixated on measuring CO2 specifically and often purchase expensive sensors ($$+) or devices ($$$) to measure CO2 levels.
There are inexpensive sensors ($) that detect a variety of VOCs but cannot distinguish between them and CO2. They'll never give you exact concentrations but they are consistent, broad spectrum, and will alert you of change. IMO these are a better option.
I'ver heard the Aranet4 is quite good for this but haven't yet been able to justify buying one. I do try to open windows frequently, though.
I don't get why they're so expensive. You can buy the ndir co2 sensor on AliExpress for around $10. And yet they want $180 for that thing. And measuring humidity and barometric pressure is a component that costs $4 or $5 for you or I to buy.
They’re not using a $10 sensor. They’re being very careful which $40 sensor they use. And they’re calibrating the rest of the device to produce an accurate reading across its range.
Quality CO₂ sensors are pricey. I previously had two from AliExpress, but both were unreliable and eventually broke. I finally got an Aranet4, and it’s been flawless for over a year so far.
Both particle measures and co2 sensors are somewhat affordable especially if buying raw sensors.
The up shot of it is ventilate frequently and dry heat cooking that browns anything (think steak in pan) releases a shit ton of particle so hood and open window
Measure VOCs, PM2.5 particles, and CO2
Sounds like you’re just making the argument for moving to the wet tropics
>Together, those often cause euphoria, altered states of consciousness, and cognitive shifts not too far off from psychedelics.
It must vary between people, because no matter the environment if I breath too eager, whether on purpose or accidentally (like working out) it just becomes really hard to think, everything starts to tingle and all my muscles lock up. A very not-fun time. Also dangerous with weights.
The tingles and muscle cramps (tetany) are a normal byproduct (basically your neurons on your smallest muscles and under your skin get more excitable due to a molecular rube goldber machine set off by lower CO2 balance in your blood). It's uncomfortable, but unless you are suffering from epilepsy not dangerous and there's no lasting effects.
I did a longer writeup on the physiological effects here if you're interested: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuDv_E9osM1CCFWZMywMru9J...
Very much on point.
That said when facilitate breathwork sessions i trade the peaceful hippie music for edm (and it actually works better because it encourages people to stay with the rhythm and get into the same mildly trance-like state you might get into while exercising to repetitive music).
What you described is indeed true. There are breathing sessions at the Lifetime gym provide exactly the condition. People involved were amazed by the effect on their metal state.
I'm a philosopher, not a medical professional. But I can tell you that philosophy and deep breathing are inextricably linked. Breathing deeply in of itself is a philosophical exercise, one that centers and grounds oneself in the here and now of the universe that surrounds you, and the universe that lies deep within you. It's a cosmic balance between the metaphysical and the empirical. As a philosopher, one must be able to breathe deeply, so one can breathe in, hold, and spew out the deepest and most esoteric pearls of knowledge unto the masses.
Ah yes, the philosopher’s breath: inhale the cosmos, exhale epistemology. Repeat until the loop collapses or you do.
This made me laugh out loud; thank you haha
Put on a five-minute song and start hyperventilating. You can tell pretty quick.
Your summary is exact. Medical personnel here
i am a (former) neuroscientist and breathwork facilitator (mostly conscious connected breath) — AMA.
the effect of decreased co2 concentration on vasoconstrictions (and also alkalosis-induced tetany, ie your muscles cramping, which happens a lot during breathwork) are well known [1], but i've never seen them quantified in such a clear way. It's cool to see mainstream science give it a closer look!
[1] for anyone interested, I wrote an explainer here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuDv_E9osM1CCFWZMywMru9J...
This is a bit off topic, but what do you think about people doing nitrous recreationally? It's always concerned me that people are inhaling close to pure nitrous oxide and holding it in. I've always wondered if this creates damaging low-oxygen conditions without the normal reflexes kicking in, and if this can cause brain/neuronal damage.
I believe in medical settings it's delivered in a mixture with O2, but in recreational settings it's usually inhaled directly.
