Sjcs comments on Open thread, Nov. 24 - Nov. 30, 2014 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: MrMind 24 November 2014 08:56AM

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Comment author: Sjcs 25 November 2014 11:26:49AM *  3 points [-]

The book On Combat by Dave Grossman discusses some of these things. I haven't read it yet, but have read reviews and listened to a podcast by two people I consider highly evidence-based and reputable (here). In particular, the book discusses a method of physiologically lowering your heart rate he calls "Combat Breathing". This entails 4 phases, each for the durations of a count of 4 (no unit specified, I do approx 4 seconds):

  1. Breathe in

  2. Hold in

  3. Breathe out

  4. Hold out

It sounds very simple, but I have heard multiple recommendations of it from both the armed-forces and medical worlds. I can also add a data point confirming it works well for me (mostly only for reducing heart rate to below 100, not all the way down to resting rate).