Taking A Deep Breath: How Heart Rate Variability Training Is Reducing My Stress
Kids. Job. Life. Pandemic. I am in a constant elevated state of being.
After running 8 marathons during the summer of COVID, I feel the need to tap into something more to keep grounded. With that in mind, join me on my journey of breathing.
Many moons ago I trained as a classical singer. Far before kids and obligations pushed music to the side, I spent most of my waking time using breath to communicate emotion, movement and personality. So I find it ironic that in my 40’s, medicated for anxiety, worrying about things that are clearly out of my control, frivolous and just plain dumb, I’ve realized that I forgot the basic connection breath provides to my body and my mind. I focus on fitness as a tool to stay young, walking and running every day. I have no anxiety when I’m lost in the moment of movement, it’s only when I stop and life distracts me that I consistently find myself holding my breath…while my anxiety ratchets up.
In fact, just writing that last statement had my chest frozen until I consciously allowed it to release. Welcome biofeedback and my self-directed 30 day breathing challenge. Call it meditation, reflection, conscious breathing. Whatever you want to label it, I want to retrain my body and super charge my blood with oxygen. I’m hopeful and skeptical of substantially moving the needle.
There are many forms of biofeedback, but for the purposes of this journey its quite simple. Me, an app on my phone and a concerted effort to literally visualize my physiological response on the screen.
Requirements:
- Standard Chest Heart Rate Monitor (the Fitbit reading doesn’t cut it)
- 2 min each morning and 2, 10 min blocks of training
- Elite HRV app (or equivalent)
I will mention a variety of breathing sessions as I chronicle my journey. Each one, Balance-Resonance-Deep Calm etc. correlate to different breathing patterns in the app. The timing on breath in, breath out and holding vary from one to another.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical doctor, using medical grade devices and I am most likely over simplifying much of the science here. I’m simply sharing this as directional information and experience that I hope will motivate you to learn and try this on your own.
What is HRV?
Heat rate variability is the variability in the time interval between heartbeats. Since none of us can use sheer will power to control the blood pumping through our veins and heart muscle, this is obviously controlled by your autonomic nervous system.
Unfortunately I welcome STRESS to the party all too often. The parasympathetic system (that damn vegas nerve) can release acetylcholine during stress. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that, when doing its job, amazingly helps you run away from that majestic lion chasing you through the jungle. In my case, it just assists in disrupting the normal rhythm of the heart AND the normal ebb and flow of breathing patterns and makes me feel like reaching for a Xanax.
But I want to revel in feeling calm and I want the control that training provides me 24/7. The amazing thing that no one ever told me, is that just like training to increase your hops, you can train your breath to optimize your HRV…and therefore optimize your stress. I’m hooked on that outcome.
Day 1: Sleep quality fair/poor
HRV 50: Yesterday I took my initial morning HRV readiness reading of 50. I was frankly a bit depressed about the results. I’m in the median reading for my age, but some of the specific metrics that are used to calculate HRV show me as 10–20 years older than I am. I know that I have some anxiety, but that doesn’t fly with me. I’m too fit for that to make any sense, but also given my anxiety this makes total sense!
HRV 52: During my morning practice I do notice that deeper more controlled breaths can raise my number and shallow ones plummet me into geriatric status. I feel determined to stay the course.
HRV 58: In the late evening I do a resonance breathing exercise for 5 min and begin to get a handle on this biofeedback thing. If I really focus, I can move the needle all the way to 60–70. It really is something different to watch the screen and make small adjustments that improve or tank my results. I am extremely lightheaded during this, but that is very normal when you begin breathing exercises.
Day 2: Sleep quality good
HRV 55: I don’t do things halfway, so today I’m ready to crush this. I’m committing to two, ten minute sessions per day to kick start things the right way.
HRV 58: My morning resonance breathing session is calming, but I’m extremely lightheaded again. This is normal as the Co2 levels are reduced and my body begins to adapt. I feel calm and rather energized after 10 min laying on the couch.
HRV 60: Afternoon is already here and I’m starting to look forward to these ten minutes of downtime. I’m getting much better with the biofeedback and trying to really focus on sustainable numbers. This afternoon seemed a bit like an “AH HA!” moment on how to begin manipulating my breath to really affect HRV.
Day 3: Sleep quality good
HRV 55: Ok so I totally blew it and worked out before taking my reading, so I’m unsure how accurate this one was. I got great sleep and woke up feeling energized. I obliterated a 60 min workout and was dripping after some circuits on the treadmill. I think I’m even going to get a second workout in this afternoon.
HRV 64: This was not long after my initial reading of the day. The breathing exercises absolutely and immediately affect both the actual numbers and my mood/outlook. I did a post workout recovery.
HRV 65: I really liked the deep calm session so I did that again this afternoon. Felt really great to be taking in so much oxygen…even if what I’m feeling is due to something else. I technically got in 3 sessions today since I did a post workout recovery. I really liked that one as well.
Day 4: Sleep quality moderate
HRV 62: Very curious to see my morning reading continue to improve. Interesting enough, the app tells me my system is still in recovery mode this morning. I did 2 workouts yesterday and nearly 20K steps, so I am not surprised at all. Higher HRV, but lower initial productivity.
HRV 62: I did a balance session this morning. I didn’t really prefer this rhythm of breathing, but I want to give all of these a try. One of the things that the app measures is total power. Again in this instance, higher is better and is a calculation based on several frequency modulations. My reading from yesterday was over 10,000 (which is pretty darn good), and is probably correlated to my feeling energized and such a great workout. It dropped at my evening reading and remains a bit lower this morning.
HRV 61: I went back to the deep calm session that I really enjoyed from the past few days. I’ve noticed that it is easier to stabilize consistent readings using this type of session and I really do feel calm afterwards. I’m still getting the hang of pinpointing the way it feels when the breathing is spot on, but just like a new stretch, I’m leaning into this and know it will continue to get easier. My energy is still low today and I just did a light workout to allow my body to recover from the intensity of my midweek workout. Interesting note I was not lightheaded at all…hmmmm.
I’m about to end my work week tomorrow extremely encouraged with these results. I still have a while to go before making a declaration on how this fits into my routine for the long haul but I can tell you a few things:
- The 10 minutes, twice a day, by myself is absolutely lovely.
- I absolutely feel less anxiety and more calm after only 4 days.
- I oddly feel like I’d be more prepared to handle something unexpected.
- I’m actually excited to keep doing this and see what happens.
Stay tuned for updates on the next few days.
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