A small study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association reports that a particular breathing exercise might help prevent cardiovascular disease and improve athletic performance.
High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) is the practice of inhaling vigorously through a hand-held device that provides resistance. The study compares it to sucking hard through a tube that sucks back.
Daniel Craighead, an assistant research professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, says that 30 inhalations per day at high resistance (s0, see it as one breathing workout) may improve cardiovascular health, cognitive health and sports performance.
“There are a lot of lifestyle strategies that we know can help people maintain cardiovascular health as they age. But the reality is, they take a lot of time and effort and can be expensive and hard for some people to access,” Craighead says. “IMST can be done in five minutes in your own home while you watch TV.”