I’m almost intending to make a movie here, featuring a struggle between the breath ability and the lowering of blood pressure. Here’s my experiment this week. My blood pressure has been running a bit high, and as a child of a father whose first heart attack occurred when he was 54, I do pay attention to this fact, even though I try not to worry, since I know my inability to deal with stressors contributes to my BP going higher. So…
This week, on a particularly stressful day, I decided I needed to take five minutes and simply lie in bed, on my back, focusing on my breathing. But for the first time, I noticed a change in the way I was able to breathe. Before: my top number on the BP monitor was around 140, not the highest I’ve seen but the point at which I start wondering what I’m doing and how to manage things better. Anyway, I used a specific formula for breathing in and out. Gloria found this somewhere; not sure where she got it, but it’s this simple: Breathe in for four counts; hold breath for four counts. Exhale for eight counts; hold breath for four counts. Repeat…which I did for about five minutes.
However, here’s the new part! As I was breathing in, I found myself wanting to slow the count a bit, then to really try to expand my lungs even further. The result was twofold: first, I found I could continue expanding and getting deeper and deeper breaths and I could literally feel my lungs filling more fully. Then I noticed there came a point where I could no longer reach a count of four on that inbreath. It was work, and I found I had reached the top of my inbreath by three counts.
Two more interesting observations led me to work further. First, I noticed that as I got to the top of this longer and longer breath, I decided to try to tighten my core space, especially in my low back which is my problem spot due to old wreck issues. So with each inbreath, at the hold breath stage, I’d tighten my body and try to find a waist back tension and visualize the air finding that spot. Then, when I found I could no longer get the breath to travel deeper, I decided to focus on the four-count holding of breath after the eight counts of exhale. In that four-count holding, I did the same thing: I tried to tighten and find integrity in that deep line on the outbreath pause instead of the inbreath pause. So the two learnings were first, work to find the longer, deeper, slower breath and second, to learn to tighten and observe the body searching for my deep line on those holding breath pauses.
I used this technique for five minutes, then sat up and took my blood pressure. The change astonished me! I went from a first number of something like 140/87 to 101/60 in five minutes! My BP was almost too low! Possibly this is due to the fact that I’m on a mild dose of blood pressure medication to keep it lowered. For whatever reason, that may be the best five minutes I’ve spent in the last several years, as I now believe I have a new tool to use once or twice a day!
This morning, a day after I started writing this piece, I again checked morning BP and found it was 145/90! Ouch. I decided to lie down and breathe a bit. After taking only five breaths in this pattern of 4/4/8/4, my BP was 122/80, which I think is pretty good for only five breaths. This realization has led me to believe that every day must get some breath exercises in addition to my walking regimen and the other bits of workout I use.
Please know I’m no expert in this stuff, but I found something so simple and inexpensive to lower my BP and want to share with others. I think the count is good; doubtless there are other breath techniques that also help. But the concept of taking that held breath and checking into the body is what I believe made this technique work for me! I invite you to try it; I think you’ll feel the calm and the ability to stand up with less pressure on your systems. I’d love to hear your response if you try the technique! I think it could save many of us a low-cost but possibly unnesseary dose of medication. Good luck!