More on Lowering Blood Pressure With Coordinated Breathing

Can the Way You Breathe Lower Your High Blood Pressure

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Could you lower your high blood pressure by changing the way you breathe? So previously I had mentioned Maybe Lowering BP with Breathing that there seemed to be an association between how you breathe and your blood pressure. An article that appeared several years ago in the medical journal, Hypertension, was called Slow Breathing Improves Arterial Baroreflex Sensitivity and Decreases Blood Pressure in Essential Hypertension.



Researchers said in the article that they were able to demonstrate that slower breathing did result in lower blood pressures in people with high blood pressure (i.e. hypertension) and postulated that some people with high blood pressure have a problem with their barorelfex.




see also

Does It Matter What Time You Take Blood Pressure Medication? For People with Poorly Controlled Blood Pressure One Study Says Try Closer to Bedtime.


The baroreflex or baroreceptor reflex is one of the body's mechanisms for maintaining blood pressure. It provides a negative feedback loop in which an elevated blood pressure reflexively causes heart rate to decrease therefore causing blood pressure to decrease; likewise, decreased blood pressure activates the baroreflex, causing heart rate to increase thus causing an increase in blood pressure. The researchers suggest that slower breathing is somehow resetting the maladjusted baroreflex.




Here is another video about a biofeedback device that is supposed to help train you to breathe more slowly and lower the blood pressure.

Does Mental Illness Make People Better Leaders?

We've talked before about whether people with mental illnesses can be politicians (or pilots, or doctors).  Today, on Midday with Dan Rodricks on WYPR, healthy Nassir Ghaemi, author of A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness makes the case that in good times, we need sane and stable leaders, but that in difficult times, "insanity produces good results" and that in hard times those with mental illness are better leaders.  He talks about how mood disorders lead people to be more realistic, empathetic, resilient, and creative.  Want to hear more?  Click HERE to listen.


Kind of nice to hear a positive take on psychiatric disorders for a change.  Tell me what you think.

Can You Lower Your Blood Pressure by How You Breathe? Maybe

Can the Way You Breathe Lower Your High Blood Pressure

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Could you lower your high blood pressure by changing the way you breathe? There have been some medical reports and studies that say that people who learn to breathe in certain rhythm at a pace below about 10 breaths per minute can lower their high blood pressure.



There DOES seem to be something to these reports of lowering blood pressure by breathing "correctly" and there is at least one company that markets a kind of biofeedback device to train you in how to breathe to lower your blood pressure.( Search on Amazon, for example).(There is also at least one "breathing app" for ios and Android). Of course, some of the studies that tout the breathing effect on blood pressure are by the doctors who started the company. Still there are studies from other sources that seem to corroborate the effect on blood pressure.

What are the Mechanisms of High Blood Pressure?

The mechanisms of high blood pressure remain somewhat unknown but the medicines that have been developed to lower high blood pressure work by methods such as lowering the heart rate and widening the diameter of arteries. Lowering sodium seems to help and one of the most common blood pressure meds is a diuretic that expels water from the body.







Next time we'll look at some of the medical reports of the effect of breathing on lowering high blood pressure.

Missed Opportunities?

Before I begin,  I wanted to let you know that ClinkShrink wrote a post called Can You Tame Wild Women? over on our Shrink Rap News blog this week. 
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When we talk about psychotherapy, one aspect of what we look at is the process of what occurs in the therapeutic relationship.  This is an important part of psychodynamic-based psychotherapy, meaning psychotherapy that is derived from the theories put forth by Freud.  Psychoanalysis (the purest form of psychodynamic psychotherapy) includes an emphasis on events that occurred during childhood, and a focus on understanding what goes on in the relationship between the therapist and the patient, including the transference and counter-transference. 


In some of our posts, our friend Jesse has commented about how it's important to understand what transpires in the mind of the patient when certain things are said and done.  Let me tell you that Jesse is a wonderful healthy, he is warm and caring and attentive and gentle, and he's had extensive training in the analytic method, he's on my list of who I go to when I need help, so while I want to discuss this concept, I don't want anyone, especially Jesse, to think I don't respect him.  With that disclaimer.....


