The author's blog post should come with a disclaimer :) .
A while ago I tried a few breathing techniques which were given in a nice book [0]. I really enjoyed the after-effects of the said techniques so I decided to mix and match some of them etc. The effects were awesome .. at first.
After a couple of weeks, I started feeling very low for no particular reason (no dietary changes or anything) and just downright weird. I eliminated one factor after another and checked if my energy levels were OK. I finally gave up the experiment on breathing techniques and restarted what was in the book. I am good, now.
So.. despite a sample size of one and a trial which wasn't random or controlled (:)) , my advice on this whole thing : Get a qualified teacher and do what is taught. YMMV otherwise.
Isn't that really sort of a turbocharged version of the hedonic treadmill? Anything that makes you feel good, if you do it enough, becomes the new level of 'normal' and you feel worse when you're not doing it. The better it makes you feel, the more intense the effect.
I have a family friend that recently had 2 strokes. The doctors are confused because he has none of the risk factors for a stroke. Really, he pretty closely follows this: (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32143344). However, he's been practicing breathing exercises for years and his resting heart rate is ridiculously low.
I don't think the above poster was claiming that breath exercises are pseudoscience, I think they were referring to the practice of claiming certain health benefits without scientific studies backing the claims. There are very real benefits that can be scientifically studied but there is also a lot of grandiose exaggeration and wishful thinking out there, as with every field of medicine throughout human history. It requires great care to sort out such things and that we learned to do so (at some level) is IMO one of the greatest triumphs of the modern scientific method.
Now, whether science has more to learn from things like pranayama is a different subject and I think there still certainly is much to learn. But that means IMO we must be very careful in what claims we make and how we back them up.
Edit: I'm not criticizing anyone or claiming anything does or doesn't work, I'm simply advocating for a scientific approach.
> I don't think the above poster was claiming that breath exercises are pseudoscience,
How do you know? Are you sure? There's a lot of that (dumb reflex skepticism). Seems that's what they're saying.
> It requires great care to sort
Care, a good teacher or information, experience, caution. All agree.
In general I think the Indians really know what they're doing in this space but in my experience a lot of Western teachings of it tries to teach it dislocated from the source of the knowledge and so it can be dangerous or not healthy like in your experience.
All in all breathing exercises are a pretty subtle practice and skill, and easy to do wrong, and surprising how powerful they can be. I think people do need to be careful when they press those buttons, because they have powerful effects and if not done right they may be doing the wrong things for that person: not a perfect analogy but to give people an idea of the respect needed analogous with taking the wrong prescription medicines.
But definitely I think people should do more because it's beneficial. But got to do it right.
> How do you know? Are you sure? There's a lot of that (dumb reflex skepticism). Seems that's what they're saying.
What? I don't know. That's why I qualified the statement with "I don't think". Perhaps I misunderstood. But I agree with the rest of everything you said.
> but in my experience a lot of Western teachings of it tries to teach it dislocated from the source of the knowledge and so it can be dangerous or not healthy like in your experience
Sorry I think there's been some confusion, I made no claims either way about anyone's teachings and have said nothing about my own experience.
No that was the second part of my comment where I'm not responding to what you're saying specifically I'm just adding on my own information. Taking the thread as an opportunity, a jumping off point to share what I think.
About 20 years ago people used to say the same thing about mindfulness and meditation. When looking for books at the library or bookstore, you were guided to the spiritual or esoteric section. It's been funny to see them slowly migrate to the medical one.
Today we're living something of a renaissance for psychedelics, with promises of therapeutic benefits for myriad of mental issues. At the time they were forbidden, someone came up with a breathing technique to induce the same therapeutic effects (see Stanislav Grof, holotropic breathwork), which is pretty much an offshoot of the same original techniques Wim Hof expands from.
I presume you are calling the area of breathing techniques to be pseudoscince. I too was skeptical but some of the Huberman's podcasts and especially the one with Dr. Jack Feldman [1], has changed my opinion about (breathing techniques) and realise some of these do have a scientific basis.
1. https://hubermanlab.com/dr-jack-feldman-breathing-for-mental...
