The mechanism
Your heart already speeds up and slows down with every breath.
It is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia. It sounds like a problem. It is the opposite: a sign of a responsive, well-regulated system.
- In-breath, faster. Out-breath, slower. On the in-breath the vagus nerve eases off and your heart rate rises. On the out-breath it re-engages and your heart rate falls. Every healthy heart does this.
- At around six breaths a minute, it lines up. Breathe at roughly that pace and the rise and fall of your heart rate synchronises with the rhythm of your breath. The trace stops looking jagged and starts looking like a wave.
- Coherence is order, not speed. It is not about having a low heart rate or feeling blissful. It is about how ordered and predictable the rhythm is. You can be alert and coherent at the same time.
- It is a state, not a trait. Nobody stays coherent all day, and you are not meant to. What matters is that you can get there on purpose, and that it gets easier with practice.
Why we measure it in the room
The only thing that changed was how you were breathing.
Same person, same chair, same day, minutes apart. That is the point of doing it in front of you rather than telling you about it. It rules out mood, belief and effort, and leaves one variable. Whatever else is going on in your life, your system demonstrably still knows how to settle. It just needs the signal more often.
5 to 6breaths a minute
The pace at which most adults find their smoothest rhythm. Your own resonant pace may sit slightly either side of it, which is why your plan gives you a specific count rather than a general instruction.
What it is good for
A repeatable way back down.
Practised for a few minutes at a time, coherence breathing gives your nervous system regular, unambiguous evidence that it is safe to come out of alert. Done often enough, in small doses through the day, it stops the stress of the morning stacking on the stress of the afternoon.
It is not a cure for anything, and it does not need to be. It is a lever you can reach for, that works in about a minute, and that nobody can see you using.
The heart rhythm trace in your plan came from an emWave sensor, which reads the tiny changes in time between heartbeats. It is a training tool, not a diagnostic device.
Next short read
Why the out-breath is the brake
The fastest way to slow a nervous system down is to lengthen the out-breath.
Read this →
Why over-breathing keeps you wired
Breathing more air than your body needs is one of the most common and least noticed drivers of anxiety, poor sleep and afternoon fatigue.
Read this →
The ABC of coming back to calm
Awareness, Breath, Compassion.
Read this →
If you have a Calm Plan
Nothing here is required reading.
Your plan works on its own. These pages are for the days when you want to know why it works, not what to do next. If something in yours is not landing, or your numbers have stopped moving, that is worth a conversation rather than more reading.
Book a session with RichOr reply to the email your plan arrived in. It comes straight to me.