Have you tried this "ergonomic tuner?"

I don't have any connection with this company, but saw an ad in the NYTimes for this "stress reversing" hand held devise and wondered if any of you had used it to reduce what is called the effects of ergotropic tuning.
It purports to regulate or balance the parasympathetic system at night, therefore promoting sleep.

Ergonomic tuning: "the harmful process that causes your nerves to respond faster and more strongly to stress; making you feel it more easily, more quickly, more intensely."

It is very expensive and appears to be a devise to promote Yogic breathing exercises like the ones that Dr. Andrew Weil recommends.

[www.stresseraser.com]

Carol

Carol,

It looks similar to the "EmWave" [www.emwave.com]. They have a hand held pulse monitor, and one that hooks up to your computer - formerly called FreezeFramer (which I own).

Essentially you try to synchronize your breathing in such a way as to maximize the pulse rate amplitude. It turns out, that breathing in for 5 seconds & out for 5 seconds is pretty close to optimal. So you can just do this without the expensive device. See my links to the coherence. com website here:

<[www.afibbers.org];

The site author, Stephen Elliott, has played with this a lot. Elliott sells MP3's that make a tone every 5 seconds, so you'll know when to breath. You could record your own, too.

You can try it without spending a lot of money. I'd suggest closing your eyes & breathing in and out through the nose at the 5 second inhale 5 second exhale cycle & see what happens. Do it for 10 or 15 minutes.

George

Good idea, George,

Did you find it helpful?

Carol

Carol,

The breathing is effective as meditation and stress reduction. When I had chronic afib, I could see no change from trying this. Of course I was trying to use the biofeedback at that point rather than just breathing in & out every 5 sec. There is no way to sync your breathing with your heart rate when you are out of rhythm.

The Freezeframer people claimed that they had some clients with afib that it helped. I can't say that I saw any benefit with respect to afib.

On the other hand, I spend 40-60+ minutes a day in meditation, so someone who did not already have this practice might see more benefit than I did. Like anything, we are experiments of one.

Ultimately, I used the Freezeframer as a real-time monitor for my heart - looking for PAC and PVC rates, though I prefer my Polar monitor as I'm not tied to the computer like I am with the FF (see more on the FF here [www.afibbers.org]).

George

George,
You said:
"You could record your own, too."

I am not technologically savy. How?

I believe that the "ergonomic tuner" is supposed to balance the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, thereby preventing - not stopping - afib and other stress related sleep disturbances.

Carol

Carol,

If you have access to a cassette recorder, you could record your voice or even a tone - like a spoon against a glass every six seconds (I reread the link & I erroneously said 5 seconds) for however long you want to do it.

On the other hand, I don't think it has to be exact. You might try breathing in front of a clock with a second hand - 6 seconds in, 6 seconds out till you get a sense of the time. Then just close your eyes and start breathing with the same rhythm. But don't worry about it being exact - just have the intention of having your breaths be about 6 seconds in & out, and see what happens. Don't overthink this! Let your attention be on your breathing, and if your mind wanders to other thoughts, just gently bring it back to your breathing. You could even constrict your your glottis a bit to provide a bit of resistance on inhale and exhale. In yoga, this is called Ujjai breathing. An example is here: [www.thinkanddo.net]. You can Google Ujjai for more instruction. In any case, don't worry about doing it "just right", simply slow breathing in rhythm for 10 minutes or so will be relaxing.

Try it and see how you feel.

Slow breathing will get you in a more parasympathetic mode. The Resperate device I linked to (http://www.resperate.com/) has been shown to lower blood pressure. As far as I can tell, it really just gets you to slow your breathing down & you do that for 15 minutes a day.

Good luck,

George

George--

It seems to me I read somewhere on this BB that deep breathing could trigger AF. Have you ever experienced this? I could be mis-remembering, of course.

Louise

Louise,

It has not happened to me. Certainly what I've described could make your system more parasympathetic. This might not be ideal for a vagal afibber (which I am), but I've never had a problem from this or meditating. Of course this does not mean someone else might not have a problem.

George

Louise - you are correct - I remember seeing that comment as well about deep breathing and I remember that I found doing Andrew Weil's deep breathing exercises always seemed to make my afib worse.

Jackie