I see a lot more talk about the risks of vitamin B12 depletion, and not much talk about O2 deprivation, so not sure if everyone else is crazy or if it's me who is the crazy one.
I'm not one to tell people not to have fun, but i also lost a friend to respiratory failure after prolonged nitrous abuse, and had more then one start having auditory hallucinations. I think it's waning in popularity compared to 10 years ago, but maybe I'm just out of touch with what the kids get high on these days
In zero tolerance Sweden, nitrous is oddly perfectly legal. In fact, I recently got a cheerful flyer from our municipal waste disposal company announcing that empty 1L nitrous bottles can now be left with common household hazardous waste.
I was being treated with nitrous medically. I asked the anaesthesiologist about how it works recreationally and his answer was that yes, it was mostly just hypoxia.
This is easily falsified by a cursory internet search about the physiological mechanism behind nitrous oxide's effects. It is appalling that a medical professional would so confidently give you an uneducated, crackpot answer. The exact same mechanism which knocks you out gives you euphoria at lower doses.
If someone holds their breath long enough to cause hypoxia when inhaling nitrous oxide, they have other problems. You can easily hold your breath 1-2 minutes while sitting on a couch without experiencing hypoxia. If you're experiencing euphoria as strong as what nitrous oxide causes from hypoxia, you're basically about to die.
This is why you shouldn't trust experts on stuff outside their speciality, this answer is just wrong.
You don't even need to research it, the lived experience of being in a dentist office with mixed oxygen and nitrous produces the recreational effects - if it was mostly hypoxia, having oxygen mixed in would have a greatly diminished "recreational" effect.
I mean, it is true most people doing it recreationally are giving themselves mild to severe hypoxia, but that doesn't mean the effect is caused by hypoxia
Bullshit. You aren't supposed to be hypoxic when using nitrous. You take a half-breath of air, and then breathe in the n2o.
So, you get half the oxygen needed and somehow doing so doesn't cause hypoxia, which means “deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues”?
You don't get half the oxygen. You get as much oxygen as you would during normal calm breathing, which is pretty shallow. Basically, you take a normal breath, which is about 50% lung volume, and then fill your lung up to max capacity with n2o.
But you know what? Pulse oximeters are pretty cheap nowadays. Try it for yourself.
I see. So, you take a normal breath and top it up with N2O. That makes sense.
As a Neuroscientist and breathwork facilitator, do you think there is any harm in intentional apnea (e.g. free diving, static holds, ect)?
At what point does cell damage (not necessarily death), kick in? As someone involved in these sports, I operate under the assumption that any damage would kick in after loss of consciousness. For example, if I hold my breath, even for 4 or 5 minutes but dont pass out, that is an indication I am still in the range of safe practice. Anecdotally, I know many people who have spent their lives doing breathholds, and they dont seem any worse for wear.
Are there any high quality studies that look at potential brain damage prior to loss of consciousness?
Does this help? I am a physicist with interest in these subjects and have always been wary of breathwork because of tetany and the following studies. What do experts closer to this field make of these?
[1] "Brain Damage in Commercial Breath-Hold Divers" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[2] "Do elite breath-hold divers suffer from mild short-term memory impairments?" https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2017-0245
Ref. [2] is especially concerning to me in pushing in any sort of static apnea training or breathwork: "The time to complete the interference card test was positively correlated with maximal static apnea duration (r = 0.73, p < 0.05) and the number of years of breath-hold diving training (r = 0.79, p < 0.001)."
So the tetany in breathwork is generally caused by the decreased CO2 concentration causing respiratory alkalosis (ie blood gets more alkaline and has a ph balance of > 7.5), which in turn causes the protein albumin to bind more strongly to calcium and not release it as it's supposed to, and calcium is an important regulator in voltage gated ion channels in neurons.
Long story short, your neurons get just a tad bit more excitable because calcium that usually acts like the bouncer to the hot club is busy snogging albumin. That has very little effect in places in the body, but in motor neurons that control your smallest muscles (face and hand), and in sensory neurons under your skin it does move the needle — that causes the muscles to contract and your skin to feel tingly, both exactly the same cause.