Prof. Huberman is an excellent source of information and it's always worth listening to what he and his podcast guests have to say. But be aware that he has a bias toward action (interventions), which sometimes runs ahead of the science and isn't fully justified from an evidence-based medicine standpoint.
I agree with that.But at the same time probably that's what makes his podcast interesting to me. There are actions that are suggested which I can take to make my day/lifestyle better. As far as I recall most of the actions he suggest are (zero or low risk ones) and there is no harm in trying them. Some of the interventions he suggested (like not drinking coffee as first thing in morning, exposure to sunlight) have indeed helped me.
I think the most scientific response would be to take 10 minutes to try it. I hypothesize you will feel something different than you did in the 10 minutes prior. If you're being skeptical of a stronger claim of what these techniques can do, I (and many who have tried breathing techniques) may well agree with you, but you're going to have to be more specific.
In short, the breathing increases epinephrine (adrenaline), which causes a spike in anti-inflammatory cytokines, and decreases inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-a.
It should be added that on the web I found several reports about increased tinnitus symptoms, which usually subside after the breathing is stopped, but for some it was permanent. This is why I am not doing it regularly, as I also get some ringing, but thankfully it was not permanent.
Nevertheless, I find this very method very exciting. I am glad Radboud took a look into it. However, I would love to see clinical trials on the method at last.
> “pushing in the brain” means creating high pressure in the lungs until you feel it in your head. Do NOT push the air literaly into the airways in your head, that will cause tinnitus
The high is nice but the main thing I took away - when doing WHM some years ago - is to tolerate the CO2 buildup by relaxing and calming myself.
The breathing pattern can help induce this; for me additionally learning to breath comfortably through the nose was a big help. But to tolerate CO2 (and with it physiologically adapting to it) is mainly a mental challenge to put your mind into a place where you stay calm enough not to panic when the urge to breath is trying to overwhelm you.
It really translates well to high-intensity sport exercises where at a certain exertion I was trying to breath too hard and too early with the mouth open in an attempt to take in as much air as possible and paradoxically feeling even more suffocated.
Also great for a relaxed swimming experience.
I feel once I began to apply breathing techniques into various activities throughout the day that I now got a deeper connection/appreciation/understanding/confidence for modulating my breathing. And WHM can certainly jumpstart that experience. But I personally wouldn't recommend to just chase the next high.
It’s probably more accurate to say there’s a build back of CO2. Wim Hof uses hyperventilation to lower blood CO2 level well below normal so that when you do the breath hold, a big chunk of the time is spent just returning CO2 to that normal level.
This is in contrast with other breathing exercises to do cause an actual build up of CO2 to levels well above what feel normal. Freedivers call these CO2 tables and they’re used to build CO2 resistance and increase breath-hold times.
“When we breathe in, we take up oxygen and release carbon dioxide from our blood. Our blood is usually already fully saturated with oxygen (about 99% saturation) and breathing deeply does not raise that saturation. Breathing deeply does, however, release a lot of carbon dioxide. This, in turn, lowers the “urge to breathe”.
The brain stem, specifically the pons and medulla oblongata, is sensitive to carbon dioxide. Having too much carbon dioxide in the blood will trigger your brain stem to breathe. By removing carbon dioxide from the blood through deep breathing, this impulse to breathe from the brain stem is lowered.
In short, the lower the level of carbon dioxide, the longer you can hold your breath. The impulse is just not triggered yet.“
The explanation seems contradictitory. Initially it says "Breathing deeply does, however, release lot of CO2". Later it says "By removing CO2 from the blood through deep breathing ....".
Hyperventilation doesn't significantly increase blood oxygen saturation. A healthy person near sea level will already be close to 100% so there's no room for increase. This is normally measured using an optical sensor.
Blood O2 and CO2 percentages don't sum to 100%. O2 saturation refers to the percentage of hemoglobin molecules which have oxygen bound. Only some CO2 is transported bound to hemoglobin.
Breathing removes CO2 generally. But when you are breathing normally, i.e. letting the autonomic nervous system control the breathing rate at tidal volume (the amount of air exchanged in a normal breath), the rate of purging CO2 is equal to the rate it is produced by cellular respiration so you have a normal physiological amount of CO2 in circulation.
