Week 11: A Guide To Biofeedback
and some news
Hi there,
I hope everything is well.
Recently, two new studies highlighted the effectiveness of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) biofeedback, and in particular resonant frequency breathing, in increasing acutely HRV. In the words of Sylvain Laborde, one of the leading experts in the field, āSlow-paced breathing is the most acceptable, scalable, and cost-effective intervention for enhancing HRVā (paper here). Additionally, the recent paper of Joshua Marchant et. al. (including Inna Khazan among the co-authors) shows that not only does resonant frequency breathing increase (acutely) HRV more than other breathing protocols but that slightly changing the inhale-exhale ratio, leads to an extra increase.
In HRV4Biofeedback, we have introduced an automated resonant frequency protocol that works similarly and guides you through a series of breathing frequencies to determine which one is optimal for you, as described here.
Coincidentally (or not), resonant frequency breathing with a 4:6 inhale-exhale ratio is the protocol I use and recommend for our HRV4Biofeedback app, and therefore Iād like to elaborate a bit further on this work.
In this blog, I provide an overview of HRV Biofeedback, including the underlying physiological principles, protocols, and expected physiological, psychological, and performance outcomes.
I hope youāll find it interesting.
Personal Coaching
I have 2-3 open slots for runners, starting between April and May.
Please learn more here, should you be interested. Thank you
See also:
Discount for HRV4Training Pro: 20% off š„ļø
HRV4Training Pro is the ultimate platform to help you analyze and interpret your physiological data, for individuals and teams.
You can find a guide and overview here.
Try HRV4Training Pro for free at HRVTraining.web.app or use promo code SCIENCE for 20% off.
While we really appreciate the pledges on Substack, our writing here will always remain free, and Pro is the best way to support our work.
I thank you for that.
When using Pro, the app will also automatically recognize your account and add the Normal Range to the Baseline view, together with detected trends and additional annotations, which can help contextualizing longer-term changes.
You will also be able to pick rMSSD as the parameter to see on the homepage of the app.
See you next week!
Marco holds a PhD cum laude in applied machine learning, a M.Sc. cum laude in computer science engineering, and a M.Sc. cum laude in human movement sciences and high-performance coaching. He is a certified Ultrarunning Coach.
Marco has published more than 50 papers and patents at the intersection between physiology, health, technology, and human performance.
He is co-founder of HRV4Training, Endurance Coach at Destination Unknown, advisor at Oura, guest lecturer at VU Amsterdam, and editor for IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine. He loves running.
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