Stress can be positive when it drives us to fulfill our obligations and tasks, but if it is prolonged over time, we suffer from it in situations that do not pose a danger, or it causes us anticipatory anxiety, it can cause health problems, such as hypertension. For this reason, techniques have been developed to help people cope with stress without the need to resort to drugs such as anxiolytics. One such technique is mindfulness or mindfulness meditation, in which the person tries to relax by focusing on the here and now, while other techniques consist of breathing exercises.
A new study carried out by researchers from Stanford University, in California, has verified that people who perform breathing exercises with cyclical sighs manage to reduce their stress levels more than those who practice mindful meditation, as described by its authors in an article they have published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.
Specifically, the researchers compared three types of mindfulness and breathing exercises to assess their effectiveness. The three types of breathing exercises they tested included cyclical sighs, in which exhalations are deeper and longer than inhalations; box breathing, in which the breath and hold are performed for the same amount of time; and cyclical hyperventilation, in which inhalations last longer than exhalations.
A breathing technique that helps control stress
The study was conducted online during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking advantage of the fact that the majority of the population was under unusually high levels of stress, and involved 114 volunteers who practiced one of the stress reducers for five minutes a day for a month at the time of your choice. Each volunteer recorded their stress symptoms in a diary to assess the effectiveness of the activities they carried out to control it.
“Controlled breathing directly influences respiratory rate, which may cause more immediate physiological and psychological calming effects by increasing vagal tone during slow expiration”
90% of the volunteers said that the exercise generated positive feelings in them, and the researchers found that the volunteers who performed breathing exercises experienced a greater reduction in stress than those who practiced mindfulness meditation, and that those who did cyclic sighs achieved the Greater stress reductions compared to the other breathing techniques.
“If you are looking to improve sleep and reduce daytime stress, recover from intense work, life, or training, then interventions that facilitate autonomous control (and you can actually control it), short (5 minute) structured breathing, are is among the most powerful tools (and at zero cost)”, he has written in his account of Twitter neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, co-author of the work.
“There are several ways in which voluntary controlled breathing exercises differ from the practice of mindfulness meditation,” the researchers wrote. “Controlled breathing directly influences respiratory rate, which may cause more immediate physiological and psychological calming effects by increasing vagal tone during slow exhalation. While mindful meditation may decrease sympathetic tone in the long term, that’s not your primary purpose nor an expected acute effect,” they conclude.
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