How to Lower Blood Pressure Naturally Just by Breathing (and a Tool that Train You)

Well, hello again. This is Dr. Jim Nardis from Aristotle Education in Orlando. And today, I'm really excited about talking about hypertension. And it's not just hypertension, because today, 47.5% of the population has high blood pressure. And guess what, if you have high blood pressure, you're going to be on this medicine forever. Because your doctors already told you that here's a pill for your hypertension. And you're going to be on this medicine forever. And I want you to understand what this really means, that you're going to fudge the number with the drugs to make your blood pressure come down, but the underlying pathology is not taken care of. So unless we take care of the underlying pathology of your hypertension, you're not going to accrue the benefits. Or you will accrue some benefits, but very minimal benefits of lowering that blood pressure. My goal always is to look for the underlying cause of your hypertension. And if we can eradicate that, now you're going to see the full benefit of antihypertensive therapy with or without drugs, but also lifestyle changes, dietary changes. And today, what I'm going to talk to you about is how your vagus nerve can be used to bring your blood pressure down. Because we know that there's a big connection between your sympathetic and parasympathetic system when it comes to hypertension. Now, from my previous talks, you all will remember that the major factors that cause high blood pressure that I'm always concerned about are diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea. So today, I'm not going to talk about these two, because diabetes causes high blood pressure because of high insulin levels, and that causes nitric oxide depletion. Obstructive sleep apnea has its own mechanisms. But today, I'm going to talk to you about the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. So we have these two nervous systems in our body. One is fright, flight, fight. That's the adrenaline drive that makes your heart rate go up, makes your constriction, makes your blood pressure go up. Then you have your parasympathetic, which slows your heart rate down, lowers your blood pressure, and it's anti-inflammatory also because it starts repairing your system that is now recovering from the sympathetic output that you just had preceding it. It's the yin and the yang. So after a sympathetic increase, stress, then you're supposed to rest and relax and let the parasympathetic come in. But the trouble in today's lifestyle is that there's so much stress going on all the time, and you're always running around, chasing your tail, and your adrenaline levels are running so high all the time. Your sympathetic output from your brain is so high all the time, and that's driving your heart rate high, blood pressure high. And this is what we're going to talk about today as to how we can overcome this. How can I bring in my vagus nerve to overcome the sympathetic drive of modern living? The stress in modern living is physical, it's also mental. And the thing is that the way we were developed in our ideology, in our evolution, the body does not discriminate whether it's coming from physical stress or mental stress. The reactions are the same. Did you know that? Did you know that your body reacts the same way with the chemicals it produces, the cortisol, the adrenaline, the dopamine, in the same way, whether it is physical or mental stress? So you are all having physical stresses because you're running around like crazy, maybe not sleeping enough, but you also have mental stress all the time, because that's part of modern living today. And of course I'm going to help you overcome that, but today what I want to tell you about is a technique of increasing your parasympathetic stimulation so that you can quickly overcome the effects of stress, the sympathetic system. So it goes back about thousands of years when we used to tell people that, okay, you go into meditation, relax, breathe in, but take a long expiration, breathe slowly. And these are the yoga techniques that we know brings blood pressure down. Transcendental meditation brings blood pressure down. There's a big study that was done with transcendental meditation as well. But it's very hard for most people to discipline their breathing, to say, okay, how am I going to sit down and how do I breathe? Doctor, I don't know how to breathe. Well, that's the problem. You don't know how to breathe. We tend to take shallow breaths all day long, and that stimulates your sympathetic system. When's the last time you took a nice long breath out? You have to do it consciously. And what's happening today is that no one's teaching us how to breathe properly, because breathing and long expirations stimulate your vagus nerve. So vagus nerve is stimulated when you breathe out long. But if I tell you to sit down and do the yoga meditation, it's kind of hard. And that's why about 20 years ago, I got involved with this device, which is called the respirator. Now, the respirator is a device, and it teaches you how to breathe. And the amazing thing about it is it's all based on long, prolonged expiration. Because in expiration, you stimulate your vagus nerve. And when you stimulate your vagus nerve, your blood pressure is going to come down. Your heart rate is going to come down. Heart rate variability increases. Inflammatory molecules come down. Psychologically, also, you feel more calm and at ease. And we've known about this all along. But the discipline of learning this art is difficult. So that's why this device came out many years ago. And what it does, basically, is that you attach this device, which is called the respirator device. And you basically take this band that goes across your chest, and that monitors your breathing pattern. And then you have the earplugs that you connect to the device. And now you're ready to go. This little device, you put to the side, you sit down in a chair comfortably, or even lying down, doesn't matter. You turn it on. And what happens? It gives you a tone. A tone for inspiration and a tone for expiration. And all you have to do is follow that sound. So the prompt will tell you, breathe in to this sound, breathe out to this sound. So for the first minute or so, it detects your own breathing pattern. And let's say I'm breathing at 15 times a minute. So it'll start at 15 times a minute. And it'll then slowly and surely over the next few minutes, my breathing will follow the tones. And the tones will get slower and slower and slower, not only in frequency, but also the expiration becomes longer and longer and longer. So halfway through, let's say about five minutes later, the tone is now giving me a breath of eight or nine breaths per minute. And my expiration is prolonged. So I'm breathing in roughly to the count of four, let's say, but I'm breathing out to the count of eight. So I'm doing that pattern of breathing. This is hacking your vagus nerve. You're prolonging your expiration, but you're doing it under the discipline of the sound that you're hearing. Because now you know the pattern, then slowly it'll get even slower. And when I use this device, I can