Biofeedback HRV: Breathing as Superpower

Stories and Advice

Key Takeaways

• Many TBI patients have slower recoveries and constant anxiety because their nervous system isn't letting them relax and recharge
• Slow breathing (3 count in, 5 count out) into your diaphragm twice a day for 20 minutes can do wonders
• By week 4 or so you end up with a superpower that in five breaths turns on the chill, flow nervous system. This becomes a great non-invasive tool for managing pain and anxiety, as well as speeding up recovery

The Autonomic Nervous System

The idea of biofeedback heart rate variability breathing is to turn on your chill nervous system. The sympathetic/parasympathetic divide isn't one you can generally have conscious control over, but there is one hack humankind has found: super slow (5-6 breaths per minute) and regular breathing patterns. This tells the brain and body that no, there isn't a lion about to eat you for brunch, and you'll be ok if you relax.

Lots of concussion patients have really low heart rate variability—the main indication that they're stuck in the sympathetic nervous system. To help the body regain the ability to switch back to the parasympathetic system, consider starting with slow breathing.

How To Do It

Well, at first, you should download a breath timer. I used BreathPacer, a sort of old iPhone app that cost $3, but was simple enough to not get in the way. Use their recommended setting for your height and maybe play around with it a bit to find somewhere that's comfortable, but try to aim for a time in the 5.5-6.3 breaths per minute range.

Turn your phone onto airplane mode, then set the timer on the app for 20 minutes. Next, start it up, and concentrate on feeling your breath come in through your nose and down into your abdomen. Then exhale through your mouth, breathing out not aggressively but smoothly, like you're blowing on some soup to cool it. Whenever you have some thought that pops into your head, note it (say internally "that's a thought" or "that's a feeling"), and focus back on your breath. Repeat for 20 minutes.

I had about a month of meditation training on Headspace that helped me calm and focus. That said, my mind has raced constantly for 25 years so it's not like I was the chillest person coming into this. The brain can be trained just like any other muscle.

The Payoff

The closest you ever want to get to feeling high on heroin. Well, at least the first 3 minutes of what Lou Reed's getting at. You fall into this blissed out focus and calm state which I've never felt before.

After doing HRV breathing for a few weeks, I dropped my phone 14 stories down an elevator shaft. I felt the stress response coming on, then said, you know what, I'm going to take 5 breaths now and see how I feel. The world seemed way less scary and my head started to hurt less.

It feels like a superpower. After a lifetime of having the world act on me and have circumstances bring about certain emotions, I now feel much more in control of how I'm feeling at any point in time. It comes back to what I wrote in the mental frames post. First you have to recognize that suffering and happiness are choices. Then, HRV training gives you the toolset to live that belief.

Getting control of these stress responses gives you a lot more power over your symptoms. For me, the stress response was intimately connected with spikes in pain and nausea. By breathing through these periods, I was able to bring 5 and 6/10 headaches down to 3's and 4's without having to lie down and stop what I was doing. After getting fatigued in a conversation and thinking I was going to have to go home, I spent two minutes breathing and felt refreshed enough to continue without leaving the restaurant. It allowed me to interrupt fear and anxiety cycles that triggered pain.

There's also science saying that by giving your body these forty minutes a day with the parasympathetic system in charge, you break out of that locked sympathetic state and your body starts to accelerate its recovery.