Yeah... not going to pay $43 to read that. The journal is "Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy". It's a psychotherapy article, marked as "theoretical article", and is a meta-study survey of other published articles. My education included minors in chemistry and cognitive science. I recognize and admit I have a prejudicial bias against "soft" science, so you're probably not going to change my mind without some actual biochemistry experimentation. You might sway someone with different standards, though. Again, objective, repeatable measurements, or the effect does not exist.
It would be easy enough to do. First, extract some blood plasma from a volunteer using normal donation protocols. Divide it into three portions. Remove the dissolved CO2 from one. Saturate the CO2 in another. Do nothing to the last. Inject the fractions, in random order, into the subject intravenously, and observe the results after each one. My hypothesis is that the acidic sample will prompt an increase in respiratory rate, the basic sample will prompt a decrease, and the placebo sample will do nothing.
Did you have your blood pH tested before deciding to change your blood pH through conscious alteration of your breathing?
No? Then stop doing it. Actually test your blood pH before continuing. If it is normal, do not resume. If it is low, condition yourself to breathe faster or more deeply. If it is high, condition yourself to breathe slower or more shallowly. Re-test to titrate your results. And please stop advising strangers on the internet to use breath therapy to change their blood pH. A randomly chosen individual is highly unlikely to have chronic acidosis or chronic alkalosis, and your advice may lead an otherwise healthy individual to undertake practices that could be detrimental to their long-term health.
I understand you are excited about learning that you have the power to change the chemical environment in your blood just by overriding natural unconscious pulmonary responses with your brain. That does not mean it is safe, or effective for any particular purpose. In normal, healthy individuals, appropriate blood pH is automatic, unconscious, and absolutely effortless. So step back and ask yourself from the perspective of a disinterested observer why you are so concerned with your blood pH.
Along with temperature, pH is one of the highest-impact variables on aqueous biochemical reactions. Animals are full of amphoteric molecules, that can behave differently in different pH ranges. And some of them participate in vital chemical reactions and cycles. As previously mentioned, animals have several different chemical buffer systems to regulate pH, and both respiratory rate and the sense of respiratory distress are governed by concentration of CO2 in the blood. Free divers hyperventilate to clear excess CO2, before holding their breath for an extended period, and this puts them at risk of hypoxia, because they won't feel the compulsion to breathe from excess CO2 in the blood until much later than they normally would. Forcing yourself to breathe abnormally will have noticeable and measurable physiological effects. Not all of them are necessarily good.
Comments
Yeah... not going to pay $43 to read that. The journal is "Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy". It's a psychotherapy article, marked as "theoretical article", and is a meta-study survey of other published articles. My education included minors in chemistry and cognitive science. I recognize and admit I have a prejudicial bias against "soft" science, so you're probably not going to change my mind without some actual biochemistry experimentation. You might sway someone with different standards, though. Again, objective, repeatable measurements, or the effect does not exist.
It would be easy enough to do. First, extract some blood plasma from a volunteer using normal donation protocols. Divide it into three portions. Remove the dissolved CO2 from one. Saturate the CO2 in another. Do nothing to the last. Inject the fractions, in random order, into the subject intravenously, and observe the results after each one. My hypothesis is that the acidic sample will prompt an increase in respiratory rate, the basic sample will prompt a decrease, and the placebo sample will do nothing.
Did you have your blood pH tested before deciding to change your blood pH through conscious alteration of your breathing?
No? Then stop doing it. Actually test your blood pH before continuing. If it is normal, do not resume. If it is low, condition yourself to breathe faster or more deeply. If it is high, condition yourself to breathe slower or more shallowly. Re-test to titrate your results. And please stop advising strangers on the internet to use breath therapy to change their blood pH. A randomly chosen individual is highly unlikely to have chronic acidosis or chronic alkalosis, and your advice may lead an otherwise healthy individual to undertake practices that could be detrimental to their long-term health.
I understand you are excited about learning that you have the power to change the chemical environment in your blood just by overriding natural unconscious pulmonary responses with your brain. That does not mean it is safe, or effective for any particular purpose. In normal, healthy individuals, appropriate blood pH is automatic, unconscious, and absolutely effortless. So step back and ask yourself from the perspective of a disinterested observer why you are so concerned with your blood pH.
Along with temperature, pH is one of the highest-impact variables on aqueous biochemical reactions. Animals are full of amphoteric molecules, that can behave differently in different pH ranges. And some of them participate in vital chemical reactions and cycles. As previously mentioned, animals have several different chemical buffer systems to regulate pH, and both respiratory rate and the sense of respiratory distress are governed by concentration of CO2 in the blood. Free divers hyperventilate to clear excess CO2, before holding their breath for an extended period, and this puts them at risk of hypoxia, because they won't feel the compulsion to breathe from excess CO2 in the blood until much later than they normally would. Forcing yourself to breathe abnormally will have noticeable and measurable physiological effects. Not all of them are necessarily good.