If you intentionally breath deeply, greater than tidal volume, it means at the same breathing rate, you are exchanging more air in total and will be purging more CO2 than you produce which will lead to hypocapnia over time.
Hypocapnia doesn't inherently need to result from deep breathing if you offset the greater-than-tidal volume with less-than-normal breath rate — if you are breathing very slow or 'skip' breathing with pauses in between, but that balance can be pretty hard to reach
Depends on the balance of deep breath and breath hold. At the end of the day if the overall air exchanged is greater than necessary to maintain balanced CO2 levels, for example if you are deep breathing and pausing in between but not long enough to offset the amount of air exchanged, you could still be driving a net decrease in CO2 levels. However if you are breath holding until the urge to breath arises, which is driven by rising CO2, then yeah you are probably offsetting the effect of the deep breathing.
Yeah, there are several threads about that in the subreddit [0]. I did get the ringing in my ears when I first started. The solutions normally given are a) You are straining yourself. "Listen to your body" when to stop holding your breath (No issues there for me) and b) Breath in through your nose, out through your mouth.
Breathing in through my nose completely removed the ringing noise for me.
I got ringing afterwards when I tried it, found the permanent tinnitus warnings and quit immediately. I wasn’t straining. I might try once more, being careful to follow your suggestion.
Yeah, I was pretty scared as well and instantly googled, saw the tinnitus warnings and became worried. Luckily, the nose breathing helped, because I quite enjoy the breathing exercises.
Yes there is some equipment to do transcutaneous pCO2 but that's mostly used in sleep studies AFAIK. Most of the time you use a blood test. I heard in some research they use IR on expired air not sure how common that is. If you find a "home made" way to get a (even just relative) pCO2 reading I would be highly interested.
The desire to breathe in a healthy individual is a really good proxy for CO2 levels based on a wonderful design with distributed sensors throughout the body.
It is not a good proxy for O2 levels in healthy individuals, but may be in people with COPD or other chronic breathing problems.
I want to offer you two responses each of which are absolutely genuine:
You must be fun at parties.
If you have never experienced your own body responding to your selective input (other than Mt. Dew) you are missing out... Ever hear of a "runner's high"? Dangerous indeed!
Why don't you try it out and see what happens, you have to breathe anyway
The article doesnt talk about these benefits, only about how the author was able to re-achieve the high they were seeking. I take it you didn't read the article.
“Bathtub breathing” is pretty amazing for producing an altered state.
Basically, position yourself so that a deep breath in lifts your chest up and a breath out lets your chest sink. You can adjust so you basically breathe along with the resonant frequency of your body rising up and down in the tub. You get into a flow that is driven by natural mechanics and it can really take the mind to different places. Combines well with cannabis.
Don't do this. The last thing you want to be in is water doing breath work. I did a week long course with Wim Hof before he got popular, they were very adamant that you never do breath work in water. This is just ignorant and dangerous advice. I've been doing breath techniques for over 5 years now and would never do them in water even though I'm well practiced.
I’m considering taking a WHM afternoon class, but have been questioning my expectations. For a noob, do you think a couple hours in a workshop would be valuable? Or am I being suckered by charletons?
My guess is you've read "What Doesn't Kill Us" and maybe Scott Carney's other book(s). I did a week long course in Poland - I can't say enough good about my experience, I'd do it again (and am planning on it).
I've not done weekend / afternoon type workshops. My guess is this is going to give you a bit more than what you've done on your own. Group breath work has a whole different flare to it (in a really good way, and I'm not an overly social person). So, it may just be an upsell into the longer courses, but I will tell you learning breath work in a group setting has an energy you don't get on your own. Plus you may pick up a few trips to help you hone in on control. Just my $0.02.
Expanding on why this is dangerous, doing these breathing exercises in water is bad because the drive to breath (excess co2 in blood) can be postponed via hyperventilating beforehand, but this means you can still pass out from a lack of oxygen in the blood. If this happens while you are in a bathtub, you will drown.
I discovered this as a kid simply trying to relax in the tub. Could sometimes leave my airways open but stop actually breathing for long periods of time. Very relaxed state. Probably the closest thing to an altered state of consciousness I’ve ever had. Haven’t done it in decades.