This is the reason people with epilepsy should _NOT_ do breathwork, but for otherwise healthy adults there are no negative long term effects of respiratory alkalosis — a few normal breaths to balance out your co2 and the symptoms will go away.
I've done breathwork for years, and at some point the tetany simply stopped happening and hasn't returned.
Could you please explain more about the Ref[2], what does it mean beyond what is in article and how serious is it? "These findings suggest that breath-hold diving training over several years may cause mild, but persistent, short-term memory impairments"
Can you tell more about recreational nitrous oxide and when does the "damage occur"? Is there the same thing with wim hof? (like for example with oximeter 80 Sp02 or below?) I got in wimhof/oxide around 80 Sp02 the interesting thing is I got this feeling with fighting to hold my breath but below 90 I kinda needed to convince myself that I should breath in both cases,
Key difference here is that freediving is apnea-induced hypoxia, whereas breathwork is literally the opposite: hyperventilation-induced hyperoxia.
So while interesting as a study, I don't think it offers any insight into the kind of breathwork described in the nature study.
Being a non-expert I can't attempt to speculate on your questions in good faith! All I was suggesting to the parent is that perhaps these articles offer as evidence of damage being done without pushing to the point of unconsciousness? Feedback is definitely welcome by an expert.
Thank you, this is terrific! Why should tetany be worrisome?
Edited to add: the second article seems to be about decompression injuries, rather than apnea-induced brain damage?
In a medical setting, where I am more familiar with it, tetany is never good. Personally it is also wildly uncomfortable. Perhaps it's fine and somehow pushing through it is part of the "experience", but if I want an altered consciousness I'll stick to a psilocybin-based retreat every 5-10 years and my meditation practice in between :D.
yeah in a medical setting it's usually never good, but afaik it's not the tetany that doctors are worried about about but rather what's causing it.
I did a longer write-up on the physiological effects which you might find interesting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuDv_E9osM1CCFWZMywMru9J...
Is this the same thing you linked upthread? At first glance the URL looks the same.
Yes, sorry for crossposting, just seemed relevant here
No worries!
It is definitely uncomfortable and can produce at least minor injuries; I was wondering if there were other reasons to worry.
This feels like one of those cases where science is catching up with something that's been done for a long time already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranayama
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pranayama
Worth noting that a decrease in end-tidal CO2 pressure (i.e., decreased amount of Co2 in an exhalation) is not in itself a statement about the amount of Co2 in tissues. A rudimentary analysis might even say that lower Co2 as measured in exhalation implies that more Co2 is retained in the tissues.
Bohr effect and others corroborate the idea that Co2 is not just a "waste gas" produced by respiration but has an important biological role in its own right.
Ingestion of baking soda, which supplies Co2 to tissues, is so effective at countering the effects of lactic acid from muscle overexertion that its administration is banned in horse racing.
It stands to reason that higher Co2 can protect against lactate throughout tissues, perhaps even including the brain, especially in a condition where the brain favors fermentation over respiration (as in cancer, per Warburg effect, and depending on who you ask, in mental illness/depression)
I got into doing this Wim Hof breathing exercise a few years ago and it was definitely intense. Unsure if this is related but sounds similar.
https://youtu.be/0BNejY1e9ik?si=kgBBUhqMe9HWaKCG
Intense but did you get any lasting change from it? Are you still practicing? I did some breathwork and disturbed something with my natural breathing pattern. For about two weeks I had insomnias and was constantly lightheaded. Im reluctant to try again..
I used to teach various pranayama’s (yogic breathwork) and we tend to go easy, especially if you are not going to go into a 3 year seclusion as a lifetime yogi.
All practices were 3 breaths only. If you really enjoyed one or the other, you can do them a few times a day.
Because exactly as you say, you don’t want to disturb the natural pattern. If you have an unhealthy breathing pattern, the idea is that yoga, rest and relaxation will take care of the rest.