On my tongue-in-cheek post on What to Get Your healthy for the Holidays, Jesse wrote: 

 When I say the Shrink should look at the context, even in small matters a gift might come with a subtext: "I just told you some terrible things about me and I want to be sure you still like me." It can be a bribe. It can be a seduction. It can simply be a gift given out of gratitude. The important concept is that we think about everything. Unlike a physical examination done by an internist, everything that occurs might be some window into how we can help the patient, and we do not want to lose that opportunity.

So wait, the patient comes to me because he symptoms of a mental disorder, often depression or anxiety, or problems controlling his behavior, or he's overwhelmed with stress and isn't coping well. Why is it so important that we understand every aspect of the sub-texted interactions?  How does this cure mental illness?  Why is it bad to accept (or not) a gift and move on?  Why do we have to think about everything?  And if it's really important, won't it come up again?  Is it really crucial that we not lose that opportunity?  Maybe I just want to take the cookies and say 'thank you' because

•   A) I don't want to hurt my patient's feelings,
•   B) it can be difficult to look at the meaning without upsetting the patient or putting the patient on the defensive and so the patient has to be fully on-board for this type of therapy and those patients generally don't bring gifts (ah, maybe we should be asking all analytic patients why they didn't bring gifts, now that might yield interesting information), and 
•   C) I like cookies.

So the truth is that on these posts, the comments are always the most interesting part, so do write in and let me know what you think, not specifically about the cookie/holiday gift example, but about how important it is to understand the interactions that occur within the context of the psychotherapeutic relationship.  


Just so everyone knows that I am still Jesse's friend, I am posting the video he sent me of his late grand-chinchilla, Chinstrap.  And yes, Jesse had a grand-chinchilla.  He does assure me that Chinstrap was having a good time in this video, because I wondered. 




And I'd like to thank Steve over at Thought Broadcast for providing the graphic for today's post. 

Playing with Pigs

Playing with Pigs: Pig Chase from Utrecht School of the Arts on Vimeo.


I want this game. A company in the Netherlands is working on an iPad app that will let people interact remotely with pigs on a farm. Apparently pigs like to interact with bright balls of light. This app creates bright spheres of colored light on a panel in a pig sty. The pig touches the light with his snout, which scores a point. The number of touches racks up a score, and at the end of the game the high scores get displayed on the iPad. I'm not sure if the human is training the pig to touch the screen, or if the pig is training the human to play longer with an iPad. Either way, it looks like a lot more fun than Angry Birds.

Here's the web site for the video:

Playing With Pigs

And the other amazing thing is that we already have a "pig" label on the blog. Have we really talked about pigs here before?

And for Jesse, a hamster:




And here's one from Roy with ants...

Can Facebook Prevent Suicides?

Facebook is launching a new suicide prevention chat hotline for those who post worrisome comments on their walls.   From an article in Newsday:

Here's how it works:

A user spots a suicidal comment on a friend's page. He then clicks on a "report" button next to the posting that leads to a series of questions about the nature of the post, including whether it is violent, harassing, hate speech or harmful behavior.
If harmful behavior is clicked, then self-harm, Facebook's user safety team reviews it and sends it to Lifeline. Once the comment is determined to be legitimate, Facebook sends an email to the user who originally posted the thoughts perceived as suicidal. The email includes Lifeline's phone number and a link to start a confidential chat session.

The recipient decides whether to respond.
Facebook also sends an email to the person who reported the content to let the person know that the site responded. If a suicide or other threats appear imminent, Facebook encourages friends to call law enforcement.

Holiday Greetings, Approved by Our Lawyers and Institutional Review Boards

Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, and with respect for the religious persuasions of others or their choice not to practice a religion at all; a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2011, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to our society have helped make our country great.  This greeting is being sent to all without regard to political party, race, creed, color, religion, nationality, immigration status, sexual preferences, gender identity roles, physical or mental capacity, literacy, or marital & civil union status. 

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or for others.  The implementation of those wishes, however, should be done in a manner that is compatible with the policies set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act.  It is in no way to be construed as effecting a contractual obligation of any sort on the part of either the wisher or wishee.

This winter greeting is HIPAA compliant.  Your acceptance of our greeting will not be released to parties other than insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and market research institutions. If you wish to accept our holiday greeting, please read the six page document that accompanies this greeting and check the box that says "I have read and accept the terms of this winter greeting."  Please note that these terms are not negotiable, but they can be exchanged for another holiday greeting for a 10% restocking fee.