How breathing affects your heart

Heart health is something we often don’t think about until there is a problem. We all know that nutrition, exercise and stress management is important for heart health. Much less understood is that how you breathe impacts the heart. This is something you can train and ultimately have control over. As the old saying goes ‘prevention is better than cure’! So lets find out how your breathing affects your heart function over time.

The heart and lungs work as a team.

The lungs oxygenate the body and remove carbon dioxide. The heart distributes this oxygen to every cell in the body via the blood. It then picks up the carbon dioxide to be exhaled by the lungs. This bi-directional exchange means that changing how you breathe influences how the heart behaves.

As you breathe in, your heart rate naturally speeds up. As you breathe out, it slows down. This normal rhythm is controlled by the vagus nerve which controls our autonomic nervous system (ANS). Our ANS runs all the automatic processes in the body which you never have to think about, but they keep you alive and functioning.

Your breathing rhythm

When this rhythm is strong and flexible, the nervous system works well. This means the heart can adapt to changes in demands placed upon it by activities, exercise, stress or emotions. When breathing is fast, shallow, or irregular, this rhythm weakens and puts more strain on the heart.

Breathing affects your blood chemistry

Breathing also changes carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels in the blood. CO₂ is not just a waste gas, it regulates blood flow and oxygen delivery. When we breathe fast CO₂ levels drop, blood vessels constrict, and the heart must work harder to keep blood moving. If this becomes a habit, dysfunctional breathing patterns establish themselves affecting heart rate and blood pressure. This increases the workload on the heart, hampering its’ performance.

So how does breathing properly actually help?

Blood vessel relaxation and flexibility

Maintaining healthy CO₂ levels relaxes your blood vessels. This allows them to expand so the blood flow to the heart increases. This means the heart does not have to beat as fast or generate as much pressure to move blood around the body. Think of the toothpaste analogy or those tubes of filler we use when we are decorating. The smaller the hole in the tube the more pressure we have to put on the tube.

Improves heart rate variability (HRV)

Studies show that regular, paced breathing improves heart rate variability (HRV). This is a measure of how adaptable your heart is to changes in your body’s needs. A higher HRV has consistently been associated with lower cardiovascular (CVD) risk.

Improves vagal nerve function

This improves nervous system function and balance. This in turn reduces the stress load on the heart, improving it’s resilience.

Helps to normalise blood pressure

Slow breathing lowers the heart rate and both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, especially if you already have hypertension.

Oxygenates the heart

It’s not just about the air volume you breathe, it’s about how well you can oxygenate your heart. Nasal breathing improves CO₂ and nitric oxide levels which stimulate blood vessel relaxation (see above). This improves gas exchange, circulation and blood flow which are all very important for heart function.

If you think your breathing might be disordered or you are struggling with your blood pressure or general breathlessness please get in touch to see if breathwork can help you.

Essential fatty acids explained

Image source: https://www.eufic.org/en/whats-in-food/article/the-importance-of-omega-3-and-omega-6-fatty-acids

What they are and how to make sure you eat enough.

There are two fats that humans have to eat as the body cannot make them and they are required for specific functions. They are called omega-3 (ω-3) and omega-6 (ω-6) and known as essential fatty acids (EFA’s) for this reason. They are both polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA’s) which means that they have more than one double bond between their carbon back bone. They get their name from the carbon number where their first double bond appears (see pic).

In the diet omega-3 is found in flax, hemp, pumpkin and chia seeds as well as walnuts. The end products of omega-3 (ALA) that the body requires are called EPA and DHA. Fish already contains both which is why it is such a good source, as the body doesn’t need to convert it. The conversion from other sources is very small and many people struggle with it, hence the oily fish recommendation.

Omega-6 is found in vegetable oils from seeds of corn, sunflower, safflower, cotton and soybeans. It is also found in evening primrose oil, borage, starflower and blackcurrant oils. It is converted to a downstream product known as arachidonic acid (AA). This end product (AA) is freely available in meat, egg and dairy products.

Our intake of omega-6 tends to exceed omega-3 considerably due to the nature of most people’s diets and the relatively recent availability of vegetable and sunflower cooking oils. My parents are over 80 but my mum can still remember how she queued up in the grocers to buy a slab of butter, wrapped in greaseproof paper. Most processed foods and ready-made dressings, sauces and jars also contain omega-6.

Research scientist Simopoulos (2002) believes we historically consumed equal amounts of omega-3 and omega-6, a 1:1 ratio. We now consume 15-16.7 times as much omega-6.

Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are however both important components of cell membranes. During the conversion process they produce downstream products (eicosanoids) which regulate our inflammatory responses. Omega-3 eicosanoids are known to have anti-inflammatory effects. The eicosanoids from omega-3 tend to be more anti-inflammatory and anti-coagulatory than omega-6, which produces both inflammatory and anti-inflammatory versions.

Omega-3 and omega-6 both utilise the same conversion enzyme (delta-6-desaturase) so theories have arisen that one process will deprive the other. A high omega-6 intake is thought to reduce the availability of this enzyme and so diminish our omega-3 conversion. This theory and the concept of an “ideal” ratio in the diet is contested but it is generally thought that a ratio of 4:1 (ω-6: ω-3) is optimum.

The European Food Safety Authority concluded that 250 mg a day of EPA and DHA was adequate. They also found that European intake was too low at between 20-40 mg per day for EPA and less than 100-130 mg per day for DHA.

It’s kind of difficult to think about ratio’s when you are out shopping or planning your menus, so this is the way I tend to advise clients. Providing your digestion is good then generally you can obtain enough EPA and DHA by consuming oily fish 2-3 times per week. Otherwise supplementation is likely the best option.

References

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12442909

https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1461

https://www.eufic.org/en/whats-in-food/article/the-importance-of-omega-3-and-omega-6-fatty-acids

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/recommended-dietary-reference-intakes-nutritional-goals-and-dietary-guidelines-for-fat-and-fatty-acids-a-systematic-review/5C2EDA7CD9C4EAB094F8499B2E122E75