Beyond that we are not doctors, so if I noticed something peculiar with someone’s breathing, or it came up, I would direct them to a professional.
I never liked the Hof method, it works on the wrong side of the nervous system for me, as it’s too activated. I feel it’s good perhaps if you got to do something stressful and you need resilience.
Yeah the Wim Hof breathing feels more like a challenge or test that you come down from than a relaxing thing. Consistent with his "jump in ice water" thing.
I did it when I was really working on myself emotionally and it was for a limited time. It could be a bit scary because of the extreme feeling of lightheadedness. But it did cause a pseudo euphoric feeling too. Afterward I felt invigorated.
But yeah it had a layer of unpleasantness that made me not continue long term.
What kind of breathwork did you do?
Circular but without outside supervision. Not sure if I did something wrong or if I need some customized practice. I am often running out of breath/out of sync breathwise when singing, often getting lightheaded effect which I do not like at all.
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I rarely practised breathwork in my life but during my final year of high school I was basically locked in my house, and got a vitamin D deficiencey (quelle surprise) so I took up doing breathing meditation in a public park, and that really worked for me in a highly stressful period of time in my life, which got me some very good results, aced my exams, got into a decent college. I don't think I have applied myself as dedicated to anything as intensely as I did. I regret not making it a daily habit in my life, unlike gymming. Although I still sort of deep exhalations in highly stressful situations but thats about it. Also if you count breathing in and out during heavy lifts, that helps a lot too in my form, especially during squats.
What kind of breathwork? Is it kind of the same as box breathing? That’s breathing in for four seconds, holding it in for four, exhaling and pausing all for four seconds.
Box breathing, wim hof, pranayam,
Why not make it a daily habit now?
I've experimented with holotropic breathwork, and was quite amazed at the experience. Unfortunately, as much as I've tried to re-create the experience while not lead, I find my mind just doesn't want to go beyond about 5-10 minutes of breathing, vs the 30 minutes I did in breathwork sessions.
Having said that, I think the design of this study could be much improved. It shouldn't be too difficult to create a double blind group environment using headphones (think like a silent disco) where both participants and researchers don't know who is listening to guided or not.
I'm also not sure if the biomarkers are the best. DMT can apparently be detected in saliva, and I believe the theory is that during holotropic breathwork, the pineal gland releases more DMT than normal.
" find my mind just doesn't want to go beyond about 5-10 minutes of breathing, vs the 30 minutes I did in breathwork sessions."
Same for me. I did a workshop with Wim Hof and the breathing exercises were great with really profound effects. But I couldn't make myself practicing at home with the same intensity regularly. I also developed a pretty bad cough after a few weeks. Probably from the dry air where I live.
it's an incredibly hard workout, depending on the style you're actually using a lot of muscles that you don't typically exercise, so your body wants to naturally give up after a while. it took me probably 6-8 sessions until I could reliably do one myself.
I wonder if there's a vagal nerve effect from the increased chest pressure while holding your breath in.
I do the 'double sharp inhale' method for the anxiolytic effect occasionally - not really something you can do at the office however.
I hate getting startled, even when I realize right away that there is nothing to worry about. But the physiological effects, once set in motion, carry on. My heart seems to skip a beat and then rev up to a high rate and it's uncomfortable, taking some time to come back down to normal.
Some years ago, I discovered a technique to suppress the effect of being startled. I just breathe in sharply, using mostly my diagphragm, before my heartrate goes up and it keeps things normal as usual. I wonder if this is also using the vagus nerve to suppress being startled?
> I wonder if this is also using the vagus nerve to suppress being startled?
I don't know about vagus nerve, but I can propose a different explanation. Emotions can change the state of your body, your brain feels the state and triggers emotions. It can become a self-reinforcing loop. In particular, diaphragm contractions or tension can be such a state. For example, I have sometimes issues with getting rid of anxiety, and when it happens, it is because of my diaphragm. It becomes tensed, I feel it and so I feel anxious. To get rid of anxiety I need to a) rationalize it away and b) keep my diaphragm relaxed.