I moved to Seattle initially to get away from cold winters. Fast forward fifteen years and I’m gardening in light rain at 55° with no jacket on. And not just, “let me finish this and go have some soup” but going out after the rain has already started. It’s quiet and nobody bothers you, it’s not that cold as long as you don’t stop moving, and weeds are easier to pull.
My dad gets out his jacket when it’s 50° and dry, I’m still trying to decide if short sleeves were a bad idea. When I was a kid I was essentially nonfunctional if I was cold and we argued about that numerous times.
Capillary structure in the skin plays a role, but there’s a lot of mind over matter there as well. I have some strong doubts whether random people can learn to be like Wim Hof, but I don’t doubt that random people can learn to be more like Wim Hof.
Do you have a source that this kind of mild hypoxia is harmful to the brain, or is that just your conjecture? You may be right, but I’m skeptical. Starvation isn’t great for us, but there are many health benefits associated with fasting.
I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that there’s a large body of research showing many benefits to fasting. That, plus anecdotal evidence from myself and others, is all I have to go on :)
When somebody on HN says don't do something, it usually comes from a place of misinformed half baked knowledge of the subject so I say ignore these alarmists who think people are going to kill themselves by holding their breath after increasing oxygen in blood by several folds.
What this misses is that to keep the high going remove all breath holding. It just becomes continuous circular breathing — no holds, no pauses. This has been popularized by a lot of different people: Dan Brule, Leonard Orr, Binnie Dansby, Judith Kravitz. It comes under various names like: rebirthing, transformational breath and holotropic breathwork.
I’m mildly annoyed that this is called the wim hof method and not pranayama (specifically bahi kumbhaka) when he practiced yoga for years before he came up with this. The whole process is lifted — the hyperventilation followed by the holding your breath on the exhale.
I think a valsalva maneuver keeps intra-thoracic pressure high by closing up a bit lower the air pathways? At least that is how I do it, it feels like it it bottled up at about the place my larynx site.
horrible advice aside, you could benefit from becoming more mindful and self-aware. clearly this crowd could use a lot of that. empathy helps too if you were shown a lot of it growing up.
You are most welcome! I can see smoking weed has made you a wonderful, empathetic person on the internet! It's a shame your parents aren't aware of this.
Don't mess around with your breathing without guidance. It can do more harm than good.
Pranayama is an ancient Indian science passed down from saints who received these teachings as divine visions. It didn't materialize as a result of experimentation as many would assume.
Even practices like Sudarshan kriya (which makes use of breathing) were passed down to Shri Shri as a divine teaching.
So my advice is to not experiment with your breathing unless you have proper guidance and knowledge.
First of all, I agree that breathing is too critical of a system to tamper with without a backup or assistance. I do think that the human body has a degree of flexibility though (we breathe heavily after exercise, and that's fine).
> Pranayama is an ancient Indian science passed down from saints who received these teachings as divine visions
I don't meant to offend, but that doesn't sound like any kind of science to me.
I am sure it has helped a lot of people and a lot of people believe in it. But if it doesn't come from hypothesis, experimentation, and, in the case of medical treatments, clinical trials, it simply isn't science. Or "ancient science".
There's another kind of belief system which accepts axioms coming from divine visions and divine teachings, though. It rhymes with "pigeon".
> But if it doesn't come from hypothesis, experimentation, and, in the case of medical treatments, clinical trials, it simply isn't science. Or "ancient science".
Way I see it is, we humans are the most sophisticated creatures on our planet. Our birth onto earth is a natural process by all means. By natural, I mean we are a product of nature after all. We humans try to understand the nature around us including ourselves, which is what we termed as science. Our scientific thought itself is a product of nature, and they translate to our endeavors and curiosity to unravel the secrets of reality.
These visions that I spoke about are nothing but the universe speaking to these great rishis. By universe, I mean nature itself. Nature is bestowing knowledge upon its own creations to aid them in understanding itself! The same nature that has imbued life into our bodies when we are born. The same body which will eventually turn to soil after it has run its course.
