[5h]

As a life long asthmatic who had a serious stutter as a child I've been practicing controlled breathing for as long as I can remember.

Recently I've taken an interest in fitness (again) and, via a garmin watch, I've learnt my resting heart-rate is ~42 most nights, some nights dipping to 39. I'm by no means exceptionally fit, but have to think the slow breathing techniques are the cause.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Just to be sure - you've cleared your bradycardia as healthy with a doctor, right? If you're not exceptionally fit as you say, that could also be a sign of something being wrong.

[5h]

I spent 36hrs in hospital after an asthma attack last year (3 days in a super dusty environment), it was noticed then but not to the full extent - I think after normalising the asthma symptoms with a bunch of salbutomol nebulizers (iirc) I was ~55. I'll ask when I next go to the doctors :)

[tlavoie]

Before I was diagnosed with asthma, I just knew that at some places (my mother in law's was common), I'd have poor breathing after a while. Just learned to relax through it, and the symptoms would lessen after I left.

I go to get diagnosed, and they give you a nebulizer with something that triggers symptoms if you have it. I didn't visibly react, so the tech did it again, then measured the difference in my breathing. Whoops, the lack of visible response meant that I should have stopped after one dose.

So, I couldn't leave until after enough doses of an inhaler that it went back to normal. About 7 hits, I looked like I was sunburned for a while.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Like Elric said, it could be perfectly normal. Sometimes this tech is as much a nocebo as it is a help.

[malandrew]

This. You might want to get checked for arrythmia if you haven't. My dad registered as having bradycardia using the home devices. What was actually happening is that he had a more normal heart rate at like 70 to 80 but that the beats were irregular and some weren't strong enough to be detected by basic heart rate measurement devices. It was only an EKG that was able to accurately detect his real heart rate.

[elric]

Nocturnal bradycardia is pretty common. You don't even have to be terribly fit for it, just being horizontal can put a serious dent in heart rate.

[SketchySeaBeast]

And that could very well be it, just thought it worth a mention.

[mellavora]

No idea if it is the cause or not, but there are strong physiological links between breath control and heart rate. Do some reading on "heart rate variability", see for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6189422/#s5titl...

vargas nerve, parasympathetic nervous system, etc.

(sourced from a quick google search; it's been 2 years since I was active in this and I don't have my sources in short-term memory).

[5h]

I'll have a read, thanks.

I've been trying to lower my HR when steady-state jogging also & variability came up a lot in my light reading on techniques for doing that also, but the articles did tend to feel a lot more at the quackery end of the scale

[samblr]

Could you expand on this please. Like the technique, duration and how long have you been doing it.

[5h]

The ones I remember most were for stammering/stuttering. It was a mix of breathing from the bottom of your chest, strong posture with shoulders up & a little back, not forcing your ribs up, but feeling them move out horizontally.

The biggest part for becoming a confident public speaker was the psychological side (aside from all the usual stuff about slowing down mentally). Becoming conscious of breathing for just a few seconds before starting works wonders, as does carefully timing awkward to produce sounds/syllables on different parts of the breathing downstroke.

I've been doing this for 30yrs (i wrote 20 initially ... forgot i'm old :) now, slow breathing is the norm at the desk & before speaking to an audience/hosting meetings etc I still have to follow the same steps every time otherwise I start tripping over my tongue.