How does breathing affect the heart rate?

Caution : You must consult your doctor for your health. This page presents only a personal and alternative point of view which should not be considered as an attempt to prescribe medicine.

The regulation of our heart system is influenced by breathing.

This link between the heart and the brain results in cardiac coherence.

Understanding the influence of breathing on heart rate comes down to understanding the concept of cardiac coherence.

In other words, what is cardiac coherence?

How does it work and what are its effects?

What is cardiac coherence?

It is obvious that breathing has a direct influence on the heart.

The good proof, when you live in a strong situation, positive or negative, your heart starts to beat quickly.

Although few people doubt it, the speed of the heartbeat also has an influence on the brain.

When an individual manages to change their heart rate, it can greatly influence their emotions.

The cardiac coherence is then a technique allowing to regulate the speed of the beating of the heart, or rather to harmonize it.

In other words, it is a way of controlling breathing in order to regulate your emotional state.

Some researchers claim that this technique can reduce blood pressure.

Cardiac coherence: how does it work?

Before discussing how cardiac coherence works, it should be remembered that the human heart is made up of two regulatory systems.

These are the accelerator system and the braking system.

The first allows to increase the frequency in case of effort through the fibers of the sympathetic nervous system.

As for the braking system, it makes it possible to permanently reduce the base frequency.

This reduction in frequency occurs through the nerve fibers of the parasympathetic nervous system.

However, with your breathing it is quite possible to control your heart rate.

Indeed, researchers claim that the average number of full breaths associated with positive emotions is between 5 and 7 cycles per minute.

Obviously, this number varies from person to person.

By full breaths, remember that it is a deep inspiration and a total expiration.

Therefore, to practice cardiac coherence effectively, you must be able to perform full breaths for at least 5 minutes, 3 times a day.

The goal is to achieve a maximum of 6 breathing cycles per minute.

To achieve this goal, you can get help from videos available on the internet.

There are also apps that can help you achieve cardiac coherence.

After a few days of training, full breaths become instinctive.

It then becomes easy to do it yourself without resorting to a video or any application.

What are the benefits of cardiac coherence?

Whether short term or long term, there are many benefits that result from the practice of cardiac coherence.

The immediate effects

In the short term, cardiac coherence promotes calming and regularity of the curve.

In addition, it makes it possible to increase the amplitude of cardiac variability.

In addition, over a period of about four hours, cardiac coherence participates in the drop in cortisol and the increase in DHEA, a hormone that slows aging.

Moreover, this respiratory technique makes it possible to increase the salivary IgA of the organs which participate in the immune defense.

Another benefit of cardiac coherence is the improvement of alpha waves, essential for memory and learning.

In the same sense, it acts positively on the waves promoting communication and coordination.

In addition to these benefits, there is an increase in oxytocin, a neurotransmitter still called the “love hormone”.

Long-term effects

At the end of ten days, cardiac coherence essentially makes it possible to reduce arterial hypertension and the cardiovascular risk.

While regulating the level of sugar present in the body, it participates in the reduction of the abdominal perimeter.

Studies show that cardiac coherence would prevent inflammatory diseases.

It would be the same for asthma.

A true respiratory and cardiac regulator, it also improves memorization and concentration while promoting better recovery.

Another advantage is the decrease in hyperactivity and attention disorders.

Some patients claim that cardiac coherence allows for better pain tolerance.

Others attest that it contributes to weight loss and better stress management.

The truth about cardiac coherence and heartbeat rate?

Certainly, there is a link between consistency and frequency, but as I explained in another article on the cardiac coherence technique, I find this exercise illusory.

In fact, you have to remember 2 things:

- inspiration is associated with the acceleration of the heart
- expiration is associated with slowing heartbeat

If you have high blood pressure and heart rate, what do you think is the solution?

Well done: breathe out longer than the inspiration.

It is about doing a deep breath by doubling the expiration time compared to the inspiration time.

Now, if you are suffering from hypotension and bradycardia (too slow heartbeat), what is the solution?

Bravo: make more inspirations.

It will be a question here of making a complete breathing, abdominal, thoracic, and clavicular, to exhale naturally.

In this case, without forcing, you observe that your exhalation is faster than the inspiration.

Then, indeed, 5 minutes of cardiac coherence here and there can promote a normalization of your heart rate by playing on this famous heart variability.

But once you understand respiratory physiology and the connection between breathing and the heartbeat, you can give up cardiac coherence in favor of other techniques depending on how you want to affect your physiology.

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