Breath training may help reduce blood pressure by serving as a 'dumbbell for the diaphragm': New study

A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that a daily dose for six week of high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training can reduce blood pressure; here's what it means for health.

The lead author of a new study said the breathing "protocol takes only 5-10 minutes per day, so we hope it’ll be easy for people to adhere to." "High blood pressure is a common problem and contributes to stroke, heart failure, kidney failure and a variety of other cardiovascular complications." "We need to do much longer studies to confirm that we actually see a lower rate of blood pressure-associated conditions in people who do this training," said the lead author of a new study.  "We need to learn about how effective this breathing training is when people train on their own, without researcher oversight."

A daily dose for six weeks of high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) reduced the systolic blood pressure by an average of nine millimeters of mercury, according to a new study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.