In an earlier post, I talked about a way of breathing recommended by HeartMath, in which you breathe with awareness and appreciation into your heart area. This helps your body get into “coherence,” where everything is in balance as measured by Heart Rate Variability.

HeartMath recommends a paced breathing, e.g. 5 breaths in, 5 breaths out, in an even rhythm.

Other people recommend breathing out slightly longer than breathing in,  claiming it does something in the brain to turn off the stress response. For instance, I heard a teleseminar for Highly Sensitive People in which Julie Bjelland shared a breathing technique that uses the 4-2-7 rhythm: breathe in for a count of 4, hold for 2 seconds, exhale for a count of 7.

Dr. Andrew Weil advocates the 4-7-8 rhythm as best, which is what I’ve been using most.

Other people suggest a 7-11 or 5-8 breathing pattern–no holding of the breath.

I thought it would be fun to test all these techniques with my EmWave, a portable device for measuring Heart Rate Variability, the test used to measure the coherence of the autonomic nervous system.

Which technique got me into the “green zone” (coherence) quickest (like the “appreciation graph above), which sustained it best? Read on! Read More→