When you overload your diaphragm with some irrelevant activity you may be breaking the self-reinforcing loop. Or maybe this movements of your diaphragm trigger some other response that wins. As a wild guess, your organism expect that after a deep breath you'll hold your breath for some time, and so it limits the heart-rate to not burn oxygen too fast.
This is btw the whole idea behind Vipassana. The idea is that most of your suffering comes from your unconscious reaction to bodily sensations and you can train yourself to become more aware and equanimous.
You know, I studied psychology and I still feel sadness that undergraduate course will discuss Galen and his humors determining different types of personality (only to mock the very idea of typologies), but it keep silence about buddhism, which is still is a source of insight for "western" psychologists, because it was ahead of them by centuries or even millennia.
Modern historians like to attack Eurocentrism of the history, but why psychologists are afraid to admit that psychology was started in Asia, that western psychologists still have something to learn from buddhists.
It seems that Western psychology doesn’t look much into on how you can train your mind? Maybe because it is hard to test? In eastern psychology you have practitioners who have trained a specific technique for decades and then share their experience. It’s a completely different way of researching.
Western psychology tried that. In its special way, but still. Introspection was a big thing in XIX century. To become a subject of a psychological experiment you'd need to get a special education and training. There was that guy, Titchener that invented structuralism based on his introspective research.
It didn't work though. I can't remember why exactly it didn't work, can only guess.
That sounds like an excellent theory.
In the occult community altered states of consciousness are something we regularly pursue in order to affect consciousness on an ongoing basis after a return to baseline. The sort of breathwork talked about in this article (tummo/bellows breath) are big parts of a lot of people's practices, myself included. We also do physical ordeals, flow states, and psychoactive drugs in efforts to take manual control of our perceptions of things. Personally, I meditate for about 20 minutes, then lift heavy weights or do medium-distance high intensity cardio (20-30 minutes of going as hard as I can) then smoke marijuana, then play hand drums and hyperventilate in an effort to induce a ritual mindset, then use mantras and sigils to try to create a mindset that's more conducive to my goals. I can't say empirically that it works, of course, but anecdotally before I started doing this I was a 30 year old obese, hopeless college drop-out pillhead living in my childhood bedroom and now I'm a 40 year old married homeowner full stack engineer with 10 years off pills who can benchpress his dad and I've learned to play the banjo and the drums in the mean time. All of those good things I've listed came to me through tons of mundane effort, smart decisions and good luck but also at least correlated with me using the ritual structure I outlined above to choose them as goals to focus on and rewrite myself into the kind of person who picks goals, focuses on them and completes them.
> "Our findings identify physiological boundary conditions for ASCs to arise in a non-pharmacological context, shedding light on the functional mechanisms of breathwork as well as its potential as a psychotherapeutic tool."
Such a great topic for study; these findings are unsurprising to me, but I'm delighted to see them published by Nature.com
This reminds me of James Nestor book on breathing, I should give it another go. While the evidence in the article are not that clear, the book really helped with my sleep and if anything I believe controlled breathing plays a huge role in health.
From my personal experience, nothing scientific or proven here.
I sit in a small office since last few years. A year or so ago I started to get less mentally active, as in things were going on in automatic mode.
And I did not feel good in general, a friend who practices Yoga advised me to do breathing exercises.
15-30 mins of deep breaths in open space in early morning, after shower, before breakfast. Followed by 3-5 min of rapid breathing. And finishing with taking as much air as I can and holding it for 30 sec to a min and repeating it for 2-3 times.
I do feel active after that, I wonder if it's related to these studies.
I encourage you and everyone else interested to attend a Holotropic Breathwork session to truly grasp the profound impact your breath can have on your mind. This is nothing like your regular five-minute yoga breathing exercise, boxed breathing, or even the Wim Hof breathing. It's a completely different level. These sessions typically last 3 to 5 hours and take place in a safe, supportive setting with a dedicated sitter and experienced facilitators.