Now, you might wonder, why nature is not bestowing these sort of gifts upon you? Frankly, I do not know myself. It is what it is. On the bright side, nature has bestowed the most fortunate gift of being born as a human being which almost as a law of nature makes the heights you can go to limitless. No other creature has the same benefits as human beings. We are born with both curiosity to ask questions and intelligence to analyze and infer profound meanings from their answers.
While "we", the ordinary humans live for about a 100 years before forsaking our bodies, however there are people who live for 1000s of years. It's a realm of possibility not yet uncovered by modern science.
> There's another kind of belief system which accepts axioms coming from divine visions and divine teachings, though. It rhymes with "pigeon".
That only came into picture recently during the last ~2000 years. The ancient knowledge I am referring comes from way before.
I don’t doubt you believe what you wrote is truth, but please try to imagine how they sound to someone like me, who has never heard any of this. “People live for thousands of years” is such an extraordinary statement that it simply cannot be thrown around without backing it up with equally strong evidence (at minimum, a list of names). The fact that you present that as fact without any further explanation is a worrisome sign. It’s what someone in a cult would do. Again, I mean no disrespect. Perhaps you were just writing on your mobile and not willing to spend longer time than necessary explaining your beliefs to a stranger on the internet.
But really, you might think living a 1000 years is extraordinary, however, the soul (or the life we have in each of us, including you and me) is immortal. When we die, it's simply the body that is discarded. But life itself never perishes. The soul takes multiple births in new bodies and this process of life and death goes on and on until the soul merges with the supreme conciousness. So what's the proof for all this? Well, there's nothing to prove it as false either.
Modern science disregards things that it cannot experience and "see the proof of" for itself. But that's like a person who lacks sensual perceptions saying stimuli that interacts with their senses does not exist. For example, if a blind person says light does not exist or a deaf person says sound does not exist. They might even deny its existence despite you telling them otherwise, that's because they cannot experience it for themselves. So who's to blame them?
Similarly, we are kept from higher understanding due to our inability to experience. That does not mean it does not exist. It simply means we are incapable.
There are many fantastic things in this universe that science knows it cannot understand and even more things that science does not even know exist.
Sorry but that blogpost doesn't qualify as "evidence" to me. There's no verifiable facts. All that it offers is "someone said they have seen them" and at the end it mentions "some people have seen a weird man on the Himalayas". No pictures, not even a real name.
That puts this immortal yogi on the same evidence level of as the Yeti (also believed to live somewhere in the Himalayas), the Bigfoot, or the Rip van Winkle (a guy who allegedly slept for 20 years, although his original story is definitively a made-up story).
Science keeps advancing. We used to think that the Sun went around Earth, and it was a God (Ra, Helios). Then Science came and put the Sun in its current place. We used to think that illness was produced by demons. And then we discovered the microscope, germs and vaccines.
Science keeps taking over more and more of what used to be “attributed to the gods”. Religion keeps losing ground. It’s only natural that religious people feel the need to attack (with logic platitudes- science has never claimed to be able to explain everything)
There will always be people who say that the gods talk to them. It’s a trick as old as the world. A way to gain power, notoriety, or a sense of importance.
The way I see it, when someone makes a discovery in a laboratory (a real discovery, the kind that takes years to produce) then that’s a real manifestation of the Universe understanding itself.
You are right about religion, but what I am talking about is spirituality. Here's the definition for better clarity: the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.
Modern science stays away from this space for whatever reason, but isn't this just another kind of science like the study of cosmos or microbes? It is a very important facet of life, which dwells into questions such as the meaning of life, what happens after death, when does life enter into a mother's womb, etc. All these questions are of scientific nature.
However, to address these questions we cannot simply break open or dissect things to understand how they work. Naturally, because these questions do not deal with the material world. To understand such phenomenon, one should first understand the subtlety of the soul.
The breathing techniques or pranayama that this thread was originally about deals with yoga. Pranayama is a part of yogic teachings. Yoga is a sanskrit word which means the union of mind and body. The union that the word yoga is referring to is that of uniting individual consciousness (our individual experience of reality) with Divine consciousness (the essence of truth as perceived when we quiet our five senses and reconnect with the Supreme Self within)[1].