actually bring my heart rate down and I can get my breathing down. I can bring my breathing down to four to five times a minute. Now, when's the last time you really did that? It's very difficult to do it on your own. But with this device, you're following that sound and it gradually brings you down to that level. And what's the benefit? The benefit is that you're stimulating your vagus nerve so much comfortably in expiration that it lowers your heart rate. It vasodilates you, increases heart rate variability. Your vagus nerve gets stimulated. Now, the vagus nerve, as you all know, is a bidirectional nerve. It's the largest nerve in the body. So the benefits are in the gut because all of a sudden your leaky gut gets better. Your gut motility gets better and your peristalsis gets better. Coming higher, your heart rate slows down. Your heart rate variability, which has been shown to improve prognosis and survival in patients with coronary artery disease, improves. That's why exercise is so good because you want to increase your heart rate variability. In your lungs, the endings of the parasympathetic nerves in your lungs are the ones that connect to your vagus nerve and go up to your brain. And in your brain, the vagus nerve sends connections to the front, into your prefrontal cortex. And what do you feel when your vagus nerve is stimulated? It's a calmness. You feel comforted. You feel relaxed. Your thoughts slow down. You get into a phase where you're feeling more relaxation and you're turning off that chemistry, that chemistry, that toxic chemistry of the sympathetic stimulation. So the vagus nerve is already doing its thing. And then psychologically, you're feeling more relaxed, more calm, just by slowing your heart rate down. And this, within a matter of minutes, brings your blood pressure down, brings your heart rate down. Now, you only have to do this for about 15 minutes, at least five, six times a week. And the studies show that you get a sustained reduction in blood pressure. So when you do this vagus nerve stimulation using this respirator, it's not just lowering the blood pressure for those moments that you're doing it. There's a sustained effect that lasts for many, many hours, sometimes even days at a time. That's why this device is so good. But of course, you want to do it as frequently as you can. So when I first started using this, I did about 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening. And once you get the hang of it, you'll want to do this because of the way it makes you feel. Remember what I told you, the body doesn't know the difference between stress that's coming from something physical versus stress that you've got in your head. And this device certainly helps. So I started using this and I started giving it to my patients. And I found that those who had high blood pressure, I was able to bring their blood pressure readings down over the course of the next month or two months. They had to use it consistently. And surprisingly, some of them stopped using it because they found that now I know how to do it myself because the respirator device taught them how to breathe. So now, same thing for me. I can sit down, consciously control my breathing, and I count in to the count of four, and I count out to the count of 10. And I can gradually reduce my breathing down to about five times a minute, which I never thought was possible before. But it is such a great tool to bring blood pressure down. Because after all, you don't want to be on blood pressure medications for the rest of your life. Because remember what I told you, that your blood pressure number may come down because of the medication. But did you do something for your chemistry? And the medications for blood pressure work in different ways. For example, and this is going to shock you, if I give you a diuretic, your blood pressure is going to come down, but your adrenal levels will go even higher. Your epinephrine levels will go even higher. Your heart rate will go even higher. So yes, your intravascular volume went down, and therefore your blood pressure came down, but that adverse chemistry did not come down. And ultimately, we know that diuretics will cause intramyocardial fibrosis. It is responsible for electrolyte imbalance, orthostatic hypotension, responsible for falls in elderly people. Who wants to be on a diuretic? A diuretic should be used when you have fluid overload, but we use a diuretic so that we can bring your blood pressure down. Then there's calcium channel blockers. They dilate your artery, but they don't do anything for the structure of your artery. They don't do anything for the chemistry, the biochemistry of your artery itself, so that you don't get atherosclerotic disease. After all, why do you want to treat high blood pressure? It's because you don't want to become my patient needing angioplasty or stenting or bypass surgery, or you don't want to get a stroke either. So it's very important to understand you want to treat the underlying pathophysiology of hypertension. So when I come to this particular device, it's very simple, very straightforward. It's inexpensive, non-invasive, don't have to take anything, no tablets, just hook it up to yourself, put it on the side, and just listen to the tone. Inspiration, expiration, follow that sound. So I love this thing because this, whatever I can do to lower your blood pressure without using drugs and improving your underlying pathophysiology, this is going to be of great benefit. Remember when your vagus nerve is getting better, your mitochondria are happy, the redox oxygen species levels go down, there's less inflammation in your body. The vagus nerve, you've got to take care of your vagus nerve, and I'm sure that you've all seen some of my other videos on how to hack your vagus nerve. Now this is a sure way to hack your vagus nerve. So folks, this is an excellent tool that I give to all my patients to use and encourage it a lot. It will not always take you off medications, but let's say you're on three or four medications, it'll at least bring you down to one. And you should always consult your doctor who prescribes your antihypertensive medications before you come off medications. But this will help you come off medications and do it in conjunction with your doctor, but use this device to bring it down. So I have an affiliation with Respirate, and therefore my patients can, of course, get a discounted rate. And this information is linked below, so you all can take a look at it. And this means that we will earn sometimes a small commission on it, but I strongly encourage you all to look into this particular device. It's called Respirate, and this is going to be your ticket to either not develop hypertension, or if you have hypertension, you can hopefully stay off medications and control it and get all the benefits that you need for vagus nerve stimulation. Thank you. So if you really like this video, here's another one that I think you'll really enjoy. And if you want to see one of my latest videos, click over here. And of course, don't forget to go to my website where you will see lots of educational resources and find out how you can arrange or book a consultation with me.