And please don’t try this stuff alone at home.
Did you check the co2 levels on your office? that could be one reason.
For several years in a row, I was living every day suffering from severe sleep deprivation. I was not merely homeless, but living on the streets, and I became really intent on walking around all night, rather than trespass or sit down for a rest, in someplace where I didn't belong. Or I would sit in the IHOP, and drink 2 pots of coffee and stare, zombie-like, until the Sun rose. So I lost a lot of sleep and I dozed whenever possible, and not in a bed, but often seated at a table, with my arms folded, and my face buried in those folded arms, while others made chit-chat and the music played around me.
Well, I'd get into an enclosed space with lots of people, and I'd begin to pass out. It happened a lot in church. We'd be singing and standing and sitting and kneeling, and I'd be just ready to conk out and go to sleep. And I would do crazy things like, lunging for the thermostat because it felt so warm and close in there. I thought everyone was feeling the same stale, stuffy air as I was. I don't know. It would also happen in the coffeehouses, but sleep was guaranteed to overcome me during liturgies.
But I came to believe that it was a CO2 buildup sort of situation. With a lot of human bodies in a closed space, and we were all vocalizing for an hour or so, and it was winter so perhaps the heat was on, or the air conditioning was turned off. And so CO2 buildups were the most likely thing.
Once I was housed, and able to catch up on sleep, it doesn't happen anymore. I did complain to my doctor and I asked him if I may have COPD. He insisted that I breathed better than he did. He brought in two young Medical Assistant ladies to do this breathing exercise so that he could prove there's nothing wrong with me. Of course we didn't get to that point of discussing sleep deprivation, because you can't medicate that. Well, a psychiatrist could try, with extra-drowsy meds. And they did try. I resented that.
This is really valuable information. Thank you.
Am I missing something? It looked like the findings were all done from surveying people instead of actually measuring anything objectively?
Surveying people is pretty important in a study like this, and valid science.
Regardless, if you read the paper, you'd learn that they did do objective measurements, namely etCO2 levels and bio-markers from saliva.
Of note: "when etCO2 fell below approx. 20 mmHg, it was virtually guaranteed to trigger at least some (and often a strong) departure from ordinary waking consciousness. This effect is particularly intriguing because in non-breathwork-related circumstances, an etCO2 of 20 mmHg or less would be considered a sign of severe physiological malfunctions, e.g. of the heart or lungs"
But anyone who tried breathwork, especially in group settings with accompanying music, knows such practices can lead to intense trance-like states.
In yoga breath work which happens there is directly tied into the rest of the practice. it isn’t taught enough in America, but if you find an actual good teacher, of which there do not seem to be many, the benefits are wonderful. Anecdotally and from personal experience, they say that when beginning a consistent practice you will often feel a great euphoria after practicing for 60 or 90 minutes. Can confirm; and it lasts for a couple hours also.
At what level do you experience euphoria? Say on a scale of a low dose of codeine to a standard dose of heroin? Or is it more like the euphoria you get from running? Or the euphoria you get from tripping? Or the euphoria associated with some strains of cannabis? Or the euphoria associated with amphetamines? Or the euphoria associated with ethanol consumption?
Or is it the same euphoria that you are perceiving differently
Sivananda teaches pranayama as part of their core practice. They are based globally with multiple ashrams in the US.
https://sivanandayogafarm.org/
I don't understand: shouldn't hypocapnia or respiratory alkalosis in all forms lead to reports of altered states of consciousness if decreased CO2 saturation is believed to be the cause of this breathwork's effect?
I'm not sure about other forms of respiratory alkalosis, but I do know that it's quite common for people to claim that breath work leads to altered states of consciousness.
Is default a pre-altered state of consciousness?
I would argue that at least a shitload of people don't get enough air via breathing and that's why they are in whatever state of consciousness they are in.
Shitty posture, 'toxic' (compared to, again, default) air, water, soil, food and constantly being pounded by annoying stuff on the peripheral of perception disrupts our CNS.
