Dial a Physio - Physiotherapist Hermanus

Breathwork and Its Importance in Aging, Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Breathwork, rooted in ancient wisdom traditions, is becoming a popular method for promoting relaxation, reducing stress and anxiety, and addressing various emotional and physical issues. Beyond addressing current health concerns, breathwork serves as a preventative practice for aging healthfully, much like maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise.

Recent studies highlight breathwork's role in delaying dementia and Alzheimer's. Slow breathing exercises, known for stress reduction, may also lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's. A study at USC’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology found that breathing exercises could decrease amyloid proteins, linked to Alzheimer’s. Participants practiced breathing exercises for 20 minutes twice daily over four weeks, showing reduced amyloid-beta and tau protein levels. These proteins contribute to Alzheimer’s by forming brain plaques.

Effectiveness of slow, deep breathing in reducing Amyloid-Beta levels

Breathing Exercises: Slow-paced breathing significantly reduces plasma amyloid-beta levels, a biomarker for Alzheimer’s, through increased heart rate variability, unlike other interventions.

Other Interventions:

Exercise: Benefits cardiovascular health but doesn't consistently reduce amyloid-beta levels.

Mindfulness/Meditation: Associated with higher amyloid-beta levels due to lowered heart rate variability.

Sleep: While poor sleep raises amyloid-beta, improved sleep quality doesn’t lower these levels.

Breathing affects heart rate, directly influencing the nervous system and protein regulation in the brain. This suggests a significant potential for breathwork sessions in care facilities for older adults.

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the nervous system’s ability to switch seamlessly from fight/flight response to the rest/digest response. The higher the HRV, the better. This serves as a crucial marker for handling of stress and anxiety. Particularly in the aged where these can be severe due to various obvious factors such as ill health, loneliness, memory loss, fear of death etc.

Frequency and Integration of Breathing Exercises

While specific guidelines for dementia patients are lacking, regular breathwork practice is beneficial. Here are some insights:

Frequency and Duration: Studies recommend twice-daily 20-minute sessions to improve heart rate variability and reduce amyloid-beta levels.

Consistency: Daily practice, even in small amounts, aids stress reduction and cognitive enhancement.

Integration with Daily Activities: Incorporate exercises into daily routines—before meals, during breaks, or before bed—to enhance adherence.

Supervision and Support: Supervised sessions can ensure safety and effectiveness, especially for individuals with dementia.

Regular practice, integrated into routines, can be advantageous for cognitive health and stress management.

Ensuring care givers are part of the breathwork sessions is important. Not only will they benefit themselves, but they will be able to implement a breathing technique in the event of a patient becoming overwhelmed or anxious.

Thus, it makes sense to create moments of breathing segments throughout the day as well as to encourage slow, deep breathing where the diaphragm is engaged, and more oxygen is taken in. This brings me to the importance as well of optimal breathing practice.

Proper breathing practice

Nasal breathing is important as this benefits the immune system due to the natural anti-microbial and anti-viral components of nitric oxide which is produced when breathing through the nose. Mouth breathing encourages anxiety and high pH levels, increasing infl ammation in the system. Without being aware, most people mouth breathe and this does an enormous amount of systemic damage to the body as oxygen cannot be optimally dispersed to all the organs and various tissues.

Inhaling for 4 counts slowly through the nose and exhaling through the nose for 4 counts is benefi cial for slow, deep breathing and relaxation. Inhaling through the nose for 4 and exhaling through the mouth for 8 stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system bringing about calm, focus and rest.

Key Advantages of Breathing Exercises

1. Targeted Impact: Breathing exercises uniquely lower amyloid-beta, lacking in other interventions.

2. Accessibility: Simple to adopt, requiring minimal time and equipment.

3. Systemic Benefits: Reduces blood pressure, stress, and anxiety while boosting mood, supporting brain health.

In conclusion, breathing efficiently and implementing Breathwork sessions in a retirement or care facility is a self-regulatory tool that caregivers, family members and elderly individuals can utilise with no other intervention necessary. This makes it an easily accessible modality that benefits not only the patient but those around as well. As a method to slow down the onset of Dementia, Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline it is indeed powerful.

I am proud to off er Breathwork sessions at various retirement villages together with Joshua Alvares from the team of physiotherapists at Dial a Physio headed up by Marinet du Toit.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/study-finds-breath-work-may-decrease-alzheimers-disease-risk#How-breathwork-impacts-the-brain

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10047962/pdf/healthcare-11-00896.pdf

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