Slowing down our breathing is probably one of the easiest and most effective strategies for improving heart rate variability. All we need to do for 10 minutes twice a day and it will require some discipline is to sit down and count our inbreaths and outbreaths. The time taken for exhalation needs to be double that of inhalation and we need to breath in and out via our nose. A four-second inhale needs to be followed by a six-eight-second exhale. This should reduce our breathing rate to less than 10 breaths per minute.
In addition to boosting heart rate variability, making us feel calmer and more relaxed yet more alert with an enhanced capacity to remember, studies show that this technique improves a range of emotional disorders including anxiety and depression, lowers blood pressure, helps those who suffer from asthma to breathe more easily, and has even been used to ameliorate the debilitating symptoms associated with long covid.