I believe we skipped a few important beats in our cognitive evolution because of that and a lot of people would be a lot smoother ... at least less pretentiously pre-modern-evolution "animalistic", or less obedient to and uncritical about liquidity-and-status-based hierarchies, and other stuff that obviously has a net-negative impact on pretty much everything ... ( lots of which has already been quantified ... multiple times over multiple decades )
.. but peeps just laugh and call this world a gangsters paradise or something ...
At some point the reductive paradigm fails: you cannot reduce conscious experience to reproducible isolatable variables. A more wholistic approach is required and I believe Western science can eventually accommodate that.
Advances in AI and big data may help that: a collection of seemingly disparate variables may define a space that correlates with qualia.
Question: will sleeping in a badly ventilated room help with CO2 tolerance, somehow?
Very unlikely. Here's a back of the envelope calculation: The human energy requirement per day is about 9MJ. This corresponds to about 500g sugar (or starch), which releases around 750g CO2. Metabolic activity is reduced at night, so 250g CO2 is the upper limit for a full night's sleep. At typical temperature and pressure, this is < 0.14 m^2 of CO2. Assuming a very small (20 m^3) and hermetically sealed bedroom, you'll end up with a concentration of 0.7%, or less. Serious physiological studies (with divers and submariners) show that CO2 has a measurable effect starting at about 1% concentration and only becomes pronounced at 3% or so. This is consistent with the fact that exhaled air contains about 4% CO2 during normal breathing and can go much higher (>10%) during breath holds. In summary, sleeping in a stuffy room might give you respiratory problems, but no improved CO2 tolerance.
Astronauts in the Gemini and Apollo programs breathed 100 percent oxygen at reduced pressure for up to two weeks
There are no reports of "altered states of consciousness" I know of. There would have been rigorous testing before.
Similarly divers, I've never heard of lack/decreased CO2 causing their hallucinations vs nitrogen narcosis or hydrogen narcosis.
This sounds made up, have they been getting high on their own supply?
Those astronauts maintain normal CO2 levels, and divers can experience increased CO2 buildup if they don't exhale properly, which is the opposite.
It's not made up. Plenty of people here who tried breathwork can attest to its power to bring you in strong trance-like states.
Try it yourself. Ideally in group setting, because doing this on your own (with a YouTube video or whatever) won't give you the same experience at all, and could be dangerous if you take it too far.
Good observation! Lower co2 concentration isn't caused by simply inhaling more oxygen, but rather by blowing off too much co2.
Co2 is produced by the body, and the rate at which it is produced doesn't change much if you breathe pure oxygen. it's how we get rid of the co2 is what is being modulated during breathwork.
I don't mean to be too critical, but why is breathwork/meditation so popular in Atheist circles? When I would presume rationality is the goal, and this seems like it would alter it in a negative way. (depriving your brain of oxygen, presumably decreases its ability to think rationally, or at least run at full capacity)
I get that someone like Sam Harris, makes bank promoting his meditation app. But his atheist audience is very receptive.
If you presume rationality is the goal, then the rational mind should point to decades of research and anecdotal evidence that shows the positive effeccts of meditation and breathwork on mental well-being. Why are you assuming depriving your brain of oxygen for a short period of time is decreases the ability to think rationally? That could be a short term effect, but a long term adaptive effect could be the brain thinks more clearly. Same with fasting from food, etc.
Well, if one's thoughts can be altered depending on the amount of oxygen the brain receives. How can you possibly be sure about your own rationality. Couldn't you rationally start to question anything you've come to a conclusion about before, as just a byproduct of your brain's oxygen levels at that time.
The best part about true things is they are still true whether you believe and understand them or not. Seeking truth isn't limited by your ability to understand everything.
I'm not sure about that. If there's no conscious mind to interpret something, can anything possibly be True? Or is it just information.
I believe by "true things" what is meant is "as good as a real world experience as one can get", rather than "logically sound".
It is certainly reasonable to argue about whether logic stands on its own without an observer, but not to doubt that there is a true world out there to be experienced.
