BREATHE SLOWER AND LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a medical device called RESPeRATE, that trains a person in slowing their breath. Using this device in research studies at the Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, Dr. William J. Elliott found that patients who used the slow-breathing device for 15 minutes a day for two months saw their blood pressure drop 10 to l5 points. Dr. David Anderson is conducting research at the National Institutes of Health to test the idea that it is not relaxation that creates the effect, but that the slower breathing helps the kidney get rid of salt. He has found that people with high blood pressure exhibit what he calls "inhibitory breathing" as a response to stress, which in turn makes it harder for the kidneys to process salt, which in turn raises the blood pressure. The practice of slow breathing retrains these patients in a way that they can help themselves without medication.

So if diet and exercise won't lower your blood pressure, and you don't want to consume one of the many medications doctors prescribe for hypertension, you may wish to learn how to slow down your breathing. If you can slow your breathing down to 10 or less breaths a minute (about half the average rate) you can lower your blood pressure.