How Your Breath and Blood Pressure Are Closely Related

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Researchers at the University of Melbourne and Macquarie University believe essential hypertension (high blood pressure with no known cause), which is the most common form, may be prevented by implementing breathing exercises, provided you start doing it early enough. As reported by HealthCanal:

“Lead researcher Professor Andrew Allen says the research parallels what sportspeople and eastern philosophies have long understood about the link between breathing and heart rate. ‘Biathletes have to regulate their breathing to slow down their heart rate before rifle shooting, and eastern meditative practices such as yoga and pranayama have always [emphasized] the interaction between the two’…”

The researchers discovered that by interrupting the activity between two types of neurons — ones controlling breathing and others regulating blood pressure — in young mice, they were able to dramatically reduce the development of hypertension in adulthood. Unfortunately, in adults, where the synaptic interactions have become more fixed, the blood pressure reduction was only temporary. As reported in the featured article:

“Breathing and blood pressure are functionally linked through the sympathetic nervous system, which sends nerve signals to the heart and blood vessels.

The altered neural activity leads to increased fluctuations in blood pressure with every breath and are seen in both the animal model and young, healthy adults at risk of developing high blood pressure in middle age. This [emphasizes] the need to identify people at risk of developing high blood pressure early.”

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How Breathing Exercises Help Control High Blood Pressure

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One in 3 American adults has high blood pressure (hypertension). An equally large segment of the adult population has prehypertension, meaning your pressure is higher than normal but not high enough to qualify as hypertension. Nearly 1 in 4 American adults also reports feeling extremely stressed, and these two conditions — stress and hypertension — tend to go hand-in-hand. 

Unfortunately, this connection still does not receive the emphasis it deserves

Many breathing experts also agree that 9 out of 10 people breathe poorly, which negatively impacts both your stress level and your blood pressure. The good news is that correcting your breathing can help alleviate both of these conditions. 

Dr. John Kennedy, cardiologist and author of “The 15-Minute Heart Cure: The Natural Way to Release Stress and Heal Your Heart in Just Minutes a Day,” featured on “The Doctors” in 2011 (above), developed a breathing and creative visualization technique that can be done anywhere, anytime to reduce stress, lower your blood pressure and protect your heart.

Tammy, the test subject on the show, lowered her cortisol by 20 percent simply by doing this technique. Indeed, by teaching your body to slow down and relax, which essentially short-circuits your physical stress reaction, you can protect your health, and your breathing can either trigger or hinder your relaxation response.

Article Source: http://articles.mercola.com