Oddly enough becoming a serious athlete, changing my diet and training as my job, completely changed who I am and remembering my thought processes and overall mental state of the previous lifestyle is bizarre as though that person is truly alien to my current self.
So increasing your VO2 max, has improved how your brain functions. A few years ago, I read an article where they improved kids Math scores by having them exercise on a treadmill before class.
I used Harris's app, and was a bit surprised to hear him use language that he'd savage anyone else for.
I get the problem there; you're trying to teach what something feels like, and there just aren't words.
It's not surprising that you can alter the brain by various exercises, or that those exercises are counterintuitive. The brain is complicated and our tools for manipulating it are baroque. Still, it was a little weird to hear Harris give in without apparently reconsidering other forms of mental exercise from that standpoint.
Depriving? The goal is to oversaturate.
You are mixing up religion and meditation.
Think of meditation more as a physical exercise for the brain, like yoga. Is yoga a religion, even if it strengthens your core? Many people do it without any religious ideas.
Same with breathing, 'low CO2' sounds bad, but we do have the next breath, the goals isn't continued low CO2, it can lead to increased oxygen later.
As to rationality. Meditation helps declutter thoughts, so that helps with rationality doesn't it? Why would being strung out and stressed be more rational?
Atheism isn't specifically "a goal of rationality" it's just not believing in a deity (usually because of a rejection of "trust me bro, now pay your tithing" style pitches). I expect for most people the choice to believe or not believe stories with no evidence is orthogonal to the choice of an altered mind.
It looks like you put atheism and agnosticism in the same boat. There’s a certain belief, trust and conviction to lack of a deity in atheism. Not in agnosticism. That state of mind is orthogonal to belief is mostly true. On the other hand , there is also a motivation to explain away religious experience as physiological process, which explains the overlap in group membership.
> There’s a certain belief, trust and conviction to lack of a deity in atheism
Atheism means a lack of belief in a god. Just because many atheists go a step further or the word agnostic exists, that doesn't change the meaning.
I have yet to see an "official" source that says it's definitely belief of absence and not absence of belief. Agnosticism works just as well if you view it as subcategory of atheism.
My understanding is atheism is not believing in a deity (a - without, theism - belief in deity) and agnosticism is about not knowing (sometimes not knowing if it's possible to know). It gets messy because plenty of folks play games with the words like "clearly I don't believe the major, self-contradicting religions but maybe there is some deity out there somehow that had an influence beyond 'natural processes'" or that Einstein quote about calling the beauty of physics and the universe "god".
Similar to what you said about me, I think you're perhaps putting faith/religious dogma and spirituality/holding things sacred in the same boat. I think having awe or wonder or a feeling of being part of something bigger is again orthogonal to belief in a particular god. I don't even think religion is the dividing line here - religion and ritual exists all over without an overarching deity.
I liked the underlying idea to what you said about motivation to explain away religious experience as physiological process; I think there is something interesting there. I expect this is a result of what people already believe, not a cause, but I like the concept of how people take in new information and default to directing it to "knowable, let's figure it out" or some version of "unknowable".
tl;dr - not believing in a god seems separate from spirituality and religious experience. Theist and atheist are extremely high level (and one dimensional) labels and there is a LOT of diverse (and overlapping) belief and experience under each.
I study cognitive neuroscience. Meditation is extremely evidence-based. It is literally one of the most evidence-based things there is in terms of actions you can take to improve mood, executive function, focus, general cognition, etc., it's almost as backed as physical exercise. Of course, there is also a lot of woo-woo spiritual stuff around it, but you can just ignore that side and use it effectively. Not sure about breathwork, I'm moderately skeptical of many the claims made about it, but I haven't looked super far into it comparatively.
Just asked ChatGPT to summarise it and it gives this. Just published it to share the link, and will delete in a day or two. https://alwinaugustin.medium.com/how-circular-breathwork-boo...
I can't be bothered to read AI generated slop that long, but that typography is deranged.