This Simple Breathing Technique Can Lower Your Blood Pressure Just As Much As Exercise

Having blood pressure levels that are neither too low nor too high is a marker for good health because your blood pressure plays a major role in ensuring that oxygen, antibodies to fight off infection, and life-sustaining nutrients are being efficiently sent to every part of your body, while waste products like carbon dioxide are being properly eliminated (via Medical News Today).

High blood pressure means your heart has to work too hard to pump blood and nutrients throughout your body, potentially resulting in cardiovascular issues like heart attack and stroke (via Mayo Clinic). Low blood pressure, on the other hand, is when your blood struggles to efficiently circulate through your system. This could lead to headaches, nausea, and feeling dizzy (via Medical News Today).

By incorporating healthy routines and choices into your lifestyle, you can help your body maintain healthy blood pressure levels. Keeping physically active with regular exercise, refraining from smoking and heavy drinking, eating nutritious foods, avoiding a diet with too much sodium, and monitoring and reducing your stress levels are all ways to help ensure your blood pressure remains healthy, notes Medical News Today. You can also try a quick and easy breathing technique.

According to MindBodyGreen, Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training, or IMST, involves breathing through a small device that creates resistance on every inhale. This resistance forces you to work harder to breathe in, which in turn helps to strengthen your breathing muscles, per the University of Colorado at Boulder. The device can be purchased online.

A 2021 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) found that participants who were assigned to use the IMST device for six weeks were able to reduce their systolic blood pressure by nine points. These results, coupled with the fact that the improved blood pressure levels continued six weeks after the study was completed, led researchers to believe that IMST can be just as effective as exercise and medications.

As study author Doug Seals, Professor of Integrative Physiology explained per the University of Colorado at Boulder, "We have identified a novel form of therapy that lowers blood pressure without giving people pharmacological compounds and with much higher adherence than aerobic exercise. That's noteworthy."