So it's not just breathing, or stretching your muscles as it is usually portrayed as. There's a far deeper subtlety in it which is better kept undisturbed from experimentation without having knowledge of the subtler entities.
> ...when someone makes a discovery in a laboratory (a real discovery, the kind that takes years to produce) then that’s a real manifestation of the Universe understanding itself.
That's true as well, but there are yet discoveries to be made by understanding the nature of the "self". Something that involves looking within rather than outside in the material world.
I have tried Win Hof and and other yoga pranayama several items with good success at first. But every time after a few weeks I develop a serious cough coming deep from my lungs. It's probably because of the dry air in Nevada and New Mexico but I don't know how to deal with this.
Instead of yielding pure water vapor like evaporative humidifiers, ultrasonic humidifiers vaporize microscopic droplets of water, which can contain minerals and other contaminants. In areas with very hard water (Nevada, for instance) this means breathing in salts all day.
The biggest problem are bacteria in my opinion. Even if you clean it all the time (which you won't because it's pain in the ass) and you have high end one with filters and anti bacteria mechanisms - it can still be pretty bad (and becomes expensive so you can buy different type).
Its like if you were drinking that stale water thats been there mingling with all the bacteria all day.
My close friend (oterwise perfectly healthy and fit) got really nasty breathing issues along with infection and fever. He couldn't get rid of it for weeks thinking it's COVID related. Turns out it was his high end humidifier he has for plants. Once he turned it off it was gone in a day never to come back. He swapped for some evaporator one and never had single issue.
Turns out you can find many articles about this if you search for it. Some countries are even thinking about banning them.
As a big fan of WHM which dramatically affects my physiology and psychology, I want to try this as soon as possible.
Question to ugjka: How many rounds of your customized method do you recommend? I usually feel the most high after 3rd round, do you think I need the same, less, or more?
I didn't specify how many rounds precisely because you generally feel when enough is enough and you can't do this indefinitely because you get tired at some point
I use the WHM to get high on drum and bass parties. The adrenaline that you have is higher than a first timer’s bungee jump when they are on their adrenaline peak [1].
[1] on the phone right bow but it is in the PNAS article about the WHM suppressing the immune system
While practicing, right when I start to get lightheaded and my vision gets a little sparkIy, i have an uncontrollable mini panic attack until my vision returns to normal. It's anything but relaxing in my experience.
breathing is vital to life at the minute-to-minute level; breathing 'exercises' of any kind are potentially dangerous; using basic techniques to "get high" are inherently dangerous. Please do not do try breathing exercises alone; find reliable sources of information and practice.
It is no more dangerous than holding your breath in to hurt yourself. Dolphins are capable of this but the human brain has mechanisms to prevent this from happening.
It is hilarious reading all these armchair scientists warning against a harmless breathing exercises that is proven to be beneficial.
If not, it will help you gain mindfulness. So many comments on here I feel like could benefit from that horrible danger of growing aware
Or maybe not. The whole claim that yoga breathing can help cure all things is about as solid as the claim that rhodiola rosea is a miracle plant. Or chamomile. Lots of people will swear by it, but the scientific evidence is zero.
And tic tac toe is way easier to learn for beginners. I have done yoga in a serious manner for almost 20 years but I have never seen a clear path for learning pranayama. This may be a problem with the way yoga is taught in the West but I think Win Hof deserves credit for developing and publicizing an easy to learn and effective approach to breathing techniques.
A while ago I tried a few breathing techniques which were given in a nice book [0]. I really enjoyed the after-effects of the said techniques so I decided to mix and match some of them etc. The effects were awesome .. at first.
After a couple of weeks, I started feeling very low for no particular reason (no dietary changes or anything) and just downright weird. I eliminated one factor after another and checked if my energy levels were OK. I finally gave up the experiment on breathing techniques and restarted what was in the book. I am good, now.
So.. despite a sample size of one and a trial which wasn't random or controlled (:)) , my advice on this whole thing : Get a qualified teacher and do what is taught. YMMV otherwise.
[0] https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07WSBS5S4/ref=kinw_myk_ro_...