Today we're talking about three breathing techniques to instantly lower blood pressure if you want to bring your numbers down naturally in 2 minutes or less. You need to understand how powerful your breathing really is. But the problem is most people breathe completely wrong when they're anxious, rushed, or feeling stressed.
And it silently keeps their blood pressure higher than normal. Here's the truth that may actually surprise you. Specific breathing patterns can activate your body's relaxation response, open your arteries, and drop your blood pressures by 10 to 15 points in just minutes.
And the best part about all of this is you can do these exercises literally anywhere in your car, at home, or even at work. So, in this video, I'm going to walk you step by step through three proven breathing techniques that I teach my own patients to lower blood pressure instantly. The first one we're talking about on this list is my personal go-to when I'm feeling very stressed or tensed, especially moment to moment.
This first technique, it's called the physiologic sigh. And I know it sounds a little bit goofy, but it is extremely powerful. So, here's what you want to do.
You want to take a deep inhale through your nose. And right as you're finishing, you want to take a second breath through your nose without exhaling. Once you get done with the second inhalation, you want to exhale slowly through your mouth until you feel your lungs empty.
And that's it. Doing this three to four times in a row literally takes less than a minute. So here's what this looks like.
[snorts] So what's happening on a physiologic level when you do this is the double breath allows all the air to expand the alvoli or the tiny little sacks in your lungs and the prolonged exhale releases excess trapped carbon dioxide and activates your vag nerve. That vagus nerve not vagus vagus nerve controls your parasympathetic tone in the body. The parasympathetic nervous system is essentially the brake pedal for your body's autonomic nervous system.
Parasympathetic is rest and digest. And the gas pedal, also known as the sympathetic nervous system, is essentially that fight orflight response that you've probably heard of. So shifting your body out of that sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system, your heart rate drops, your body relaxes, and your blood pressure follows accordingly.
The best times to use this technique is right before you're checking your blood pressure so you can get as accurate readings as possible and in the middle of literally any stressful time in your life. I use this technique all the time. Breathing technique number two that we're talking about is actually used by Navy Seals and it's called box breathing.
This method really builds composure and balance especially if used repetitively. So, what you want to do is to imagine a 4x4 box where each side of the box represents 4 seconds. You're going to inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 4 seconds, then exhale through your mouth for 4 seconds, and then hold your breath for 4 seconds.
Doing this literally creates a nice neat little box. So, what this looks like is [snorts] repeat. You want to do this two to three times in a row.
And each round that you're doing this recynchronizes your heart and your lungs. As you inhale, your heart rate speeds up a little bit. And as you exhale, it naturally starts to slow down.
This process known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia happens naturally and this breathing exercise actually teaches your nervous system to stay balanced. Technique number three is resonance breathing. What resonance breathing is is breathing at a frequency rate of about six breaths per minute.
In order to achieve six breaths a minute, you want to breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds and out through your mouth for 5 seconds. and repeat this. This means one breath cycle takes about 10 seconds.
And therefore, if you repeat this cycle six times, you get six breaths a minute. The best way to train your mind to think about this automatically is to use a timer or count in your head. 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out.
After just 5 minutes of doing this, you'll see your blood pressure lower and your pulse rate should drop as well. This one is great to do while you're trying to go to sleep and it's one that I personally have been using for years because it helps turn off anxious thoughts in your head as all you're focusing on is just simply your breath and the seconds breathing in and the seconds breathing out. Studies from Harvard show that this simple rhythm actually enhances barrerow reflex sensitivity.
This is the body's internal blood pressure stabilizer. If you train your brain and your body to do this, you're going to start breathing this way over time when you're sitting around not doing anything. And this will lower your blood pressure permanently because it becomes your new norm of breathing.
So, some quick tips on how to not only make these techniques work faster, but better overall. You want to sit up straight, ideally with your back supported and your feet flat on the floor. Before you do the breathing exercises, you want to shrug your shoulders as high as they can go and then slowly let them drop over about 10 seconds to their natural resting place.
This looks like this. Now, it feels really weird at first to let your shoulders drop that slowly, but honestly, that is one of the best ways to reduce tension in the neck and the upper back. You want to close your eyes to avoid unnecessary input coming in through your eyes.
And you want to avoid caffeine, nicotine, as well as scrolling on your phone right before doing these because all of that can raise adrenaline. You really want to try to practice these breathing techniques at the same times each day because consistency can train your nervous system just like you train your muscles. So, here's what I want you to try for the next 7 days.
Pick just one of these techniques and do it for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening. Write down your blood pressures before and after. You'll likely see your systolic blood pressure drop by about five points and even more as you continue to do these exercises.
Now, if you found these breathing exercises helpful, but want to go a little bit deeper, I've laid out all of these breathing exercises, as well as the best foods to eat, the best movement exercises to do, how to master your sleep, and which supplements to take to lower blood pressure naturally. I put all of these things in my blood pressure reset guide, which is the exact 90day framework that I use in my own patients to help them lower blood pressure naturally by 10, 20, and even up to 30 points. If you're interested, I'll put a link to that in the description below.
Now, these three breathing techniques work extremely well to lower blood pressure naturally in less than 2 minutes, but honestly, they work even better with another trick that can instantly lower blood pressure. I talk about three tricks to instantly lower blood pressure in this video right here, and I highly recommend checking it out.
