Breathing your way to low blood pressure

Breathing your way to low blood pressure

I did an interesting experiment the last few weeks that you might like to hear about. I love synthesis, so everything I think about gets all jumbled together... lets see... running, tooting flutes, being healthy... should be something in that intersection...

When I got my heart pacer in November, the doc was concerned about my blood pressure. It has always been low (~130/74), so I never worried about it (low cholesterol too... go figure...). So, with my BP at mid 140's he said I should start working on it. I went to the web and read about blood pressure lowering exercise... Guess what... slow deep breathing is the best exercise! Just like the best way to breathe while running! Synthesis!!!... Then I got to thinking, what else do I do that requires slow steady, infrequent breathing... yep, playing flutes!... So we have a triple synthesis! I love it!

So, I set up an experiment -- The doc gave me a sheet to record BP & Pulse morning and evening, so I put that into a spreadsheet and added a "comments" column to track my "exercise". I recorded data with no exercise for a couple of days, except for the 15 ro so miles a week that I run and relaxing a few minutes in the chair before taking the measurement. Sure enough I was in the 146/84 range, with a few in the low 150s! (Pulse is great though, often in the mid 50s!) So, I started doing the deep breathing exercises while sitting in a chair relaxing just before the measurement. Wow! in a few days I was measuring 130/72!!! I could not believe it! If people paid me to teach them to breathe what it costs them for all the dangerous meds they buy, I would be rich several times over!

OK, so success! Now to add the flute playing. I expected that the results would stay level, but I would not have been surprised if they went even lower! Nope... they went back up into the mid 140s to low 150's! What??? How can that be??? I made sure to only play soft, medatiative, tunes, and not practicing hard fast Irish jigs! The only thing I can figure is that holding my arms bent close to my body is stressing my system... I can hardly play my ocarina because I have to hold my hands close to my mouth so long! My arms are so big that it takes quite a bit of force to fold them up that much!

So, for whatever reason, my early experiments with using flute playing to lower blood pressure have failed! Maybe that is why my blood pressure has gone up in the last 5 years! Nah... couldn't be, could it???

Back to barely breathing while barely running.