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.
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.
But yeah it had a layer of unpleasantness that made me not continue long term.
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.
I do the 'double sharp inhale' method for the anxiolytic effect occasionally - not really something you can do at the office however.
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 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.
Such a great topic for study; these findings are unsurprising to me, but I'm delighted to see them published by Nature.com
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?
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.
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.
I get that someone like Sam Harris, makes bank promoting his meditation app. But his atheist audience is very receptive.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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...
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?
[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)."
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,
So while interesting as a study, I don't think it offers any insight into the kind of breathwork described in the nature study.
Edited to add: the second article seems to be about decompression injuries, rather than apnea-induced brain damage?
I did a longer write-up on the physiological effects which you might find interesting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuDv_E9osM1CCFWZMywMru9J...
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 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.
But you know what? Pulse oximeters are pretty cheap nowadays. Try it for yourself.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
For some it's sobering, for others it's terrifying.
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.
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)
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.
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.
And please don’t try this stuff alone at home.
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.
Why is it "bad" to be in a lethargic state?
Have you ever asked yourself these questions?
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.
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.
Advances in AI and big data may help that: a collection of seemingly disparate variables may define a space that correlates with qualia.
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 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 ...
jkingsman•1d ago
Could someone who is more familiar with it affirm, adjust, or deny that as a general (medically-grounded/secular) summary of breathwork?
hashmap•1d ago
a1371•1d ago
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.
pkaye•1d ago
AlchemistCamp•1d ago
accrual•1d ago
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brians•19h ago
colechristensen•1d ago
a1371•1d ago
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
kadoban•1d ago
a1371•15h ago
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.
kragen•22h ago
> 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.
a1371•15h ago
From 9:50 onwards of this video explains what I meant: https://youtu.be/CkGDN85I29U?t=590
samus•12h ago
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.
kragen•10h ago
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.
Havoc•1d ago
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
cptskippy•20h ago
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.
Affric•1d ago
vwcx•1d ago
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.
j_bum•1d ago
[0] https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?si=LRDtSJSy7jiTIpzy
quantum_state•1d ago
ValveFan6969•1d ago
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jkingsman•13h ago
crummyglow•1d ago
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.
maebert•18h ago
I did a longer writeup on the physiological effects here if you're interested: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RuDv_E9osM1CCFWZMywMru9J...
maebert•18h ago
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).
shishironline•12h ago