stopping your pulse :S

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[daniel loughlin]

i watched Derren Browns live show the other night (was amazing)

he did this technique where he slowed down his pulse and went into like a trance then walked on glass then lay down on some glass and got someone from the audience to stand on his head. he did all this without bleeding?? even though he had bits of glass stuck in his face??

i was wondering how did he do this and surely it cant be good for you??
Cheers Danny

[Jim ashby]

I have met two people who could radically slow then stop their heartbeats. Both were long-range rifle shooters, one sniper trained by the military, the other a civilian. Neither would tell me how they did it!

[dps]

There is a way of breathing that can lower your heart rate, lower your blood pressure and increase the amount of oxygen to your blood. But if you have low blood pressure or are sick in any way, you should talk to your doctor before trying this.

1. Inhale through your nose and pretend your stomach is a balloon filling with air by expanding your stomach out.
2. Exhale through your mouth by pretending your stomach, the balloon, is deflating by contracting the stomach.

By breathing this way you are using your lower diaphragm to inflate your lungs and fill then from the bottom up. This increases the amount of air, thus oxygen that gets into your lungs and the blood. This in turn increase the amount of oxygen that is available to your cells for more efficiently burning the food you eat into energy.
Breathing by expanding and contracting your chest fills the top of your lungs with air and does not use your lungs to their full capacity.

3. While sitting quietly in a comfortable chair, inhale through your nose while counting to two slowly. At the end of the count to two hold your breathe for a count of two then exhale completely through your mouth for a count of four. Make sure your counting is slow and even. Initially do this for a minute or two. If you feel dizzy stop.

When you inhale your heart automatically speeds up. When you exhale your heart automatically slows down. By exhaling longer than you inhale you will slow your heart rate down and lower your blood pressure. By exhaling longer than you inhale you are keeping the air in your lungs longer.

As you are doing this take your pulse.

This in no way will prepare you to walk across broken glass, lay down on broken glass or have somebody stand on your head. If you try those things you shall surely bleed.

[daniel loughlin]

haha thanks for that i wasnt planing on walking on glass (as im not stupid :P haha im just facisnated)

and its really strange actually David what you have just described i already do haha we practise it as part of our aikido training realxed brething and some of the more experienced studants can breath about twice a minute (once in once out)

ive never noticed my pulse slowing though :S ill have a check next time we do it :) cheers

[Janet Rosen]

meditation, visualization, and biofeedback are all ways one can learn to affect heart rate, blood pressure, and vascular flow. while historically it is often expressed in metaphysical terms, and it can be visualized/expressed as an energy flow in order to learn to do it, what is happening in the body is you are learning to directly alter the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic = speed up/fight or flight, constricted abdomen, etc ; parasympathetic = slow down/lower pulse, blood pressure, relaxed gut, etc)

slightly off topic aside: one way to prompt a parasympathetic response is called "vasovagal response" but unfortunately it is a pretty strong, fast, unmodulated parasympathetic cascade: pulse slows to under 50, you get a cold sweat and feel faint and may pass out. sometimes powerful bearing down (like on toilet) or stress (watching somebody start an IV or give birth) will trigger it.

i'll likely be offline on vacation for a wk or more; what a fun factoid to go out with!